The Granum Tower was always the first thing Leon looked for. From his seat in the glass-walled academy, it was a silver needle threading the clouds, a monument to everything his family wasn't.
Every day at 2:17 PM, the sun would hit a specific scaffold halfway up. That was his father's section. Leon had timed it.
For sixty stolen seconds, he would watch that distant speck—a man adding color to a world that saw him as grease and labor.
It was a minute of quiet pride, clenched between the equations on his screen and the sweet, venomous chatter at his back. It was the only time the secret felt like a legacy instead of a curse.
'I'll make you proud,' he thought, the daily vow a bitter taste on his tongue—the taste of solvent and old metal, his father's scent, his own inherited shame. 'And I'll hide what we are. Just like I promised.'
Deafening laughter crashed at the back of his neck, right on schedule, violating the ritual.
He stared at the smudged text in his book, as if the words could shield him—especially from her.
"I mean, honestly," Vera's voice cut through the chatter in a sweet, venomous tone. "Does he think staring at that building will make his father's work any less pathetic? Or earn respect?"
Leon's knuckles tightened. The words weren't just said; they were a probe, scraping near the live wire of his secret. Today, under her scorn, the minute of pride curdled. It was just the taste of pennies and dust—the flavor of his own fear.
A chorus of harmonized chimes erupted around the room. Smart devices lit up on every wrist and desk. A low murmur of interest stirred.
Leon didn't need to look as a gasp cut the air. He could picture Vera tossing her hair, soaking in the attention.
"Oh, my gods, guys, have you seen the news? A plane crash! Guess where this one landed?"
Leon kept staring at the Granum Tower, at the sun-glinted speck. 2:18 PM. The ritual was broken.
Vera cleared her throat. His gaze flicked past her just long enough to catch Zoe's steady eyes. They looked as if she was holding something back. Or holding herself back.
Then, Vera's voice sliced through. "It says it hit a building under maintenance near an outbreak site." She could barely contain the ugly joy. "Guess painters got more than paint on them—probably monster blood too."
The words weren't a key; they were a detonation. Outbreak zone. Granum Tower.
The classroom didn't vanish—it crystallized. Leon saw every pore on Vera's smiling face, every dust mote frozen in the sunbeam.
The world muted into a deafening, metallic whine. Dad. Scaffold. The secret. His own breath was a ragged scrape in his throat. Time didn't start again until his biology textbook slipped from numb fingers and hit the floor with a sound like a bone breaking.
"NO…"
He moved, fumbling in his patched bag for the ancient, cracked communicator—a family relic, the only line to the only person who knew what he truly was.
His hands trembled as he raised it. He hit the single speed-dial button. Home. It rang and rang.
Each tone was a hammer on the lid of a coffin he'd felt building around him all his life. He tried again. The empty, final tone was the taste of solvent, overwhelming, choking.
The whispers around him sharpened from distinct murmurs into a nuclear blast against his ears.
He caught Jade's uncaring glance, Vera's venomous gaze, Tiger's predatory grin. Seeing Tiger, he remembered the day he'd dodged that kick—a move too fast, too fluid, that had made Tiger stare.
A flicker of the hidden thing. His eyes flicked to Zoe. No mockery. No pity. Just a steady look that saw too much.
"Some people are just born unlucky," Vera sliced in, her laugh like shattered glass. "Guess that's what you get when your dad's nothing but a painter."
A shadow fell on his desk. Mr. Lee stood at the door, his face pale, his eyes etched with a profound grief.
"Leon," Mr. Lee said, his voice strangled. "A word. Now."
Leon stood, legs shaking. The room tilted. "Don't worry," Vera murmured as he passed. "We'll be here for you." Her smirk was soft and sharp, a scalpel.
Every step through the gleaming hall was a battle. Mr. Lee didn't speak. He just placed a heavy hand on Leon's shoulder in the office, exhaling a breath that smelled of cheap coffee and defeat.
"I saw the news. I know your father was at the Granum Tower today. I am… so sorry."
The last trace of hope didn't die—it was incinerated. Leon stared at the floor, his soul not trapped under his feet, but violently unmoored, adrift. Memories reeled, not in snippets, but in a sensory flood:
His father's hands, stained with pigment and permanent grime, gripping his shoulders. The smell of turpentine and fear. "Son, promise me to hide what you know of our family. What you are."
"Dad… why?"
"The world isn't ready. You aren't ready. Promise me. Not until you can control it. Not until you can protect them…"
"Let me take you home," Mr. Lee offered.
Leon nodded, a ghost following a mourner. Eyes from every window drew to them like hooks. But among them, one pair stayed still, unblinking. Zoe's. Watching the destroyer of worlds walk away.
'Until I see his body, I won't believe it,' Leon thought, but the thought was hollow. The truth was colder: the guardian of the secret was gone. The secret was now his alone, an inheritance of a terrifying, lonely power.
The sun stabbed his eyes as they exited. Mr. Lee steadied him, pushing him forward as his knees buckled. He barely felt himself slide into the sleek silver car.
Only the engine's hum brought a thread of thought. The city moved past the window. They passed a military tanker streaked with fresh, black ichor.
Leon felt a jolt—not of fear, but of terrible, secret sympathy. Another outbreak. Another thing the clean world would try to scrub away.
They climbed the high-arching bridge. The city unfurled below, a brutal diorama.
To the left, towers gleamed. Floating gardens drifted on anti-gravity platforms. To the right, crammed into the river basin like a raw, weeping scar, was Dusthollow.
His birthplace. A sprawl of cracked concrete and rust-stained beams. It didn't look like home. It looked like the truth—ugly, resilient, and hidden in plain sight.
The first place to experience the monster outbreak. The place whose elders whispered and ran from questions.
As the car began its descent toward the scar, Leon's tears dried. The taste in his mouth shifted. No longer just solvent and dust.
Now, it was the sharp, electric tang of ozone—the taste before a storm, the taste of something awakening. The promise had changed. It was no longer 'I'll make you proud.'
It was now, 'What did you leave inside me, Dad? And what do I have to become to control it?'