Atomic Critters | Graphic Novel
Volume 1 - “Origins”
Part 1 - “The Heart Beneath the Sanctuary”
At Sunrise Sanctuary,
mornings always began the same way:
with the soft splash of koi shifting under the bridge, the sweet‑rot scent of hay warmed by sunlight, and the half‑hearted scolding of someone discovering that
Cheeseball had once again chewed through an audio cable to listen to her “morning playlist.”
Renji floated through these mornings like the sunlight itself. Guests followed him in little clusters, children pointing at the animals as if the sanctuary were stitched from magic instead of dirt and fences. Renji laughed easily, touched shoulders gently, and had that kind of charm that made people want to hand him their problems like they were passing him freshly baked pastries.
Behind him, sweeping up the pastries’ crumbs, walked Kagen.
There were days when Kagen wondered whether the sanctuary would collapse without him—or whether anyone would notice if he simply evaporated like mist off the koi pond. He mended fences before dawn, unclogged feeders after dusk, hauled bags of grain that seemed heavier every month. Renji always thanked him with a vague smile. Visitors never learned his name.
But one creature knew him.
A small, fluff‑eared oddball named Fin climbed into Kagen’s lap whenever the man’s shoulders sagged too far forward. Fin didn’t ask for permission. He simply curled up, nose pressed under Kagen’s chin, vibrating with a soft, persistent purr that seemed determined to glue his cracked edges back together.
Kagen never said he appreciated it.
He didn’t need to.
Fin always knew.
Life at the sanctuary ticked along like that: Renji shining, Kagen shadowing, Cheeseball hunting down new metal tracks by chewing on headphone wires, Slug Cat sleeping through alarms, Coop proudly excavating the trash cans for used tissues as if they were buried treasure, and Murder Otter silently judging everyone from the nearest body of water.
Then one night, the ground trembled.
It was subtle—just a nudge, the earth clearing its throat—but enough to send the koi rippling and Slug Cat blinking awake for the first time in eight hours.
Renji found the hatch by accident. He always found things that way, stumbling into the corners of the world that most people walked past. The hatch sat under the bridge, rusted shut, covered in dust like a secret waiting for someone annoyingly optimistic to open it.
He pried it loose.
A violet glow spilled up the ladder.
“Kagen?” Renji called, as though the man wouldn’t already be there, broom in hand.
Kagen grumbled, but he followed.
They descended into the chamber: a wide, circular cavern lined with dormant machinery, the air humming faintly like it remembered how to breathe. And in the center floated a sphere of light—fractured plates orbiting a pulsing core.
The Atomic Heart Engine.
It had been asleep for decades. It did not want to be awake.
Kagen felt the hum before he heard it. A vibration in his bones, a pressure behind his teeth. Renji approached the machine like a child reaching toward a firefly, all awe and no caution.
The Engine scanned him first.
Renji’s heart was bright, uncomplicated—warm as lantern light.
Then it turned to Kagen.
And it found something else entirely:
the bone‑deep exhaustion of being unseen, the ache of a life spent supporting someone else’s brilliance, the embers of resentment that pulsed too quietly for even Kagen to admit.
The Engine drank it in.
And cracked.
And then the world tore open.
A blast of light erupted upward, ripping through the sanctuary, bending reality around it.
Animals scattered.
Hay flew.
The koi leapt from the pond in synchronized panic.
Coop—mid‑ceremonial devouring of a toilet‑paper tube—shuddered. His body stretched, ballooned, transformed into something colossal and roaring and unapologetically kingly.
Somewhere in the distance a squirrel screamed as Cooposaurus Rex awakened and immediately declared all woodland creatures his nemeses.
Slug Cat, startled from her eternal nap, glowed brighter than any lantern and slowly slurped across the ground, her expression unchanged from its half‑drowsy disdain.
Cheeseball, bathed in atomic light, let out a noise that might have been a scream or a guitar riff or both. Her throat deepened into a rasp that could crack sheet metal.
Murder Otter stared at his own reflection in the pond, blinked once, and decided he approved.
Fin’s body trembled. His back shivered open, and tiny bat‑like wings unfurled, fluttering as if testing fate’s sense of humor.