A broad, picturesque landscape opened up before the Crow. The sky so blue with nary a cloud in the sky, looking so fragile that a touch could break it into a million stained-shard glass pieces. The grass was of a green so pure that the brightest of peridots couldn't compare to each blade blowing in the wind. All of this coalesced into a meadow with the purest river that looked like running, smooth glass at the foot of a tree. The sound of a fiddle echoed along what appeared to be the endless landscape.

The five-foot tall Crow's wings spread wide as it landed on one of the branches, a pair of front talons and a back talon extending from each of its black shoes, holding it in place. The trench-coat it was wearing covered up its strange, pale body. The Crow's pitch-black eyes locked onto the sound of the fiddle. "Master, there is something that must be reported immediately. Fate has been denied," it scragged out.

A pair of skeletal feet seamlessly shifted along the grass, no sound being made as its black robe glided across, but barely against the water, absorbing none of it. The hooded skull of the figure white and pristine glanced at the Crow with all the curiosity that an expressionless skull could muster. "That would be an unfortunate turn of events, Mortimer," it said with a gentle, fatherly voice. "Show me, would you? I was supposed to receive three souls, not two today."

The Crow waved its hand, creating shadows where there were none. Slowly, they gained color and life. The Crow formed the scenes it remembered. A routine duty, waiting by the stop-light of an intersection. As it awaited the souls of Sasha, Thomas, and Mary Ray, the world around it froze. A power normally reserved only for the gods or their direct servants. The Reaper sounded as if it were sputtering at the depiction. When a barely three-foot tall five year old stepped out of the white, beatdown 90s Chevy Truck and looked dead at the Crow, even the Reaper shuddered at the indifferent expression. That was no normal child.

The brown-haired, brown-eyed boy called the Crow a lesser being and proceeded to set up another accident in its stead. Which, normally, would have maintained the balance. The Crow's perceptions changed as the threads meant for the Ray family tied themselves to a nearby, baby-blue minivan. Then… the Reaper noticed something that horrified it to no end. That the boy of the Ray family had no thread was only a part of it. The fact that the Reaper had personally collected his soul and brought it to heaven some time ago was the shock it had felt. Souls did not escape their resting place. In fact, after a brief focus, the Reaper confirmed that the soul was still there.

"... What is this?" it asked, over and over. The Reaper could not comprehend it. When the boy reversed time, that was the first time the Reaper had ever felt true fear. It only knew of one being that could do that. It would never associate with humans. It wouldn't even associate with the gods themselves.

The Crow continued the scene - down to where the boy strode over with his family. Despite no Thread of Fate tied to him, he seamlessly weaved through the various potential fates until he reached the one he wanted. Narrowly avoiding the hand of a 5'8", brown-haired man who he was the spitting image of, except for the malnourished appearance, the boy climbed into and onto the bloodied bodies of the departing souls. The girl's gray thread was thin and about to break. Each strand popping and breaking… until the very last one. So frail a thread that a breath from a Crow would have broken it like a strand of spider silk and the soul would be untethered.

The boy spoke to the black-haired girl as calmly as if he were reading a book out loud. Her chocolate brown eyes pleading and begging for just one more breath of life. Her mangled leg's blood and bone being the very source of wounds that were cutting her thread. Like the hand of a cruel, but somehow merciful deity, the boy displayed the strength of a mechanical vice as his human body cracked, stretched, and began to break at the seams for his feat - and set bones with the surgical precision of micrometers. Despite that, the girl would be crippled for the rest of her life. In the endless possibilities for her - had her thread not broken, her leg would have been amputated if she could have survived.

However, that one touch. The Reaper watched as each flex of the child's hand wrapped not just another strand of thread around the breaking ones, but with one last burst of power, the thread went from gray to gold. That of a grand destiny. The Reaper could no longer see the end of the girl's strand. Nor could the Crow. That terrified the both of them.

"Anomaly…" the Reaper exhaled, its socketless skull trembling. "That. Whatever it is is no human," it began to say, before the words were spoken.

"Tell Lan-Shai that Ren-Shai says hello. I actually miss my brother!" the boy's voice called after the Crow. What made the Crow's equivalent of blood freeze in its veins made whatever was in the Reaper's bones just as cold and spiked. The implications were massive. There was no way that Ren-Shai would ever leave the domain of the Three. On the other hand, Ren-Shai was the only being that the lesser gods thought capable of changing fates that even they could not. If that was Ren-Shai, then it was proof he could do as they had guessed.

The Reaper fell on its backside in the grass, grasping its skull in its hands. There was no way it was going to try and go speak to the Three. The last time that had happened had been Leviathan - who was turned to dust for interrupting one of their experiments. However, this unknown creature posed a threat to all of their purposes - which could have drawn the ire of the Three. Even if it knew their name, it had to be removed. It must have been another of the lesser gods from another universe. Anything else, but Ren-Shai. The Reaper's expansive mind could never imagine any of the Three willing to interact with the equivalent of cosmic dust.

"What do you suggest, my king?" Mortimer squawked.

"We try to get that soul back. This must have been a fluke. We will get our psychopomps to try and guide her life to be as close to this anomaly as possible. If she dies, that will prove this is a fluke and one of the other lessers might have been capable of a prank against us," it said.

"How will we ensure her death?" Mortimer asked.

"I will curse her. Wherever she goes, misfortune and poverty will follow those close to her. She will be known as a bad luck charm for the rest of her days. Anna Young will forever be the cursed, golden thread," the Reaper said. "Either way, we will punish this upstart for playing a prank upon us. As for her death, I will set it up myself."

"Of course, my lord," Mortimer replied.

--------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, at Doctor Sullivan's clinic.

Ren-Shai's eyes glanced around. He had put his small body near death from the internal injuries from fully utilizing it. Ren-Shai knew he would not die, but would suffer for it. For the first time, he noticed the colors of the walls. White background, three hundred and fifty-four red flowers, two hundred and eighty-two blue, and one hundred and twelve yellow flowers.

"What a funny thing to remember," he thought to himself. Pictures of things he and his brothers personally created, but not set into motion, were the only things that were clear in his mind. For the first time, Ren-Shai felt relief. As he looked at Tyler's father, mother, and sister - and how worried they were for him, he could not fully understand why they would be. However, the fact they would give so much of their small specks of life to watching his body's status did plant the seeds of a new feeling he couldn't comprehend. Gratefulness.

"Thank you, Thomas," Ren-Shai said, closing his eyes as he drifted off to sleep. Doctor Sullivan was the only one to notice, but the swelling was going down bit by bit in real-time. Every hour - just a bit more. Color was returning to the skin from the base of the swelling as it went down.

"... Tyler Ray… just what are you?" Doctor Sullivan asked as he laid Ren-Shai down on one of the patient beds. Ren-Shai briefly noticed his doctor had red hair and green eyes. Ren-Shai did something that shocked even his brothers as they were watching. He bowed his head to the man caring for him so his parents could afford to eat for another day.

"Ren-Shai," he answered back, before realizing he trusted those around him enough to let his body drift into what he knew as sleep - the most helpless state a human could be in. "And you know it's year exactly ten billion, four hundred million, three hundred and seventy-five, not nineteen ninety three, right?" he murmured as he drifted off.