Johnathan lurches upward with a gasp, like someone dragged from underwater. His lungs burn. His vision sharpens too quickly, as if the world around him refuses to wait for him to fully wake.
Cold metal walls gleam under soft white lighting. Transparent screens shift along the wall, displaying unfamiliar codes, maps, and pulse-tracking visuals. There are no windows. No decorations. No softness. The place looks like a hybrid between a luxury suite and a laboratory.
Johnathan touches his skin; it buzzes faintly. Electricity hums under the surface, as though invisible currents pulse inside his veins. He flinches at his own heartbeat. Even breathing feels charged, wrong, hyperalive.
Something about this room isn't right. He can feel it before he fully understands it. His senses stretch beyond himself, far beyond a normal human awareness.
The door slides open with a hiss.
Lydia strides in, wearing a black tactical coat, her hair slightly disheveled from rushing. Four operatives follow behind her, moving with alert precision. Johnathan watches them automatically count the corners, scanning for hidden threats. His brain tracks their motions faster than his eyes can process. Instinct jumps ahead of thought.
"What did you do to me?" Johnathan asks, his voice low, shaky, strained with confusion.
Lydia halts a few feet away, her gaze firm but uneasy. "This is a private safehouse owned by the Collin Conglomerate. We had to get you stabilized before…"
"That's not my question," Johnathan interrupts. He grips the sheets to steady his trembling fingers. "My body… it feels like it's going to explode. What did you put inside me?"
Lydia shakes her head. "We didn't put anything inside you." She nods toward the faint mark seared across his chest, barely visible through the open collar of his shirt. "You woke something that was already there."
Johnathan freezes.
The mark. The seal. The relic emblem that glowed earlier, when the bullet nearly tore through him. He remembers its pulse, the strange instinct that moved his body faster than he could think.
Lydia approaches slowly, cautious even with him. "The Destral Core Seal is not just an ancient relic. It's a sentient Destral artifact, created by our ancestors over centuries of experimentation." She lowers her voice. "It chooses one Collin heir in each generation."
A faint vibration tremors through Jonathan's skull. He stiffens. The room fades slightly. There is a voice very calm, cold, older than memory, yet speaking inside him like it has always belonged there.
"I am the Echo of the First Collin . You bear my legacy."
Jonathan's spine locks. His breath stops short, throat closing with shock.
Lydia's eyes widen sharply. "Jonathan… did it speak to you?"
"You didn't tell me," he snarls. Something breaks open in his tone, fear, anger, abandonment. "You all knew what I was. What I had. And you never told me?"
Lydia struggles to contain her shock. She shakes her head slowly, almost horrified. "Jonathan… we didn't know the Core still retained consciousness. It was believed dormant. No Collin heir in the last five hundred years has heard it."
"That doesn't matter," Johnathan snaps. His heart pounds too powerfully. Heat floods his skin. "Why was I hidden? Why wasn't I trained? Why didn't you protect me?"
Lydia's posture collapses just a little, the command in her bearing slipping. "Because your life depended on it," she says quietly. "From the moment you were born, entire clans wanted you dead. You were the heir with the strongest genetic compatibility to host the Seal. If they'd found you, they wouldn't have tried to kidnap you or ransom you. They would have dissected you alive."
Shock slices through Jonathan. His thoughts twist painfully. The anger remains, but the truth lands like a weight he wasn't built to carry.
"You didn't leave me with adoptive parents," he mutters, almost too faint to hear. "You abandoned me to keep me alive."
Lydia nods once, guilt heavy in her eyes. "Yes. And I never stopped watching you. I never stopped protecting you, even if you never knew my name."
Jonathan's breathing roughens. He doesn't know if he hates her right now, or finally understands her. Both emotions burn him from the inside, boiling beneath the electric pulse in his veins.
Before either one can speak again, sirens erupt through the safe house. Harsh red lights splash across the sleek walls. Automated voices start cycling through emergency warnings.
"Security breach detected. Sector Theta compromised."
Lydia slams a command into her wrist device. "Lock all exits! Full countermeasure protocol!" Operatives scatter instantly, shields activating, weapons snapping into their hands.
Johnathan scans the room instinctively. His senses flare, reaching beyond the walls. He doesn't know how he knows, but he knows.
"They're already inside," he says quietly.
Two operatives glance at him, startled. Lydia turns sharply, unable to tell if he's guessing or sensing something she can't detect. Jonathan's skin glows faintly near the mark, like a low ember.
A whisper threads through his skull, the ancient voice again, eerily calm.
"Prepare. Only blood will silence the hunters."
Lydia notices Jonathan's pale face and the subtle glow. "Jonathan, don't move. Your mind isn't synced with the core yet. Too much strain could…"
The sentence never finishes.
Glass shatters above them. A figure dives through the ceiling like a descending blade. He moves with unnatural grace, landing in a crouch. His mask pulses with azure light. In his hand, a dagger glows like molten crystal, aimed straight at Jonathan's heart.
Jonathan's body tenses. The voice in his head whispers one word, "Survive."