Sarah Rogers had always been gentle.
Not weak.
Never weak.
There was a difference people often failed to understand.
Gentleness was how she chose to move through a cruel world. Weakness was having no choice at all. Sarah had survived hunger, sickness, grief, widowhood, long hospital shifts, and the terrifying knowledge that her only child could be taken from her by something as simple as cold air.
So when she stood in Elias' basement with one hand gripping Steve's shoulder, staring down strangers and secrets with fear in her eyes, Elias did not see a fragile woman.
He saw steel wrapped in kindness.
And steel, when bent too far, cut.
"Tell me the truth," Sarah repeated.
No one spoke.
Rainwater dripped somewhere upstairs through the damaged roof. The sound echoed faintly through the basement like a clock counting down to disaster.
Steve looked at Elias.
Not pleading.
Waiting.
That hurt more.
Because Steve trusted him. Even now, after hearing words no child should hear and seeing horrors no adult could explain without breaking, Steve still looked at him as if Elias would somehow make sense of the world.
Elias was tired of being the wall between reality and the people he loved.
But walls cracked too.
Amon took a slow drag from the cigarette.
"I'd start with the ocean corpse," he offered helpfully.
Elias turned his head slowly. "Speak again and I will test how flammable your current body is."
Amon smiled. "Threatening me in front of family? How rude."
Sarah's grip tightened around Steve.
"Eli."
The single word hit harder than a shouted accusation.
Elias exhaled quietly, then looked toward Celeste.
"Can you make sure nothing listens?"
Celeste nodded. Silver light gathered around her fingers as she drew a circular symbol in the air. Lines of pale radiance spread across the basement walls, sinking into brick and wood. The air grew heavier, quieter, as though the room had been wrapped in thick cloth.
Amon glanced at the barrier and hummed.
"Decent."
Celeste ignored him.
Elias pulled a chair from the ritual table and sat down across from Sarah.
For a moment, he said nothing.
Where could he even begin?
With transmigration?
With Beyonders?
With Marvel?
With the fact that her son's fate had become tied to a dead divine jailer beneath the sea?
Too much truth could destroy a person as surely as lies.
But too little truth had already nearly killed Steve.
So Elias chose the middle path.
"There are things in this world," he said slowly, "that governments don't understand. Things older than nations. Older than churches. Older than most gods people pray to."
Sarah did not interrupt.
Her eyes remained locked on him.
Elias continued. "Some people seek those things for power. Some worship them. Some try to control them. Most die. The ones who survive become something worse."
Sarah's face paled slightly, but she stayed steady.
"Are you one of them?"
Honest question.
Painful question.
Elias looked down at his gloved hands.
"…Yes."
Steve's eyes widened.
Sarah went still.
Elias raised his gaze again. "But not like them."
"That is what dangerous men always say."
A quiet sentence.
A mother's sentence.
Elias accepted it because she was right.
"I know."
Sarah studied him for several seconds.
Then her voice softened, but only barely.
"What are you?"
Amon leaned forward, fascinated.
Elias ignored him.
"I follow a path called Seer. It gives me certain abilities. Divination. Illusion. Tricks with fire, paper, and movement. It also changes the mind if handled badly."
Steve whispered, "Like magic?"
Elias looked at him.
"In this world, people call many things magic when they don't know the structure behind them. But yes. Close enough."
Steve swallowed hard.
"So all those times you knew things…"
"Some were guesses. Some were divinations. Some were because I know more history than I should."
That was dangerous wording.
Amon noticed immediately. His smile sharpened.
Celeste glanced toward Elias but remained silent.
Sarah caught it too.
"What does that mean?"
Elias hesitated.
Then Steve spoke quietly.
"You know the future, don't you?"
The room became still.
Elias looked at his nephew.
Steve's face was pale, tired, and bruised, but his eyes were clear.
Too clear.
"You always act like you're waiting for something bad to happen," Steve continued. "You read newspapers like they're warnings. You know names before people tell you. When that German man came to the shop, you looked like you'd seen a ghost."
Johann Schmidt.
Sarah's expression changed.
"What German man?"
Elias closed his eyes briefly.
Of course Steve remembered.
Of course he noticed.
This family was impossible.
"I don't know the future perfectly," Elias said carefully. "Not anymore."
Amon chuckled. "Anymore. Excellent phrasing."
Elias snapped his fingers.
A small flame appeared beside Amon's ear.
Amon leaned away lazily, still smiling.
