Serotonin was not born. He was assembled.
In a cellar beneath a nameless city, during an age where stone castles scraped the sky and kings ruled by blood, a scientist worked alone. His name was CORE. History would forget him, but his creation would not. CORE lived in poverty, hiding from lords and priests alike, stitching knowledge together from forbidden texts and whispered promises from something higher than man. When the experiment finally succeeded, when the child breathed and opened his eyes, CORE wept. Not from fear. From joy. He named the boy Serotonin, because the feeling in his chest was overwhelming, chemical, divine.
The world Serotonin entered was cruel. Disease rotted villages. Nobles starved peasants. Faith was weaponized into chains and pyres. CORE loved the boy anyway. He taught him letters, numbers, stories of stars beyond the night sky and oceans no one alive had ever crossed. He never told Serotonin about the higher power that had granted the experiment immortality. He only said the boy was special. Different. Destined.
Serotonin believed him.
From the moment he could walk, Serotonin felt something inside him. Pressure. Heat. Presence. It answered his thoughts, bending the world slightly when he focused. Candles flickered. Stones trembled. He learned quickly that no one else had it. That difference grew into certainty, and certainty into pride.
At seven years old, the certainty cracked into something sharper.
Children in the village were playing a crude game with stones and chalk. When Serotonin approached, they stopped. One boy sneered. Another shoved him. They called him unnatural, devil born, curse made flesh. A lie born from fear. When they surrounded him, fists raised, Serotonin felt the pressure bloom, eager, waiting.
The first punch he threw ended a life.
His knuckles met the boy's face and did not stop. Bone liquefied. Flesh burst. Brains painted the dirt and splattered across Serotonin's skin. The other children screamed and ran. Serotonin stood still, blood dripping from his arm, heart steady, breath even.
He felt nothing but clarity.
I am unstoppable, he thought. I am a god.
CORE found him hours later, shaking, trying to scrub blood from immortal skin. CORE wept again, this time in terror. He begged Serotonin to hide what he was, to never use that power again, to let the world remain ignorant. Serotonin listened, nodding, obedient on the surface. But something fundamental had shifted. The world no longer looked fragile.
It looked wrong.
Years passed. Kingdoms rose and fell. Plagues came and went. Serotonin did not age. His Presence grew stronger, responding to his will like a loyal hound. He watched weakness destroy villages through hesitation and mercy. He watched obedience save them through discipline and fear. Slowly, a philosophy formed, clean and undeniable.
The world is broken because it tolerates weakness. The world suffers because it allows disobedience.
Order was mercy. Control was kindness. Freedom was the lie people told themselves before collapse.
CORE tried to argue. He spoke of choice, of humanity, of mistakes being necessary. Serotonin stopped listening. When CORE brought Serotonin before Mr. Jones, everything changed. Jones was brilliant, ruthless, visionary. He saw Serotonin not as a miracle, but as a tool. A successor. A solution. Under Jones, Serotonin learned governance, warfare, systems, propaganda, and sacrifice. He learned how to rule without flinching and how to justify every death.
Serotonin loved him. Not like a son. Like a student who knew he would surpass his master.
But CORE became a problem.
The scientist aged. His hands shook. His voice cracked when he spoke of consequences. He feared what Serotonin was becoming. One night, he begged him to stop, to abandon Jones, to live quietly, anonymously, harmlessly. Serotonin listened in silence, Presence humming beneath his skin, then killed him. One hand, one motion. The man who made him collapsed without a sound.
That was the point of no return.
Serotonin took his creator's name. CORE. Not out of grief, but ownership. Identity was power, and power required symbols.
Time became his next enemy. Immortality meant watching mistakes repeat forever. With Jones, CORE began experimenting with time travel, searching for a way to undo the only act that haunted him. Micheal was the perfect candidate. A man displaced, refined by survival, a experiment. CORE observed him carefully, clinically, almost sympathetically.
But CORE knew the truth. The past could not be fixed without permission. Power alone was not enough. Even gods required witnesses, contracts, rules older than creation itself. CORE studied rituals, entities, laws etched into reality. He prepared cities like chessboards and people like pieces, believing every sacrifice was temporary, every loss acceptable. Sympathy was a weakness he learned to mimic convincingly, not feel. He would carry the burden so others would not have to.
He wondered sometimes if Micheal would hate him, if the boy would ever understand that survival required cruelty. CORE decided it did not matter. Understanding was optional. Results were not. The future needed one will, one direction, one voice loud enough to drown the chaos of humanity. Compassion could be simulated. Love could be engineered. Fear, however, was always honest. Fear endured. It was the spine of civilizations and the language of gods. CORE accepted that truth fully, without flinching or apology. He would be remembered as a tyrant by the weak and a savior by history. Both were acceptable outcomes. Legacy mattered more than affection, and eternity demanded payment. CORE straightened his back, Presence coiling around him like a crown unseen by mortal eyes. His voice did not shake. His conviction never had. Doubt was a luxury for mortals, not architects of eternity. He had crossed too many lines to turn back now. The path forward was carved in blood and certainty. Alone, waiting.
In the deepest chamber, alone at last, CORE knelt before something unseen.
"I kneel to you. In order for Eternal Life. I plead for my wrongs to be made right. I fear the day the dead shall get its vengeance."