Kairo didn't sleep.
He lay on his back in the containment suite, staring at the ceiling as faint blue suppression lines pulsed above him. The room was quiet, but inside him there was noise.
Not sound.
Pressure.
Like thunder building miles away.
His hands rested on his chest. They trembled without his permission. Small sparks crawled along his fingertips and disappeared into the air like dying fireflies.
He tried counting his breaths.
One.
Two.
Three.
The static shifted.
Not louder.
Closer.
He sat up slowly.
The room was dim. The reinforced glass reflected his silhouette. Beyond it, the corridor lights flickered in their usual cold rhythm.
"Kairo…" he whispered to himself. "You're fine. You're still you."
But the feeling in his chest disagreed.
It wasn't pain.
It was recognition.
Like something had been waiting for him to notice it.
Then,
A memory that wasn't his.
A flash.
A different containment room.
Brighter. Smaller.
A boy standing barefoot on metal flooring, electricity trembling around him like a nervous animal.
Kairo gasped and clutched his head.
"No"
The image sharpened.
The boy had dark brown hair and tired eyes that looked older than they should have. His hands were shaking.
He wasn't attacking.
He was afraid.
Kairo fell off the bed and hit the floor hard.
The memory vanished.
The room returned.
But the fear didn't.
Across the facility, Ms. Vale stood alone in her office, staring at a holographic projection she had not opened in thirteen years.
The file glowed in front of her:
SUBJECT NAME: Arin Solace
AGE AT INCIDENT: 14
STATUS: Missing / Presumed Deceased
PROJECT CODE: BRIDGE INITIATIVE – PHASE ONE
Vale's hands shook as she expanded the archive.
Video footage flickered to life.
Arin stood in a training chamber, thin shoulders hunched, eyes glowing faintly white.
"You said it would stop," Arin's recorded voice said, barely steady. "You said the voice would fade."
Vale swallowed hard. She remembered this day.
She remembered standing behind the glass, promising him they were close to stabilizing the energy.
She remembered lying.
On the screen, Arin's electricity began to intensify.
"It's not talking to me," he said, panic rising. "It's using me."
Vale shut her eyes, but the memory continued anyway.
The storm that night had formed above the facility spiraling clouds shaped like an eye.
Exactly like the one forming again now.
Arin had screamed as lightning struck the chamber from above not from outside, but from within.
The bridge had begun to open.
And the Agency had pushed him to keep it open.
He wasn't strong enough.
The chamber imploded in white light.
When the brightness faded
Arin was gone.
No body.
No ashes.
Just scorched walls.
Vale's voice trembled in the present.
"We failed you," she whispered.
And now history was repeating itself.
Back in his suite, Kairo crawled backward until his spine hit the wall.
The static wasn't chaotic anymore.
It was structured.
A rhythm.
A pulse that matched his heartbeat perfectly.
His reflection shimmered in the glass.
And behind it
Another figure stood.
Clearer this time.
The boy from the memory.
Dark hair. Pale skin. Electricity crawling across him like cracked light.
Kairo's throat tightened.
"You're real," he breathed.
The reflection's lips didn't move.
But the meaning poured into Kairo's mind.
Not real.
Not gone.
Displaced.
Kairo's eyes burned with tears.
"You're the first one," he whispered. "Arin."
The figure's eyes softened.
You hear it now.
Kairo nodded slowly, terrified.
"Yes."
The pressure inside him grew heavier.
"What is it?" he asked, voice breaking. "What does it want from me?"
Arin's form flickered.
It does not want.
It aligns.
Kairo's fists clenched.
"I don't understand!"
The room lights flickered violently.
Outside the facility, clouds began to gather over the city unnatural, tightening into a spiral.
Inside Kairo's mind, the sky opened again.
The storm-eye rotated slowly above endless darkness.
Arin stood beneath it, small but steady.
"It's a bridge," Arin said this time his lips moved, but no sound escaped.
"A bridge to where?" Kairo whispered.
Arin's expression shifted grief, fear, something else.
Beyond.
The word echoed through Kairo like a bell.
"I don't want to go anywhere," Kairo said, tears spilling freely now. "I just want to be normal. I just want this to stop."
Arin stepped closer to him.
I said that too.
Kairo's chest tightened painfully.
"They pushed you," he said. "The Agency made you do it."
Arin didn't deny it.
They believed the bridge would bring answers.
"What did it bring instead?" Kairo asked.
Arin's eyes glowed brighter.
Silence.
Cold.
Distance.
And something watching.
Kairo's breath hitched.
"Are you trapped?"
A pause.
Waiting.
That word struck deeper than anything else.
Waiting for what?
Arin looked directly into him now.
For you.
The glass behind Kairo cracked suddenly.
Alarms exploded through the corridor.
Energy levels spiked across the facility.
In the control room, Director Senna watched with burning focus.
"Signal resonance confirmed," she said calmly. "He's connecting."
Vale stormed in.
"Shut it down!" she demanded. "You're forcing him into the same threshold!"
Senna didn't look away from the monitors.
"This time we know what to expect."
Vale's voice cracked.
"No. You don't."
In the suite, electricity surged violently around Kairo.
The walls glowed faintly white.
The air tasted metallic.
"I don't want this!" he screamed.
Arin's form began dissolving into light.
You are not chosen.
The storm-eye above pulsed.
You are aligned.
Lightning erupted from Kairo's body in wild arcs.
The ceiling split with a glowing fracture.
The sky above the city twisted into the shape of a blazing eye once more.
And for the first time
The eye pulsed back.
Not searching.
Responding.
Kairo collapsed to his knees, shaking uncontrollably, tears mixing with sparks.
"Make it stop…" he begged.
But deep inside him
The echo was no longer whispering.
It was awakening.