Chapter 15
1918words
Wherever his father had pulled him. His face carried the fake smile he uses to mask his anger, the one polished enough to pass for charm. But I can tell in his eyes... his eyes betrayed it all. They were tight, raw, and seething just beneath the surface.
When he reached me, he slipped something into my hand with a quick motion. A card. Black and silver, the edges were sharp. His father's ID card.
"Don't lose it," he murmured, his smile fixed.
Then suddenly, his hand gripped my wrist tightly, and he pulled me away from the crowd, through the gilded hall, the music still playing. His grip was cold, hard, and bruising my arm, but I'm used to it. His pace didn't slow down.
We pass by many moving holograms of his father, brother, and Nathaniel.
But while I was looking, I saw... Mr. Or'dara's sculpture again. The woman. Her carved face flickered faintly within the holographic loop. So... it's not just school, it's also haunting me here. My mind must really be broken since I'm seeing it again. Suddenly, He tugged my arm hard every time I was staring at the woman.
She is following me everywhere I go.
"Slyvian," he said lowly, "I'm only going to say this once. Stop getting distracted and move your feet."
I didn't say anything, looking away from the woman and just following behind him.
We reached a secluded end of the hall, where a lift sat waiting. Its surface gleamed with ivory plating, the seams outlined in faint golden light. Two guards stood like statues at either side.
Their eyes looked to Nathaniel the moment he approached. Recognition. Fear. Fear always followed Nathaniel.
"If either of you breathe a word of where I'm going to father," Nathaniel said smoothly, his smile still carved onto his face, "I will hollow you out until all that remains is silence. Do you understand?"
Neither guard answered. Neither even blinked. Their bodies stiffened as if silence itself might save them.
Nathaniel shoved me into the lift. The doors sealed behind us with a quiet hiss, and the chamber began to descend.
I stare at the wall in the lift. Nathaniel crossed his arms.
"Slyvian," he said. "When we get there, you will listen to me very carefully. Whatever thoughts are crawling around in your head, erase them. They're worthless. You are too focus and do exactly as I tell you."
He stepped closer to me, grabbing my chin to make me look at him.
"If you fail... there is nowhere deep enough in this building that will hide you from me. Understand?"
I didn't answer. I didn't want to.
"Talk." His tone sharpened.
"...yes," I said, my voice low... empty.
He let's go of my chin.
The air in the lift grew colder the deeper it went. Each floor passed in silence, the only sound was the low hum of machinery behind the walls. Nathaniel leaned against the lift wall, but his hands twitched once at his side. I can tell that was a small crack from the fake calmness he wore for his mask.
He spoke again.
"You're going to walk inside," he said flatly. "You're going to retrieve a chip. Nothing else."
I kept my eyes at the lift walls.
Then his hand shot out and grabbed my chin again, his fingers digging hard enough that my jaw ached. His voice was calm... soft... almost.
"You need to stop looking at the floor and look at me. When you get inside the fault, do not touch anything else except for that chip. Failure is not an option."
He let go, and the ache lingered on my jaw.
The lift doors opened.
The sublevel stretched in front of me. The floors polished in black stone and steel. Silver veins ran along the walls, glowing faintly like a pulse. At the far end loomed the vault, not a door, not even a gate, but a massive aperture layered with rotating rings. Blue light swirled along its surface, humming.
This is what wealth looks like.
Cold. Quiet. Alive.
How fortunate for him.
Nathaniel pressed the card into my hand. His expression didn't shift.
"Show it. Then walk. Don't stop. Don't even look back. The scanners will follow your every move. One misstep then you will trigger the alarms. Now go."
He pushed me out the lift. I caught myself then look ahead... I felt a... squeezing feeling in my stomach.
If I don't do this properly, I will have to face Nathaniel.
I stepped forward. The scanners came alive instantly, beams of pale light flaring into the air and sweeping across my body. A warm tingling spread across my skin, like invisible fingers trailing along every inch.
It searched for something that wasn't there. My veins carried no power, my skin no trace of energy. They found nothing. Proof that I carried no power within me.
The scanners then scanned Fester's ID card, once it found the chip code on the card, a loud beep echoed. Then, the aperture split open.
I walked inside.
What waited wasn't treasure, it was not the kind from stories. No piles of gold. No stacks of cash. Instead, the vault was white and sterile. White lights glared from the ceiling, drowning the room in cold brightness. Machines lined the walls, their bodies humming with soft mechanical rhythm.
Rows of glass tubes stretched across the chamber, embedded into the steel walls. Within each, fragments of something alive. Organs suspended in thick purple liquid, twitching with faint sparks of light. Fingers. Eyes. Half-grown spines.
