Bloody Odyssey

Chapter 84 - 84.

Hours passed.

The cocoon that had been moving and pulsing—finally stopped.

Dax emerged from the back of the lab, his footsteps heavy against the sterile floor. Behind him, the Gargarion hung suspended, its back exposed, its bones and organs visible through layers of carefully parted flesh. But one thing was evident a new spine formed little by little it was regenerating.

In Dax's palm, a bloody spine writhed—moving as if alive, twisting, curling, fighting against the grip that held it. He carried it with both arms, cradling it like something sacred, and placed it carefully into a suspension tube.

The tube sealed and the spine settled.

"This one is for me," Dax said quietly. "At least before I touch the fragments of annihilation… I have to use this."

His eyes were firm.

Since returning to the clan, his mind had not been settled. There was too much to do. Too many variables.

No more mistakes.

A hand punched through the cocoon pulling himself free.

Thud.

He dropped to the floor—naked, glistening, covered in transparent goo that clung to his skin like a second layer. The substance did not drip. It absorbedq assimilating with his being, becoming part of him.

In a matter of seconds, his dead, shattered core began to glow.

Grey at first. Then brighter. Signs of revitalization spreading through the broken fragments like light through cracks in a dam.

Dax smiled.

"Just as I calculated."

---

His father rose to his feet.

He staggered—legs unsteady, balance uncertain—as he tried to recollect himself. Memories returned in fragments pain and darkness .

He raised his head.

And saw an almost younger version of himself.

The face was familiar. The eyes, the jaw, the way he held himself—all echoes of a mirror he had not looked into in decades. But beneath the familiarity, he felt it.

The danger.

The odd familiarity that was not quite warmth, or recorgnised, but something in between.

He did not speak. Instead, he observed. The gleaming walls. The hovering bots. The bound alien whose flesh was knitting itself back together. The blood on the floor. The spine in the tube.

What a strange place, he thought.

Before he could introduce himself, before he could ask a single question—

Dax bowed.

Not a slight inclination of the head nor a formal nod but a full bow—deep, his hands touching his father's feet.

"Welcome back, Father."

His tone was solemn controlled but beneath it, something else stirred.

Excitement.

"Dax."

His father's voice was hoarse—rusted from disuse, from the long silence of whatever state he had been trapped in. He coughed, clearing his throat, but his gaze remained vigilant watching and accessing.

Dax straightened. From the depths of his storage space, producing a robe—beautiful, black-gold, woven with threads that seemed to capture light and hold it prisoner. He offered it to his father.

Who took it slowly. He did not know how to react. He had never met his child—now he was seeing him as a man. He had gone in chance of tge blood river since dax birth.

He did not know how to process all the information at once.

So he smiled.

It was a tentative thing—uncertain, unpracticed—but genuine.

"You have grown well, my son."

---

His father's eyes locked onto Dax's figure with intensity.

This child is meant to be an average human, he thought. But this air…

He knew that air. He had felt it in this presence he had felt it before from those stronger than him.

This boy. He shook his head

"Where is this place?"

The question came before he could stop it. And before Dax could answer—

"Are you truly my son, Dax?"

He asked with an unexplainable look. Not quite doubt but something in between.

Dax smiled.

"Father." His voice was warm. Certain. "I am most definitely your son Dax. And this place is my lab."

He poured a glass of wine—deep crimson, fragrant—and offered it to his father. Then he poured one for himself. They sat in the isolation chamber, the hum of machinery a quiet backdrop to the reunion that should have been impossible.

"Father." Dax did not waste time on pleasantries. "How did the Church of Light get to you?"

His father sighed.

"Those bastards ambushed me while I was tracking your mother's location."

Dax's ears stood. His entire body went still.

"Were you able to find any trace?"

His eyes tensed. His grip on his wine glass tightened.

His father shook his head.

No.

Dax took a deep breath steadying his mind.

"At least you are back home. I am sure Grandfather will be happy."

His father's eyes widened.

"Father!" He leaned toward Dax, his voice urgent. "Has he broken through the Odama realm?"

Dax nodded.

The older man sat back, processing. His father—the Ancestor—had finally broken through after 20 yrs in odama. He was shook but it was expected.

"How is your body?" Dax asked.

His father clenched his fist. The muscles in his forearm coiled, tightened, released.

"I have never felt better."

He rolled his arm. His joints released a series of cracking sounds—not the creaking of age, but the settling of new strength.

"What of your core?" Dax asked.

His father checked.

His face went slack with shock.

The core—the shattered core that should have been beyond repair, —was glowing. Grey light pulsed through the cracks, weaving them back together, restoring what should have been permanently broken.

He looked up at his son.

Something was glowing on Dax. Something that had not been there before.

A smiled.

One by one he began to explain a story that had never existed.

---

"Am I not the worst father?"

The words came quietly. Almost to himself.

"You suffered all this weight while I was away. While I was gone. Even being isolated by the clan, you…"

He paused. His hand found Dax's shoulder.

"You have done well."

He placed his arm around his son, pulling him close. Looking around the lab—at the bots, at the equipment, at the impossible things that filled every corner.

"My child has accomplished so many things im my absence."

Regret flickered across his face. He had missed it. All of it. The growth and the moments that had shaped this boy into this man. He would never get those years back.

And just like the Ancestor, he warned Dax.

"Do not reveal this lab to the world."

Unknown to him, it was already too late. A few were already aware.

But Dax simply nodded.

---

Suddenly, something came to his father's mind.

Dax saw the shift in his expression. He reached out—not with his hand, but with his will—and contacted Level 99.

Return Kakarai to my side.

In a few breaths, the man appeared.

Kakarai was utterly broken.

He clawed at his eyes, trying to scratch them out—trying to blind himself to whatever he had seen in the depths of Level 99. But his unnatural regeneration would not let him. His skin healed as fast as he tore it. His eyes remained. His vision remained.

The horror remained.

"Stop it, Kakarai."

Dax's voice was calm. Commanding.

In that moment, the understanding of the very being who had created the Backrooms dawned on the broken man. His hands dropped to his sides. His body went still.

His father watched.

His expression shifted—from neutral to confused, from confused to calculating. He did not bother to ask how the man had appeared. The method was irrelevant.

But who he was—

"Father." Dax's voice cut through the silence. "We may be closer to her than you think."

He gestured to the trembling figure.

"This is Kakarai of the Blood River."

Instantly, his father's eyes turned serious.

The warmth drained from the room. The wine sat untouched. The bots continued their work, oblivious to the weight that had just settled over the chamber.

Kakarai of the Blood River.

The cult that had taken everything.

The cult that might, at last, lead them to her.