The Alchemist's Children: Panacea

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  No matter how hard he tried, Callen couldn't sleep. He was wired. Between the fear and excitement, the adrenaline surged. However, he knew he needed rest. Without a project to distract him, he reached for his laptop to load up Shadowborne. He glanced at the drawings Ania had done all over the case. "She finally found time." He smiled. He quickly glanced over the intricate design of Celtic knots, superhero symbols, and markings from Shadowborne.

  He loaded up his game for the first time in over a month. The login screen was different and fiery imagery covered the screen. He had obviously missed a major content patch. An introductory cut screen played as he loaded up his combat engineer. It showed that the world of Shadowborne was struggling with a cult from beyond that worshiped an entity called the 'Risen' and players could choose to join the cult or fight against it.

  He decided to join the cult and began doing quests to relax his mind. As he worked through the quest chain, which focused on establishing the cult's power in France to help overthrow the Nazis, he began taking quests that revolved around gathering souls using a rune covered book. He finished a quest that required him to sneak into a cave and kidnap a Nazi commander to feed to the book. It finalized in his character being part of a cut scene ritual to remove this guy's soul.

  He yawned as the scene played out and stretched. He was ready to sleep. He leaned forward to exit the cut scene, but it ended before he could hit escape. Above the Nazi commander's corpse, a green skull without a lower jaw appeared with tentacles hanging from its upper teeth. Callen felt his heart skip a beat as the symbol faded. He knew that symbol. He saw that the day in his apartment in the code related to those demons. He shook his head to hold back the fear from taking over his imagination.

  "Coincidence." He said. "Just a cool symbol in the game." He logged off and closed his computer. After getting a drink of water, he watched Terminator 2. Before he went to sleep, he loaded his computer into his backpack without noticing that the squid-skull was drawn among Ania's designs.