2. Mother
Maximilian didn't speak.
But the silence that followed his stillness was far more terrifying than any outburst.
Dr. Hyes took a shaky breath, clutching the file tighter against his chest.
Kyron stepped forward first.
"Paranormal…? Doctor, are you sure about what you're saying?"
"No one wants this to be true," the doctor replied, his voice barely above a whisper, "including me."
He hesitated, then added, "But the evidence… we can't ignore it anymore."
Maximilian's gaze sharpened like a predator watching a trembling prey.
"Show me," he said quietly—too quietly.
Yet that single command carried enough force to make the doctor flinch.
"Y-Yes, of course. Please follow me."
They walked down the sterile corridor, the lights flickering faintly overhead. The deeper they went, the colder the air felt—unnaturally cold. Kyron rubbed his arms, trying to ignore the goosebumps crawling up his skin.
Finally, they stopped outside a heavily secured observation room.
Dr. Hyes entered a code with trembling fingers.
"Before we go in," he said, turning to them, "there is… something you need to understand."
Maximilian raised an eyebrow, impatient.
The doctor swallowed hard.
"The patient… reacts to things we cannot see. Movements, shadows, lights—none generated by our equipment. During last night's monitoring…"
His voice cracked.
"…the patient spoke."
Kyron frowned. "Spoke? But she was unconscious—"
"She is unconscious," Dr. Hyes insisted. "Completely. Medically impossible for her to respond. Yet she did."
Maximilian's expression didn't change, but something dark flickered beneath the surface.
Dr. Hyes lowered his voice, as if afraid the walls themselves were listening.
"He said… your name, Mr. Brooks."
The hallway fell into a suffocating silence.
Kyron's eyes widened.
The doctor stepped back nervously.
Kyron's eyes flicked toward Maximilian, but the man himself didn't move—not even a twitch.
His stillness was no longer cold; it was unnatural, as if the air around him had frozen solid.
A suffocating silence followed.
The kind of silence that swallows everything whole.
Dr. Hyes's voice broke as he forced the words out.
"The patient… is your mother."
For the first time, Maximilian's eyes shifted—just slightly.
But that tiny movement was enough to reveal something sharp and agonizing beneath his ice-cold exterior. A crack. A fracture.
A shadow of pain he had buried so deep that no one—not even Kyron—had seen it in years.
Kyron's breath caught.
"Sir… I—I thought she—"
"She was stable," Maximilian finished for him, voice low and hollow.
"She was supposed to be stable."
Dr. Hyes tightened his grip on the file.
"That's what we believed. But… her condition changed rapidly overnight."
Maximilian's jaw clenched, the muscles ticking in barely contained fury—or fear.
He stepped closer, and the fluorescent lights above flickered violently, as if reacting to him.
Or reacting to something around him.
"Open the door," he said.
The doctor hesitated. That hesitation was a mistake.
A cold gust of air swept down the hallway—sharp enough to sting.
It wasn't from any vent. It wasn't mechanical.
Kyron shivered.
"Doctor… open it."
Hands trembling, Dr. Hyes entered the final code.
The heavy lock clicked, then disengaged with a low metallic groan.
The door slid open.
The room inside was dim—too dim, despite the fact that every light was switched on. Shadows thickened in the corners, unnaturally dense and unmoving.
The heart monitor flatlined into sharp, irregular spikes, no rhythm, no pattern—just chaos.
And on the bed…
Lying still as stone…
Was a woman—thin, frail, her hair silvered prematurely, her breathing barely visible.
Maximilian stopped at the threshold.
For a man who commanded empires, who crushed competition like dust beneath his shoes—
he suddenly looked like he'd been struck.
His voice, when it came, was raw.
A whisper torn from a wound long sealed:
"Mother…"
Her eyes remained closed.
But the moment he stepped into the room, the temperature plunged even further.
The heart monitor shrieked.
Every light in the room flickered violently.
Dr. Hyes staggered back.
Kyron grabbed his arm.
"Sir—something's happening!"
Maximilian didn't move.
He simply stared at her, pain hollowing out his gaze.
Then—
Her lips parted.
No breath.
No consciousness...
The darkness lasted only a moment—
but when the emergency lights flickered back on, something had changed.
The woman on the bed—Maximilian's mother—was awake.
But not how she should be.
Her eyes snapped open, pitch black and empty, no trace of the gentle woman she once was. Her body strained violently against the restraints, chains clattering as if something monstrous inside her was trying to break free.
Kyron stumbled back.
"Sir—! She's awake!"
Dr. Hyes covered his mouth in horror.
"This isn't possible… s-she was unconscious for weeks—"
A low, guttural sound escaped her throat.
Then, in a voice that did not belong to her—deep, distorted, wrong—she hissed:
"Maximilian…"
Maximilian did not move.
His mother—his only remaining family—was looking at him like a predator sizing up its prey.
"I will kill you… I'll tear your heart out…"
Her voice twisted, overlapping with another, darker tone.
"I'll destroy everything you love… starting with you."
She lunged—the chains jerked violently, stopping her inches away.
Her wrists bled where the metal bit into her skin.
Kyron flinched.
Dr. Hyes stumbled back in terror.
But Maximilian…
Maximilian simply stared.
His face was blank, cold.
But his eyes—his eyes were shattered glass.
"Administer the counter-shock," he said, voice dangerously steady.
Dr. Hyes rushed to activate the neural shock stabilizer.
"Ready—three, two, one—!"
A violent surge of electricity pulsed through her body.
Her scream was inhuman—filled with agony and something ancient.
Then, suddenly—
Silence.
Her head fell back.
Her eyes changed—slowly fading from black to their original warm brown.
And for the first time in weeks—
the real her surfaced.
"T-Theo…?" she whispered weakly, using her childhood nickname for him.
Maximilian froze.
"Mother…"
Tears spilled down her cheeks instantly.
Her hands shook in their restraints.
"My son… please… please stay away from me…" she begged, sobbing.
"She will harm you… she uses me… I can feel her inside me…"
"Please, Maximilian… stay safe… don't let her take you too…"
"After losing your father… I—I can't lose you too…"
Her voice broke entirely.
"Please… my child… go… run…"
Then her breathing turned shallow.
Her eyes fluttered.
And she slipped back into unconsciousness.
The heart monitor steadied, then weakened again.
Kyron slowly turned toward Maximilian.
He had never seen his boss like this.
The cold CEO.
The ruthless titan feared by entire industries.
The man who never bent, never broke.
Yet now—
his hands were shaking.
His jaw clenched tightly, teeth grinding as he forced himself not to cry.
His eyes glistened—but not a single tear fell.
Not here.
Not now.
Dr. Hyes whispered, terrified, "Sir… what should we do?"
Maximilian exhaled—slow, deadly calm.
A storm forming in his voice.
"We stop this," he said.
Kyron swallowed. "Stop… what, sir?"
Maximilian turned toward the dark window, his silhouette swallowed by cold shadows.
"Whatever is inside her."
His voice was ice.
"But I won't just save her—I'll bring her back."
He lifted his chin, determination turning his grief into steel.
"I don't care if it takes everything I have."
"I don't care if I have to break the world."
"I don't care whose life stands in the way."
His eyes gleamed with something terrifying and unyielding.
"I will bring my mother back," he whispered.
"Even if it costs me my own life."
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