Atomic Critters Origin | Graphic Novel
Volume 1 - “The Heart Beneath the Sanctuary”
Part II
Meanwhile beneath the Sanctuary…
And then there was Kagen.
The second blast wasn’t wide.It wasn’t meant to be.
It was precise.
The light did not explode outward—it threaded. A narrow filament of brilliance slipped through the chamber and into Kagen alone, piercing cloth, skin, bone. It moved with intention, winding through him like something learning the shape of its container. It burned, but not like fire. It settled. It sank into marrow, into nerve, into the quiet places where resentment had lived so long it felt like furniture.
When the light cleared, Renji lay unconscious on the ground.
Kagen stood in the glow.
Unmarked.
Not changed on the outside.
But different.
Sharpened.
Awake.
The Engine pulsed, low and steady, its light no longer wild but measured—listening. Kagen inhaled slowly. For the first time in years, the constant ache of being overlooked, of tending grounds no one thanked him for, fell quiet. In its place was weight. Focus. A sense of alignment, like a key turning somewhere deep inside him.
He didn’t look back at Renji.
The shadows seemed to lean toward him as he left.
Renji woke alone.
The chamber was dark, the air metallic and stale. His ears rang. His body felt wrong—heavy, slow, as if his blood had forgotten how to move properly. He tried to sit up and failed the first time, breath leaving him in a thin, confused sound.
“Kagen…?” he called.
No answer.
With effort and stubbornness, Renji hauled himself upright. Every step back toward the surface felt uphill. The Sanctuary above was quiet—too quiet. The lights along the paths glowed dimly, like they were conserving energy or holding their breath.
By the time Renji reached his cabin, dawn was already smearing pale gold across the trees.
He collapsed into bed fully dressed.
And stayed there.
Days passed.
Then more.
Outside, Sunrise Sanctuary continued to run.
Kagen worked the grounds.
He repaired fences with quiet efficiency. He fed the animals on time. He spoke less than usual—when he spoke at all—and never quite met anyone’s eyes. The shadows seemed to follow him from path to path, stretching longer than they should have under the sun.
No one questioned it.
Except the critters noticed.
They always noticed.
Cooposaurus Rex noticed first.
He stood outside Renji’s cabin one afternoon, head tilted, ears perked, holding an entire bundle of cardboard tubes clutched proudly in his mouth—rescued from the recycling bin like priceless artifacts. He sniffed the door. Whined softly.
Then, deciding doors were suggestions, Coop took one enthusiastic step forward.
The cabin wall did not survive.
Wood splintered. Dust flew. Coop burst through the side of the structure like a furry avalanche, tail wagging, cardboard tubes launching in all directions. He scrambled forward, tangled briefly in his own feet, then flopped—full body—onto the bed.
Directly on top of Renji.
The mattress protested. Renji wheezed.
“Coop—” Renji croaked, somewhere between a laugh and a surrender.
Coop responded by wagging harder, snorting happily, and immediately chewing a cardboard tube directly over Renji’s chest. Shreds rained down like festive confetti. One tube escaped and rolled under the bed. Coop noticed and attempted to retrieve it with his entire torso.
The weight was absurd. Comforting. Overwhelming.
Renji didn’t push him off.
He just lay there, one hand weakly buried in thick fur, listening to Coop’s contented rumble and the ridiculous crunch of cardboard, and for the first time since the blast, felt something loosen in his chest.
The days blurred.
Renji slept. Woke. Slept again.
Coop visited often, never learning his size, never arriving without more cardboard offerings. Sometimes Fin perched on the windowsill, watching silently, wings tucked tight, eyes bright and worried.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Renji’s hair began to change.
At first it was just a streak at the temples—so pale it looked like sunlight catching wrong. Then more followed. Each morning, a little more white threaded through the blonde, as if whatever had passed through him was rewriting him strand by strand.
By the time he was well enough to sit up without dizziness, his hair was almost entirely white.
By the time he could stand, it was completely so.
And somewhere beneath the Sanctuary, the Engine continued to glow.
Kagen didn’t tell the critters what he felt.
He didn’t tell them how light felt harsher now, how his skin prickled under the sun, how his thoughts kept circling back to the hatch beneath the bridge. But Fin noticed the way Kagen flinched from brightness, the way his eyes lingered on the ground, the way each night he disappeared into the earth with a stiffness in his shoulders that hadn’t been there before.
Fin followed every time, wings fluttering nervously.
Kagen didn’t send him away.
He didn’t acknowledge him, either.
But he didn’t send him away.
The Engine’s chamber glowed brighter each night as Kagen fed it with pieces of himself he didn’t know he was giving—anger, loneliness, the desperate hunger to matter.
At first, Fin only tugged gently at Kagen’s pant leg. Then he hovered in front of him, blocking his path with trembling wings. Then he squeaked—loudly, fiercely, tiny heart pounding like a drum against the darkness gathering around Kagen.
And Kagen… paused.
Once.
Briefly.
But the Engine pulsed again, urging.
One evening, Fin fluttered directly onto the console, spreading his wings wide, refusing to let Kagen pass. His small body shook, but he held his ground with a courage he never knew he had.
Kagen’s breath hitched—confusion, frustration, grief all tangling in his throat.
“Not you too,” he whispered, voice cracking under the weight of everything he’d swallowed for years.
The Engine hummed louder.
Kagen slammed his fist against its casing—not at Fin, but at the machine that kept promising power and delivering only hunger.
The world detonated.
Heat seared the air. Metal shrieked. Fin flew across the chamber, wing bones snapping as he collided with a pile of scrap. The lights dimmed. The Engine cracked open like a dying star.
Above the Sanctuary, Renji jolted awake.
Pain flared through his chest as if something had yanked him back into his body. The walls of the cabin rattled. Dust drifted from the ceiling. Coop lifted his head, growling low, confused.
Renji sat up, heart pounding.
Something was wrong.
Deep below the Sanctuary, something had screamed.
And for the first time since he’d collapsed into bed, Renji swung his legs over the side, already reaching for his boots.
Whatever had happened beneath Sunrise Sanctuary had not finished happening.
Not yet.
