I wake to metal in my mouth and a bad light buzzing overhead.
For a few seconds I don't remember where I am, or who I am, just that everything hurts in a dull, distant way, as if the pain is happening to someone else and I'm only watching. White ceiling. Fluorescent lamps. The sharp smell of disinfectant.
Hospital, my brain supplies eventually. I'm in a hospital.
I try to turn my head. Pain spikes up my neck. A dry groan rattles out of me.
"Easy," a voice says to my left. Male, steady. "You're awake. Good. Don't move too fast."
A face leans into view. Mid-fifties, tired eyes, a doctor's badge clipped to his coat. His shadow stretches across the floor from the harsh lamp above him.
And above that shadow, floating in the air like someone hung a word on an invisible string, I see:
**BETRAYAL.**
The letters glow with cold, pale light.
I blink once. Twice. The word doesn't go away.
"Mr. Levchenko, can you hear me?" the doctor asks. His mouth moves, his brow folds with concern—but all I can see is the word over his shadow, humming faintly, like it's alive.
Betrayal.
My heart stutters.
"What…" My voice scrapes. "What is that?"
"The tube?" He glances at the IV. "You had surgery. It's normal to feel disoriented—"
"Not that," I rasp. "That. Over you."
The doctor follows my stare, then looks back at me, clearly not seeing anything but tiles.
"We may need to adjust your painkillers," he mutters.
I shut my eyes, count to three, open them again.
The doctor is still there. His shadow is still there.
So is the word.
The door hisses. A nurse in blue scrubs walks in. Her shadow stretches across the bed.
Above it another word trembles in the air, written in the same thin, glowing script.
**FEAR.**
Cold sweat prickles my skin.
The nurse checks the machines, taps on her tablet. Neither of them looks up. Neither reacts to the glowing words over their shadows.
"Mark?" the doctor says carefully. "Do you know where you are?"
"Hospital," I whisper. "After…"
Images slam into me. Wet asphalt. Headlights. Screaming tires. The horn, long and useless. Then nothing.
"You were hit by a car," he confirms. "You were very lucky. Another minute and we would be having a different conversation."
Lucky. Right.
The lamps flicker.
Just a small stutter, but the shadows in the room twitch like something yanked them by invisible strings. For a heartbeat every shadow stretches too long, too dark.
And in that heartbeat I see someone standing in the far corner.
Tall. Thin. Black suit that doesn't belong in a hospital. No mask, no badge. A neat tie, polished shoes… and a shadow that seems to pour out of him like ink, pooling around his feet.
I didn't see him come in. The doctor and nurse don't look his way.
"Finally awake, Mark Levchenko," the man says.
His voice is soft, but it cuts through the hum of machines like a clean blade.
Cold slides down my spine.
"Who…" The word scrapes out of me. "Who are you?"
The doctor doesn't react. The nurse doesn't turn. They keep moving around my bed, their voices suddenly muffled, like someone put a wall between us.
Maybe they can't hear him.
Maybe they can't hear me.
The man in the suit steps forward. His shoes make no sound. His shadow lags half a second behind, like it's thinking about it.
Over that shadow hangs a word too.
This time the letters glow a deep, dull red.
**DEBT.**
He glances at it with faint irritation, then looks back at me.
"So," he says. "You're seeing them already."
"You see that?" I manage.
"Of course." He sounds mildly bored. "Names. Fractured ones, mostly. Surface scraps. But yes, I see them. The question is—why do you?"
The doctor leans closer, blocking my view of the corner. "Mark, if you're in pain, we can—"
"Quiet," the man in the suit says politely.
Sound dies.
The doctor's lips keep moving, but no words come out. The nurse's pen still scratches, but the beeping machines fall away, like they've been pushed underwater.
Only the stranger's voice remains.
Panic surges in my chest. My limbs feel heavier than before, like the bed swallowed them.
"What did you do to them?" I whisper.
"Nothing permanent," the man says. "Consider it muting background noise. We have limited time, and you are not in condition to process too many realities at once."
