Chapter XIII: The Dermatological Fluctuation
The rain had not stopped.
It whispered against the glass of Nathaniel Cross's flat, silver curtains tracing the city in restless strokes. He sat at his desk, hands trembling over a small vial, its liquid dark and shimmering faintly, like oil catching fractured light. The product of weeks of sleepless nights and failed trials—now finally, something tangible.
The potion smelled faintly of charred herbs and ethanol. Its consistency clung to the glass, viscous, stubborn, almost alive. Nathaniel turned it once, twice, staring as it clung to the walls.
"Thirty minutes... maybe an hour." He muttered to himself, jotting into his notebook. Temporary. Incomplete. But better than nothing.
His eyes flickered to the prism lying idle on the desk. He did not test it again. Not now. The scar beneath his shirt pulsed once, faintly, almost as though aware.
He took a slow breath, rolled up his sleeve, and dipped a finger into the potion. Cold. Sticky. He spread it across his forearm. The skin gleamed faintly, like lacquered wood.
Then, he braced himself.
He angled the lamp, prism set carefully. The violet shard split into existence, narrow, merciless. It struck his arm.
And for the first time—
No burn.
No scream from the scar.
Only the faintest tingling, like static brushing the skin.
Nathaniel laughed, quick, shaky, unpracticed. The kind of laugh that burst from relief and disbelief at once.
It worked. Not perfectly—he could already feel the potion evaporating, the protection thinning with every second. But it worked. A window of freedom. A moment in which the world's light would not set him ablaze.
He leaned back in his chair, chest heaving. "Thirty minutes... maybe sixty." He whispered again.
Enough to test. Enough to walk beneath a sunbeam without fear. Enough to pretend, for a little while, that he was just another student.
Campus unfolded beneath the grey morning sky like a canvas washed in dull watercolors. Students hurried across puddled courtyards, umbrellas bobbing like dark blooms.
Nathaniel walked among them, his satchel pressing heavy against his shoulder, his body stiff with quiet anticipation. The potion coated his skin beneath his shirt, a hidden armor. He felt its cool cling, as though the liquid itself held his body in restraint.
Theo was waiting outside the lecture hall, waving frantically. "Cross! Oi, hurry up or Pennington'll roast you alive."
Nathaniel managed a small smile and joined him, stepping into the tide of students funneling inside.
Differential Equations.
The chalk squealed across the blackboard again, Pennington scrawling systems that tangled across the surface like webs. His voice carried its usual edge of disdain.
"Remember, gentlemen: solutions aren't always neat. The world itself is rarely neat. That's why approximation exists. That's why we test. Trial and error. Persistence until convergence."
Nathaniel's pen scratched rapidly. The words weren't just about equations—they were about him. His scar. His experiments. His life.
Theo nudged him, whispering, "You're scribbling like the world's ending."
"Maybe it is," Nathaniel said softly, and Theo blinked, caught off guard.
Pennington's gaze snapped toward them. "Mr. Cross. Since you appear eager, solve this."
The board glared with symbols. A system of coupled second-order equations. Ugly. Time-consuming.
Nathaniel stood, chalk already in hand before he realized he'd moved. His arm trembled, not from fear but from the weight of the potion ticking down inside his skin. He could feel it—subtle, fading minute by minute.
He forced focus. Numbers and symbols arranged under his hand like soldiers into rank. Integration, substitution, step after step until the equation bent toward balance.
Pennington stared, lips thin. "Adequate."
Nathaniel sat, chest burning—not from light this time, but from time slipping away.
Engineering Economics.
Davison's voice clipped across the hall: "Risk. Always present. No investment without uncertainty. That is the nature of cost."
Nathaniel's notes bled across the margins: Potion = investment. Risk = time limit. Failure = burn.
Theo leaned over, frowning. "You okay? You're... intense today."
"I'm fine."
He wasn't. He could feel the potion thinning, its protective film weakening, like armor dissolving molecule by molecule.
He forced himself to copy graphs of cash flows and depreciation curves, but his mind drew only one line: the countdown of protection.
Thirty minutes. Forty, if lucky. Beyond that—the scar would return to its old cruelty.
AutoCAD.
The lab buzzed with the quiet frustration of students lost in lines and grids. Nathaniel sat at his station, fingers tight on the mouse, eyes locked on the blank canvas.
He began to draw—not structures, not assignments, but shields. Curved shells. Filters layered like scales. Designs of armor that could exist only in sketches.
On his screen, an arc of glass bent light into fragments. Filters overlapped like interlocking shields. Notes crawled across the interface: UV block. Layered absorption. Redirection system.
Theo peered over. "Mate, that's not even the assignment."
Nathaniel minimized the window instantly. "Just... a draft."
Theo raised a brow but said nothing.
The potion ticked away. Every passing second, Nathaniel imagined cracks spreading through his borrowed protection. His skin felt too exposed, his scar thrummed faintly, sensing the nearing return of fire.
That Evening.
By the time Nathaniel returned to his flat, the potion had worn thin. The moment he angled his desk lamp through the prism, the violet shard struck—sharp, merciless. The scar screamed back, fire racing through his chest until he toppled sideways, clutching the desk.
He gasped through the agony, sweat streaming. The protection was gone.
"Thirty minutes," he whispered, voice ragged. "Maybe sixty... no more."
He collapsed into his chair, trembling. Relief that it worked. Terror that it faded. Desperation for more.
But another feeling lingered beneath all of it.
As he stared at the rain-washed window, shadows shifted across the glass. Not just the sway of branches. Not just passing clouds. Shapes darker than the storm itself, moving where nothing should move.
For a moment, Nathaniel thought exhaustion had warped his sight.
But the scar pulsed. Hard. Once. Twice.
The shadows clung to the campus even in memory—at lecture halls, corridors, courtyards. He had seen them in glimpses. The way lamplight bent unnaturally in corners. The way reflections flickered when no one was there.
He whispered to himself, low and unsteady:
"They're watching."
The rain thickened. The scar throbbed. The potion vial gleamed faintly under lamplight, fragile as hope.
And Nathaniel Cross, student by day, experimenter by night, felt the walls of the world closing tighter around him.