Leo didn't sleep much.
When he closed his eyes, he kept seeing the note — that crisp fold, the perfect handwriting, the words carved into his mind like etchings on glass. I know your grandfather. Meet me at the school basement tomorrow evening.
Tomorrow had come.
All day, he'd pretended to focus, but his thoughts slipped back to that one thing over and over. He tried to listen in class, to laugh with Liam and Betty at lunch, but every tick of the clock felt like a countdown.
By sunset, the air outside had turned heavy and dim.
Most students hurried out of the building in noisy clusters, the echo of their sneakers fading down the hallways. Leo lingered behind, feigning a search through his bag, then quietly slipped down the corridor once the noise thinned.
The lights stuttered overhead, their hum deepening into a low, uneven drone. His footsteps sounded too loud. Every creak of the floor made him glance back, half expecting someone to be there.
The main stairwell was off-limits after hours, but he knew the back one — narrow, dust-lined, almost forgotten. He followed it down, hand grazing the cold wall. Each step down felt heavier, as if gravity itself thickened.
The hum of the lights faded with every landing, replaced by the faint rhythm of his own pulse — too loud, too deliberate.
The deeper he went, the more the world above him stopped existing.
At the bottom, the hallway stretched into a shadowed corridor he'd never seen before. The paint peeled in strips; the air smelled of rust and old water.
And there it was.
A door at the end of the hall — steel, scratched, and far too heavy for any ordinary use. A warning sign, half-torn, hung crookedly from one hinge: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Leo hesitated. His throat tightened. He reached out anyway.
The metal was cold, biting. He pushed. Nothing. Pulled. Nothing. He leaned into it, his shoulder pressing hard against the seam — not even a shift. It was sealed.
He stepped back, heart thudding unevenly, eyes darting around as if expecting the person from the note to appear. Nothing. Only silence.
"Hello?" His voice came out small, almost swallowed by the walls. "Is anyone—"
A faint echo answered, but it wasn't his.
He froze.
For a long moment, he stood there, barely breathing, staring at the door's blank surface. The air felt thicker now, colder. Something in the walls hummed — not the building's usual vibration, but deeper, stranger.
He took one more step closer, listening.
Then the sound came: a low, mechanical click, like a lock turning from the inside.
Leo's breath caught.
He stumbled back, staring as the door shuddered once, then slowly, impossibly, began to open.
The door moved with a slow, mechanical groan, the kind that sounded too deliberate to be just old hinges.
A rush of air spilled out—cold, stale, metallic. It smelled faintly of dust and something electrical, a scent that made the back of Leo's throat sting.
He stepped back instinctively as the door widened. Behind it was no ordinary storage room. The space beyond glowed with a faint blue hue, pulsing gently like a heartbeat. Shadows crawled along the walls, drawn by the flicker of light from somewhere deeper inside.
Leo's pulse hammered in his ears. He thought of running. He thought of calling out. He did neither.
A shape moved in the glow.
Footsteps—slow, steady, unhurried.
Then the figure emerged.
A man stepped through the threshold, tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a long dark coat that brushed against his knees. His hair was disheveled but clean, streaked faintly with silver near the temples. A faint scar traced the edge of his jaw, catching the blue light when he moved.
For a moment, he just looked at Leo. Not startled. Not confused. Just studying him, quietly, like he was confirming something he already knew.
"So you came," the man said.
His voice was calm—measured—but there was a strange warmth beneath it, almost relief.
Leo's lips parted, but no sound came. The man's tone carried authority, the kind adults used when speaking to someone much younger, but there was something else, too. A familiarity Leo couldn't place.
"Who—who are you?" Leo finally managed, his voice scraping out uneven.
The man smiled faintly, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Depends what you remember."
Leo blinked, confusion tightening his chest. "I don't… I don't know you."
The man tilted his head slightly. "No. You wouldn't."
He took a slow step forward. Leo took one back, hitting the wall behind him.
"Relax," the man said softly. "I'm not here to hurt you."
The calmness in his voice made it worse somehow. The more measured he was, the less Leo trusted it.
"What do you want?"
"It's not want, Leo." The man corrected gently. "It's inevitability."
Leo frowned.
The stranger looked him over once, gaze steady, unreadable. Then, in that same calm tone, he said, "My name is Felix. I worked with your grandfather."
The name hit like a small shock. Leo's breath caught.
Felix.
He didn't know why, but the sound of it felt heavy, like a locked memory pressing against the inside of his skull.
Felix studied his face, as if watching for something—recognition, maybe. "You look just like him," he murmured.
Leo's voice trembled. "My grandfather's dead."
Felix nodded slowly. "Yes. But he left something unfinished. And you're the only one who can finish it."
Leo hesitated at the threshold. The cold air spilling from the open door carried a faint hum, like electricity alive under the floor.
Felix gestured toward the blue-lit space behind him. "Come in, Leo. You've waited long enough."
Leo didn't move. His instincts screamed no, but something about the man's tone — steady, certain — made it hard to pull away.
Felix turned slightly, his hand brushing a small panel beside the doorway. The blue light inside brightened, flooding the hall. "I won't force you," he said without looking back. "But if you want answers about your grandfather… they're in here."
That was enough.
