In the velvet silence of the third-floor bedroom, Karin lay motionless, but her body was far from still. A soft, amber glow radiated from beneath her skin, pulsing in time with Leander's own heartbeat.
Leander kept his eyes closed, his consciousness diving deep into the microscopic landscape of her biology. When he finally opened them, the golden shimmer in his pupils wasn't just a reflection—it was an externalization of the energy flooding the room.
"It's like I've mapped every nerve ending," he whispered to the empty air.
With a slight, graceful lift of his right hand, the air in the room seemed to thicken. Karin, tucked beneath her heavy silk duvet, began to rise. She hovered several inches above the mattress, weightless. Leander twitched his fingers, experimenting with the magnetic tether. Like a marionette controlled by invisible silk threads, Karin's limbs mirrored his movements.
The duvet, no longer held down by gravity, began to slip away. Karin was dressed in form-fitting silk pajamas, and as she floated mid-air, her silhouette was bathed in the warm, ethereal light. Leander felt a sudden, hot flush creep up his neck. He blinked rapidly, his heart skipping a beat as he took in the sight.
Focus, Leander. This isn't a show. It's an intervention.
He gently lowered her back onto the bed, the duvet settling over her once more. He closed his eyes again, sinking his perception back into her skeletal structure. He could sense her frailty now—it wasn't just a simple sickness. Her body was plagued by severe, chronic anemia, but there were deeper, darker complications lurking in the shadows of her organs.
They were being suppressed by a foreign energy—the "medicine" from the silver vial. It was a synthetic, unstable power that filled the gaps in her failing systems, keeping her upright but slowly eroding her from the inside out.
Leander's focus shifted to her bone marrow. It was scant, the cells over-divided and showing signs of premature aging. There was a taint of decay at the very core of her bones, a dark residue that made Leander's brow furrow with a surge of protective anger.
He didn't hesitate. The golden energy stored within his own vibranium-infused bones surged forward, pouring into his hands and then into Karin. The "Karin-gold" energy instantly dyed every scrap of her marrow a brilliant, incandescent yellow.
The glow began to nourish the cells, being absorbed with a hunger that was almost primal. Karin's body temperature began to climb. Beads of sweat formed on her once-pale forehead, and a vibrant, healthy pink began to bloom across her cheeks.
For two minutes, the room was silent except for the low hum of the golden light. Slowly, the radiance faded, sinking deep into her structure. When Leander looked again through his enhanced perception, her bones were brimming with youthful, vibrant marrow, pulsing with a vigor she had likely never felt in her life.
The golden aura dispersed. Karin's body, which had been stiff with the tension of chronic pain, finally relaxed into the mattress.
Leander stared at his hands, which were still humming. 'This light... it doesn't just manipulate metal. It renews life. It regenerates the very foundation of the body. What exactly am I becoming?'
He needed to be sure. He reached into his waistband and pulled out a small, gold-titanium alloy knife he had fashioned in his spare time. He pressed the razor edge to his own forearm and carved a shallow, three-centimeter cut.
Slightly golden blood oozed from the wound, but before it could even drip, the skin began to knit itself back together. He noticed something, though. He hovered a few centimeters off the floor, breaking his "grounding" with the earth's magnetic field, and sliced again.
This time, the healing was markedly slower. It was as if his body had to work harder to pull the energy from his core. He focused a sliver of the golden light into the cut. A warm, pleasant tingling sensation followed, and when he wiped the blood away, his skin was as smooth as marble.
'The cost is tiny, but the effect is absolute,' he noted. 'I need more data. More trials.'
Suddenly, his ears twitched. A floorboard groaned in the hallway outside. Footsteps—soft, practiced, and approaching fast.
Leander didn't waste a second. With a sharp crook of his finger, he retrieved the micro-tracker he had placed in her schoolbag earlier that day. He didn't want any evidence of his visit left behind. The window lifted silently; Leander slipped through the gap and shot into the night sky, his white hoodie a mere blur against the stars.
The sudden shift in the room's pressure stirred Karin. Her eyes fluttered half-open, her vision hazy and thick with the remnants of a deep, golden sleep. For a split second, she thought she saw a figure in white vanishing through the window, like a ghost retreating from the sun.
Click.
The bedroom door eased open. A middle-aged woman with a kind, tired face stepped inside—Aunt Ada, Karin's longtime nanny and confidante. She was carrying a silver-white metal tube, the same medicine Karin had used at school.
The soft light from the hallway fully woke Karin. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, her voice sounding clearer and stronger than it had in years. "Aunt Ada? Is it morning already?"
"Little Karin, I just came to check on you. It's been almost thirty hours since your last dose, and I was worried you might need..." Ada stopped mid-sentence, her eyes widening as she looked at her charge. "My goodness... you look wonderful."
Ada set the vial down on the nightstand and stepped closer, studying Karin's face. "This new batch from your father's lab must be exceptional. The last one only lasted twenty hours before you were dizzy again. But look at you—there's color in your skin!"
