Kael didn't sleep that night. Not really.

  His body shut down in short, broken intervals, but his mind stayed awake, pacing in tight circles. Every time his thoughts slowed, something else crept in. A sound. A flicker of light. A feeling that didn't belong to the present.

  He sat on the edge of his mattress as dawn crept through the thin curtains, staring at his hands. They were steady.

  That worried him more than the shaking ever did.

  The vision he'd forced the night before still burned behind his eyes. Not the images themselves—those were already fading, slipping through the cracks like water through fractured stone—but the echo that remained.

  A sense of recognition without context.

  Kael stood and crossed the room, pulling a notebook from the shelf. Not the one for the rules. Another one. Its cover was worn, the corners rounded from frequent handling. He opened it carefully.

  Pages of fragmented notes stared back at him. No dates. No explanations. Just phrases:

  Cold floor. Breathing counted.

  Voices behind glass.

  Blue light hurts them.

  Don't cry. It makes them angry.

  Kael swallowed. He didn't remember writing these. He never remembered writing the worst ones.

  He left the apartment before the city fully woke.

  The streets were quieter this early, stripped of their usual noise. Kael liked it this way; fewer people meant fewer variables. Fewer chances for his mind to spiral.

  Still, he felt exposed. Every reflection in a darkened window made him glance twice. Every passerby who lingered too long set his nerves on edge.

  Kira's warning echoed in his head: If I stay, they'll find you faster.

  "Too late," Kael muttered.

  He changed direction twice, doubling back through narrow alleys and transit tunnels, following routes he'd memorized years ago. He wasn't paranoid. He was practiced.

  By the time he reached the old public archive building, his pulse had finally slowed. The place was officially closed—funding cut, records digitized. Unofficially, it was perfect. No cameras. No guards. Just dust, darkness, and information everyone else had forgotten.

  Kael slipped inside through a side entrance and descended into the lower levels. The air grew colder with each step. He liked that, too.

  The archives were a maze of shelves and decaying terminals. Kael moved with purpose, fingers trailing along spines, eyes scanning labels. Medical studies. Cognitive research. Defense contracts.

  He stopped. One section had been recently disturbed. Dust patterns broken. Boxes shifted.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Someone else had been here.

  Kael's stomach tightened. He crouched near a terminal and powered it on, wincing as the old machine hummed to life. The screen flickered, lines of corrupted data scrolling past.

  "Come on," he whispered.

  The system responded sluggishly, but eventually, a directory appeared: Restricted Files.

  Kael hesitated. He knew better than to dive too deep without preparation. But the echo in his head pulsed insistently, tugging him forward. He accessed the first file.

  Project logs filled the screen. Not names. Not faces. Just numbers.

  Subjects. Procedures. Outcomes.

  Kael scrolled. His breath caught. Several entries were marked INCOMPLETE. One file, older than the rest, was flagged differently: STATUS: UNRECOVERED.

  Kael reached out, fingers hovering above the keyboard. "No," he said quietly.

  His hand moved anyway.

  The vision hit him instantly. Cold. Not the absence of warmth—the presence of it. A sterile room. White walls. Lights too bright to escape. A child sat on a metal table, wrists restrained. Not screaming. Not yet.

  Kael felt the weight of something pressing against his temples. Electrodes. Glass barriers. Voices murmuring behind them.

  "Stability is unacceptable," someone said.

  "Open cognitive channels," another replied.

  Pain exploded.

  Kael gasped, collapsing forward as the vision shattered. He hit the floor hard, air ripped from his lungs. The archive spun around him.

  "Stop," he groaned. "Stop."

  The images retreated, leaving behind searing pain and a familiar emptiness. He lay there for several minutes, shaking, until his breathing steadied. When he finally pushed himself up, blood dotted the floor beneath him.

  Kael wiped his nose with his sleeve and laughed weakly. "Unrecovered," he whispered. "So that's what I am."

  He didn't notice the sound at first. A faint click. Then another.

  Footsteps.

  Kael froze. His mind snapped into sharp focus, adrenaline cutting through the fog. He moved silently, slipping behind a shelf as shadows crossed the far end of the archive.

  Two figures entered the room. Black coats. No insignia. Movements too controlled to be random.

  Hunters.

  "One minute," one of them said. "The spike came from here."

  "Asset still active?" the other asked.

  "Very."

  Kael clenched his fists. Asset.

  He edged backward, careful not to disturb the shelves, but his foot brushed a loose piece of debris. It skittered across the floor.

  Silence. Then—

  "There!"

  Kael ran.

  He sprinted through the archive, weaving between shelves as footsteps thundered behind him. A shot rang out, shattering a terminal inches from his head. He turned sharply, diving through a side corridor and bursting up a stairwell.

  His lungs burned. His vision blurred. The echo roared.

  Use it, something inside him urged. You need it.

  Kael stumbled, catching the railing as the hunters closed in. He made a decision.

  Blue light flared. The world fractured.

  He saw their movements before they made them. Angles. Timing. Intent.

  Kael moved. He dodged the first strike instinctively, twisting aside and driving his elbow into the attacker's throat. The move wasn't trained—it was borrowed.

  The second figure lunged. Kael countered, sweeping the leg and sending them crashing into the wall.

  Pain tore through his skull. Memories shredded. But he kept moving.

  He burst through the exit and into the open air, vanishing into the early morning crowd just as sirens wailed in the distance.

  Kael didn't stop running until his legs gave out. He collapsed in an alley, gasping, vision flickering dangerously.

  Images spilled out uncontrollably. Fighting styles. Tactics. Movements that weren't his. He pressed his forehead against the cold brick wall, shaking.

  "What am I doing?" he whispered.

  The answer didn't come. Only silence.

  Far beneath the city, alarms pulsed softly in a dark chamber. Data streamed across massive screens.

  "Confirmation?" a voice asked.

  "Yes," another replied. "Subject engaged. Ability escalation observed."

  "And the girl?"

  A pause. "No visual confirmation."

  The man in the shadows leaned forward. "Find her. If the synchronization continues, we'll lose control."

  Back in the alley, Kael slowly pushed himself upright. His hands trembled, but beneath the pain and the fear, something else stirred.

  Not rage. Clarity.

  For the first time, the question wasn't why this happened to him. It was what they were afraid of.

  Kael looked up at the city skyline, his jaw set. "They're coming," he murmured.

  And somewhere deep in his fractured mind, something answered back.