My footsteps slowed. My eyes caught on one tube, taller, larger than the rest
A man floated inside.
His body curled into a ball, knees drawn tight to his chest. Long strands of black hair spread and tangled in the liquid, covering most of his skin. But what skin I could see was grey, deathly pale, the color of stone... like the boy I say in class... like mine.
Why would this be down here?
I stared too long.
His eye snapped open.
I jerked back, breath caught in my throat. His gaze fixed on me, unblinking. Dark. Empty. It dragged against my chest like weight.
Scars covered him. Not lines... but jagged, vicious burns, hundreds of them carved across his chest, his arms, his throat. His long hair clung to his skin, veiling his face and curling around his hips, keeping him half-hidden even as he turned.
Still, I could see enough.
He was alive.
Alive... and staring.
I didn't move. Neither did he. I don't know... why.
His body floated weightless in the liquid, but his eyes... his eyes were heavy. They didn't blink. They didn't soften. They just stayed locked on me.
What would happen if he broke out of that tube?
Would he rampage through these halls? Would he tear apart the men who sealed him in glass and drowned him in purple liquid? Would he burn this entire polished vault down until nothing remained but ash and silence?
Would he kill me too?
...Probably.
The thought didn't scare me. Not really. If anything, it felt... fitting. Like I'd finally be crushed under the same weight as everything else here.
But then, his head tilted. Just slightly.
It was small, but it was enough.
Like he'd heard me.
Like he'd reached into my skull and plucked the thought out before it could dissolve.
My stomach turned, the bruise throbbing. I stepped back again, slow, careful. His gaze didn't follow my movement, it waited. Like he was watching not my body, but the quiet flicker of my thoughts.
I looked away, forcing myself to keep walking deeper into the vault.
As I walked past many tech and other machinery. I saw at the far end, on a raised platform, I saw it: a sealed black cube with little slits, pulsing inside it, was a red light.
I looked walked closer and looked inside the cube, inside it was a.... gem.
The gem pulsed again, faint, steady... alive.
I'd never seen a gem before. Not in person. Not like this. At school, they talk about them as relics, rare fragments mined from places no one visits anymore. Untouchable. Things meant for the hands of the powerful, not someone like me.
But this one... this one wasn't locked away in a museum. It was sealed in a cube, buried underground, hidden. Like something too dangerous to be shown... or to use.
Each beat of its glow made something in my chest answer, an ache in rhythm. I didn't want to move closer, but I did. My fingers hovered over the glass casing, inches away.
It looked back at me, that's how it felt. The light shifted faintly, as if it recognized me.
I don't know why, but the thought slipped in, uninvited:If I touched it... would it change me? Would it fill the empty spaces in me with whatever it carries? Would I get powers from it?
No... A silly thought. A useless one.
I forced my eyes away, walked past it and saw a table full of gadgets. I walked over and saw a small chip.
This must be what Nathaniel wants.
I grabbed the chip. This type of chip, it's a EchoCore chip. A restricted kind of tech. Only the highest officials were allowed to use it.
So, why does Nathaniel want it?
Whatever... I got it. That was enough.
I turned to leave. And even then, I felt it. The man in the tube, his dark eyes following me. I didn't check, but I knew.
The scanners swept me again on my way out. Still nothing. Empty. Always empty.
The lift was waiting. Nathaniel stood there, arms folded across his chest, expression unreadable.
I handed him the chip. He took it without hesitation, holding it up to the light, inspecting it like a jeweler with a stone.
Then without warning, his hand shot out. Fingers coiled around my throat, bruising, pulling me forward until his forehead pressed against mine.
"See? You're useful after all." He smiled. Not warmth, not triumph. Just the cold curve that always promised something worse. That smile always put fear in me.
He released me. I staggered back a step, rubbing my throat.
When the doors slide open, we walked past the guards and down the hallways. But as we kept walking. I heard heels faintly.
Click. Click. Heels on floor. Slow, deliberate.
The sound came from the corridor behind us, the one that led back to the lift where the guards were.
Nathaniel didn't react. Maybe he didn't hear it. Or maybe he didn't care.
Click. Click.
Whoever it was, they weren't hiding. They wanted to be heard.
I turned, my eyes scanning the polished hallway. Empty.
But the sound had been there. I know it had.
And it hadn't been walking toward Nathaniel or me.
It had been walking toward the lift.
EchoCore Chip: A military-grade module. Unlike standard chips, the EchoCore taps directly into encrypted satellite networks and data streams, making it capable of pulling information from anywhere, no boundaries, no blind spots. Whether buried deep underground, hidden in a classified database, or even going in space, the EchoCore can locate, intercept, and deliver the information instantly. Illegal to own.