He comes to the side of the bed and studies my face. His eyes are a tired gray.
"Allow me to introduce myself," he says. "My name is Ardan. And I am… an accountant."
I stare at the red word over his shadow.
"Of what?" I ask.
"Of what's owed. Of what's promised. Of what has to be collected when bargains run their course." His gaze flicks to the IV, the bandages. "Last night, on the street, you made a very loud mess, Mark."
The memory of the car slams back into me. The screech. The impact. The cold, widening dark.
"I don't remember making any bargains," I say.
"You did." Ardan's tone is patient. "People rarely do it on purpose. Desperation is louder than intention. You were dying. You begged. Something heard you."
"Something like you?"
"Something much worse." He says it casually. "It answered. It kept you alive. In return, it expects to collect what it is owed. That expectation is called a Contract."
I try to laugh. It comes out broken. "So I sold my soul to a devil and you're here with the receipt?"
"If the one who answered had come in person," Ardan says, "you wouldn't be making jokes. You'd be a statistic. No. I'm just the middleman."
"The middleman between… what, exactly?"
"Between you and the things that trade in names." He looks down, at the shadow under my bed. "May I?"
"No," I say automatically.
He ignores me and reaches down.
His fingers pinch the edge of my shadow.
The darkness stretches with his hand like rubber.
My stomach flips. "Stop."
He lets go.
The shadow snaps back—and for a heartbeat, letters shimmer above it, faint and unreadable, as if someone tried to write my name across the air and thought better of it.
Then they vanish.
"There it is," Ardan murmurs. "Still sealed. Mostly."
My mouth is dry. "What was that?"
"Your true name, or a sliver of it. Don't worry, you're not ready to read it yet." He straightens. "What matters is that you shouldn't be seeing anyone else's names at this stage."
My gaze flicks to the doctor and nurse: Betrayal and Fear, glowing above their shadows.
"What stage?" I ask.
"The part where you survive quietly until the day the Contract comes due," he says. "Only you didn't survive quietly. You screamed. Loud enough to shake the seal on your own name. Now you're leaking."
"Leaking," I repeat.
"Essence. Resonance. Whatever makes you you."
"And you?"
"I am here," Ardan says, "because if they get to you first, my job becomes significantly more unpleasant."
I stare at him, at DEBT hanging over his shadow like a brand.
"What do you want from me?" I ask.
"For now?" He shrugs. "For you not to trip over the first predator that whispers your name. You need a guide. A broker. Someone who understands the rules you've wandered into."
"And that's you."
"That is unfortunately me," he says. "Think of it as an internship you never applied for."
"And if I say no?"
He considers that.
"Then one day soon you will see a word above your own shadow," he says softly. "And you won't be able to look away. And when you try to read it, you will feel something take hold of you from the inside. That will be the last moment anything you think of as 'you' is in control."
The buzzing lamps, the cold sheets, the ache in my neck—all of it feels suddenly fragile.
"What are you offering?" I whisper.
He inclines his head.
"An apprenticeship," he says. "In how not to lose yourself before the Contract arrives. And, if you are very stubborn and moderately clever, in how to renegotiate."
The word DEBT over his shadow burns a little brighter.
My pulse thuds in my ears. My shadow lies flat and innocent under the bed, hiding its letters.
I don't fully believe him. I don't fully disbelieve him. I believe the car, the pain, the fact that I should be dead and I'm not.
"Fine," I say hoarsely. "I'll listen."
Ardan's mouth curves, almost a smile.
"Good. Then from this moment on…"
He glances once more at the place where my name flickered.
"…you're my apprentice, Mark Levchenko."
The buzzing of the lamps snaps back to full volume. The doctor's voice rushes in mid-sentence, the nurse's pen, the beeping machines. The world returns.
No one notices the man in the suit.
No one notices the word DEBT over his shadow.
And I can't stop staring at the empty air above my own, waiting for my name to finish waking up.