Rain fell in thin, steady lines across the quiet streets of the city. The fluorescent lights flickered in the laboratory, humming faintly as if complaining about the storm outside. Aiden Cross sat hunched over the cluttered workbench, his fingers stained with ink and graphite, his eyes fixed on the symbols sprawled across the open notebook in front of him.
He had always loved patterns. In math, in music, in the natural flow of chaos. But tonight, he had found something… impossible.
A formula whispered across the edges of reality. It wasn't just numbers and symbols—it behaved like it had awareness. The sequence bent light on the page, and when Aiden traced his finger along the lines, a chill crawled up his spine, as if the universe itself were watching.
"You're… not supposed to exist," he muttered under his breath. The Origin Pattern pulsed faintly on the page, reacting to the tone of his voice. The air around him thickened. Shadows in the corners of the room grew long, stretching toward him like fingers of smoke.
Aiden leaned closer. The equation hinted at something profound, something eternal. A law buried deeper than physics, older than time. His heart raced as the numbers twisted, forming a spiral of light in his mind's eye.
And then the lights went out.
The room plunged into darkness, pierced only by the faint, unnatural glow of the spiral hovering above the page. His pulse thundered in his ears.
"It's calling me," he whispered.
A sudden surge of energy ripped through the lab. Books and papers scattered violently, as if the room had become a storm itself. The spiral extended tendrils of light, wrapping around Aiden's trembling hands. He felt his body strain against some invisible weight, the world tilting in impossible angles.
"Stop… I—I can't—"
But his voice was drowned by the hum, growing into a roar. The spiral burned brighter, feeding on the very air, and then it whispered—soft, yet echoing in the deepest corners of his consciousness:
"At last… you have found me."
Pain, white and pure, ripped through him. His vision fractured. The last thing he saw before consciousness tore away was a mirror of his own eyes staring back, filled with awe and terror.
And then… nothing