Kael couldn’t sleep.
He lay in bed staring at the ceiling like it owed him answers, eyes tracing the same cracks he’d memorized months ago. The apartment was dead quiet, the kind of silence that wasn’t peaceful—just hollow.
The weight in his chest hadn’t left. If anything, it had gotten heavier.
He turned once. Twice. Kicked the blanket off, then pulled it back. Nothing helped. His thoughts wouldn’t stop circling the cabinet. The lockbox.
The logs.
His parents’ legacy, whatever that meant.
Eventually, sometime past midnight, he gave up. Swung his legs off the bed. Padded quietly into the kitchen. The air was colder now, like the building had exhaled and left nothing behind.
He crouched in front of the cabinet and pulled it open.
The lockbox was tucked in the back, matte black, heavy. He typed in his birthday. The lock clicked.
Inside were six things:
- A crumpled ID badge with his mom’s photo.
- A microdrive labeled “Project Null-Five.”
- A printed report with a redacted government seal.
- A rusted old key.
- A sealed envelope with his name on it.
- And a book.
Not a datapad. Not a digital slate. A physical book—thick, cloth-bound, no title. Just a faint mark burned into the cover. A spiral with lines branching out. Not quite a symbol. Not quite random either.
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Kael ignored the rest. His hand went straight to the book.
It was old. The kind of old that smelled like dust and strange memories. Inside, the pages were filled with handwritten notes. No chapters. No index. Just page after page of sketches, diagrams, wild theories, and what looked like coded language. Most of it was unreadable.
But some parts...
Some parts spoke like they were written for him.
"The earth remembers."
"Energy that roots instead of flows."
"Not all Imprints shine. Some bury."
"A heartbeat you can’t hear until you stop listening."
His fingers hovered over those lines.
Each one felt like it tugged at something just beneath his skin.
The margins were full of half-mad scribbles:
“They call it corruption. It’s not. It’s depth.”
“Stability is a lie told by shallow systems.”
“Roots grow in the dark.”
Kael flipped deeper. Found a page that wasn’t covered in madness. It was... poetic. Almost.
If fire is born from the spark, and wind from movement—
Then what is born from weight?
What power forms from stillness that doesn’t yield?
There is something older than flame, older than motion.
The pressure beneath pressure. The silence beneath silence.
His heart beat faster.
On the very last page, a single sentence was written in clearer handwriting:
“If you feel it, you are already part of it.”
No signature. No date.
Just that spiral again, etched into the corner.
Kael sat there for a long time.
He didn’t know who had written the book. But it wasn’t his mom’s writing. Or his dad’s.
It was older. Rougher. The pen strokes deep, deliberate.
He turned the cover back to the front. Traced the spiral with one finger.
He’d seen it before. Somewhere. Years ago.
In a news article.
A mark found at the site of an old, unsolved disaster. Buildings swallowed by the earth. No survivors. No known cause. Just that spiral, burned into stone.
Back then, the article called it a hoax. A myth. Something tied to a rogue entity from decades ago. Unconfirmed. Erased from public records.
They never gave it a name.
But people whispered it.
Kael closed the book.
He felt it then. Deep in his chest.
Not loud. Not sharp.
Just the pressure.
Like gravity had shifted. Like the ground beneath him was listening.
He put the book back, closed the lockbox, and sat in the dark kitchen.
Breathing. Waiting.
And far below the city, something... pulsed.
Not yet. But soon.