Leo stepped forward, slowly, crossing the threshold. The door slid shut behind him with a soft hiss that made him flinch.
The space wasn't large, but every surface gleamed faintly with dust-coated metal. Old monitors flickered on low power, displaying static and half-loaded diagrams. Strange glass cylinders lined the far wall, their insides fogged white. The air hummed with energy that seemed to vibrate in his bones.
Leo's voice was barely a whisper. "What is this place?"
"Your grandfather called it the chamber," Felix said, moving toward one of the consoles. His fingers brushed across the surface, and an image flickered onto the nearest screen — a schematic, a ring-shaped device pulsing with faint light.
Leo stepped closer, eyes wide. "What's that?"
Felix looked at him, his expression unreadable. "Your inheritance."
Leo's stomach tightened. "Inheritance?"
"Your grandfather was a brilliant man," Felix said quietly. "Too brilliant. He discovered something no one was supposed to. Energy drawn not from machines, but from the living resonance inside every person."
The monitors crackled, static flaring briefly before dying again. Leo felt it in his chest — a tug, faint but real.
"You mean… my heartbeat?"
"Exactly."
The pulse thudded once, answering.
Felix's lips curved faintly. He tapped the image. "He built this to harness it — a conduit. A tool. We called it the Bracelet. It was supposed to change everything."
Leo stared at the rotating hologram. The metallic band gleamed softly, its edges engraved with symbols he didn't recognize. It looked both delicate and dangerous.
Felix continued, voice low. "When the others found out what he was working on, they wanted it for themselves. He refused. He hid it before they could take it — and then he was gone."
Leo's throat went dry. "You mean… they killed him."
Felix didn't answer directly. His eyes softened. "He died protecting you. That much is true."
The words hit like a punch. Leo took a shaky breath, his chest throbbing again — that strange, uneven pulse he'd been feeling for days.
Felix's gaze flicked to the movement. "You've felt it, haven't you? The irregular rhythm. The pull."
Leo's heart stumbled once more. "How do you know that?"
Felix stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Because your grandfather made sure you'd feel it. Before he died, he changed you. You're connected to it now — the Bracelet responds to your pulse."
Leo stumbled back, shaking his head. "That's not possible."
Felix's tone softened, almost kind. "It already is."
He gestured toward a small table near the far wall. Resting there, under a glass dome, was the real Bracelet — the same metallic ring from the schematic, faintly glowing from within.
Leo stared at it, unable to breathe.
The Bracelet pulsed with slow, deliberate light — too organic for metal, too measured for life. The glow deepened, matching his own uneven heartbeat until the two rhythms blurred.
Leo couldn't move. The pulse under his ribs thudded harder, syncing with the faint glow, beat for beat.
Felix walked toward the table, his coat brushing against the floor. He lifted the glass dome with deliberate care. The sound it made — that soft scrape of glass leaving metal — sent a shiver crawling up Leo's spine.
"Your grandfather built this," Felix said, his voice quiet, reverent. "He used his own energy to forge its core. It's the last thing he made before they silenced him."
Leo swallowed hard. "Why are you showing it to me?"
Felix turned his gaze to him. "Because it doesn't belong to me. It belongs to you."
He reached down, lifted the Bracelet by its edge. Up close, it looked impossibly intricate — thin lines of circuitry running like veins, the faint inner glow pulsing with a heartbeat that wasn't quite human.
Felix held it out. "He made you fit, Leo. He changed your DNA to sync with it."
Leo stared, unblinking. "He… changed me?"
"He saved you," Felix said softly. "That coma you were trapped in — it wasn't an accident. Your body was rejecting the connection. It took seven years for the link to stabilize."
The words slammed into him one by one, too heavy to process. "You're lying."
"I wish I were."
Leo shook his head, backing a step away. "No. I'm just… normal. I'm not—"
"Normal?" Felix's tone cut sharper, though not unkind. "You think seven years asleep is normal? You think waking up when the energy finally settled was coincidence?"
Leo pressed his hands over his ears, his voice rising. "Stop."
Felix stepped closer, lowering the Bracelet between them. "I'm offering you the truth. The choice your grandfather never had."
The room seemed to hum louder, the light deepening from blue to silver. The air vibrated faintly, tugging at the edges of Leo's vision.
Felix's voice softened again. "This is your inheritance, Leo. It's part of you. The world isn't what you think it is, and this—" he raised the Bracelet slightly, "—is the key to seeing it for what it truly is."
Leo's breath came shallow. Every nerve in his body screamed to run, yet something deeper — something instinctive — pulled him forward.
He took a single step. Then another.
Felix extended his hand further, the Bracelet gleaming in his palm. "Take it."
Leo's own hand rose, trembling. The air between them shimmered faintly, the light from the Bracelet flaring just enough to cast both their faces in the same silver glow.
He hesitated. Inches away now. The hum deepened. His heart raced. The pulse in his chest throbbed, aching to match the rhythm of the light.
His fingertips hovered just above the metal.
The hum became a roar. His skin prickled with heat; the world rippled, color draining to silver. His hand shook as though it belonged to someone else.
"It's yours, Leo," Felix whispered.
The glow flared—
The pulse inside him fractured—
And then—
Black.