Karin felt a strange surge of energy. She swung her legs out of bed and padded across the plush carpet toward the full-length mirror. Usually, this move would make the room spin, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
But tonight, the room stayed perfectly still. Her heart was steady, a powerful, rhythmic drumbeat in her chest. She looked in the mirror and touched her cheeks. They were warm. They were pink.
"I'm not dizzy, Aunt Ada," Karin beamed, her large eyes curving into joyful crescents. "I don't feel the weight anymore. It's like... like the sun is inside me."
Ada stroked Karin's hair, her expression a mix of relief and confusion. "It's a miracle. Rest well, darling. Tomorrow, Mr. Fete is taking you for a full check-up at the private clinic. He'll be thrilled to see you like this."
"Mm. Oh, Aunt Ada?" Karin paused, looking toward the window. "Was anyone else in here tonight? I thought I saw someone."
"No, dear. Only me. The security system hasn't tripped once. No outsiders could possibly enter the Villa without a full tactical response. You were just dreaming."
After Ada left, Karin walked to the window. She looked out at the manicured gardens ten meters below. There was no ledge, no balcony, nothing to stand on. 'I must have imagined it,' she thought. 'But it felt so real... the light, the warmth.'
Across the city, in a house that smelled of expensive cologne and repressed rage, Mike O'Loughlin was kneeling on the floor of his father's study.
"Enough," Mike Ian said, his voice cold as ice. He didn't even look at his son as he straightened his tie in the mirror. "I've already put the wheels in motion. Whether that brat planned the deaths of Enzo's crew or it really was an act of God, it doesn't matter. He's a variable I can't afford. You're staying home for the next two days. Once I've finished my business with the shipment, you can go back to school and dance on his grave."
"Yes, Dad!" Mike O'Loughlin said, keeping his head low to hide the vicious, jagged grin spreading across his face.
The moment his father left for the "restaurant," Mike stood up and retreated to his own room. He opened a heavy oak drawer. Inside, nestled among high-end watches, were three illegal Glock pistols. He shoved them aside, his hand lingering on a serrated combat dagger.
He pulled the knife out, the steel glinting in the dim light. He turned toward a life-sized training dummy in the corner of his room.
"Leander Hayes," he hissed, his voice trembling with a psychotic glee. "You think you're tough? You think you can hit me and walk away? I'm going to watch the light leave your eyes."
He began to slash at the dummy, the blade tearing through the synthetic fabric in a frantic, unhinged rhythm.
The third day of school arrived with a deceptive sense of normalcy. Leander followed Aunt Jenny to the car, playing the role of the obedient nephew, though his mind was miles away, still analyzing the data from his experiment on Karin.
He was barely through the door after the first period bell when Walker appeared beside him. The class monitor looked agitated, his usual cool composure replaced by a sharp, probing intensity.
"Leander," Walker said, leaning over the back of the chair. "Mike's absent. Officially, he's on 'sick leave' for forty-eight hours. Care to tell me what you did to make the school's biggest bully vanish?"
Leander didn't even look up from his notebook. "Maybe he ate a bad burger at his dad's place. Why do you care, Walker? Do you miss your little shadow?"
"Not the point," Walker snapped, his eyes darting around to make sure no one was listening. "Did you see the news last night? Twelve bodies in an alley behind a textile plant. The O'Loughlin family's entire enforcer squad, wiped out in a single 'accident.' And it happened right after they were seen following you."
"Twelve people? That sounds like a tragedy," Leander said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion.
"Don't play with me," Walker whispered. "Is it related to you? Because if you're some kind of vigilante, or if you've got a hit squad on speed-dial, I need to know."
Leander finally looked up, a small, chillingly calm smile playing on his lips. "Heh. You have a very vivid imagination, Walker. Maybe you should spend less time on your 'private computer' and more time on your homework."
As Walker stood there, fuming and uncertain, the scene shifted to the street outside the school gates.
In a quiet corner of a local café, a thin, middle-aged man sat by the window. He was wearing a nondescript sun-hat and a beige jacket that made him blend into the background like a shadow. An untouched cup of black coffee sat before him, gone cold hours ago.
He was swiping through a high-resolution tablet. On the screen was Leander's school ID, alongside a list of redacted files.
"Leander Hayes," the man murmured, his voice like dry parchment. "Fourteen years old. 168 centimeters. No digital footprint before two years ago. No medical records. No travel history."
He looked through the café window, his eyes locking onto Leander as the boy walked past a hallway window inside the school.
"A target with a ghost's profile and a god's luck," the man—Zost—whispered to himself. "This is going to be the most interesting trophy I've collected in a long time."
He tapped a command on his tablet, and a small, spider-like drone perched on the café roof hummed to life, its sensors locking onto Leander's thermal signature. The hunt had officially begun.