Sarah looked between them with the expression of a woman seconds away from dragging everyone out by the collar.
Elias continued before the situation collapsed entirely.
"I know some events that may happen if history stays on its original road. But that road is changing."
"Because of you?" Sarah asked.
"Yes."
No excuse.
No softening.
Just truth.
Sarah absorbed that silently.
Then she asked the question Elias feared most.
"And Steve?"
Elias' jaw tightened.
Steve looked between them.
"What about me?"
Sarah's eyes never left Elias.
"What is happening to my son?"
The basement felt colder.
Celeste's barrier flickered faintly under some distant pressure.
Amon stopped smiling again.
Elias chose every word with care.
"Steve is connected to something ancient. We don't fully understand how. Last night, something came looking for him because of that connection."
Sarah's breathing changed.
Not panic.
Controlled terror.
"The thing with the lantern," Steve murmured.
Sarah turned sharply toward him. "What thing?"
Steve immediately looked guilty.
Elias answered before he could stumble through it.
"A servant of what we're calling the Sleeper. A dead or sleeping divine entity sealed beneath the Atlantic."
Sarah stared at him.
For one long moment, she said nothing.
Then she laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because the human mind sometimes rejected horror by cracking around it.
"There is a dead god under the ocean," she said softly.
"Yes."
"And it wants my son."
Elias did not answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
Sarah sat down slowly beside Steve.
All the strength seemed to drain from her at once.
Steve reached for her hand.
"Mom…"
She held him tightly.
Too tightly.
As if someone might pull him away through the floor.
"Why him?" she whispered.
Celeste finally spoke.
"We believe Steve may carry the imprint of an old sealing oath. Not reincarnation exactly. More like… fate remembering a shape."
Sarah looked at her blankly.
Celeste softened her tone.
"Something in him can resist the Sleeper."
"And that thing wants to use him?"
Amon answered, unusually quiet.
"Or destroy him before he matures into a threat."
Elias glared at him.
Sarah looked like she had been stabbed.
Steve's face hardened.
"I'm not scared."
Sarah turned on him instantly. "You should be."
Steve flinched.
Her voice trembled now.
"You should be scared, Steven. You're fourteen years old. You can barely breathe after running too far. You are not fighting gods. You are not fighting monsters. You are not—"
Her voice broke.
The room fell silent.
Steve looked down.
For the first time in years, Elias saw him as he truly was.
A child trying desperately to be brave because the world kept giving him reasons not to be.
Sarah pressed a hand over her mouth, fighting tears.
"I already lost your father," she whispered. "I will not lose you to something I cannot even pray against."
That sentence struck Elias deeply.
Because what did prayer mean in a world where gods were real, aliens wore crowns, and ancient corpses dreamed beneath oceans?
Steve's hand tightened around hers.
"I'm sorry."
Sarah pulled him into her arms.
For several moments, no one interrupted them.
Even Amon looked away.
That might have been the most unsettling thing he had done all morning.
Finally, Sarah raised her head and looked at Elias.
"What do we do?"
Not what will you do.
What do we do.
Elias felt something twist painfully in his chest.
"First, Steve leaves Brooklyn for a while."
Steve immediately looked up. "What?"
"No argument."
"There is absolutely argument."
"You almost became a lighthouse for a sea corpse."
"I helped stop it."
"You nearly died."
"That's different."
"It is not different!"
The shout echoed through the basement.
Steve went silent.
Elias rarely raised his voice.
When he did, even Sarah looked startled.
Elias forced himself to breathe.
"Steve," he said more quietly, "that thing knows your name now. The city is no longer safe. The shop is no longer safe. Until I know how to shield you properly, you need distance from the Atlantic."
Celeste nodded slowly.
"He's right."
Steve looked between them.
"What about Mom?"
"She goes with you," Elias said.
Sarah immediately shook her head. "No."
Elias frowned. "Sarah—"
"I have work. Patients. Responsibilities."
"You have a son being hunted by an ancient horror."
"And people at the hospital dying without enough hands to treat them!"
Her voice sharpened.
There it was again.
The Rogers curse.
Self-sacrifice disguised as responsibility.
Elias looked at Steve.
Steve looked at Sarah.
Both had the exact same stubborn expression.
Amon laughed softly. "Oh, this bloodline is delightful."
Sarah turned her gaze on him.
"Who are you?"
Amon smiled.
"Someone you should not trust."
"At least you're honest."
"Occasionally."
Sarah's eyes narrowed. "Are you going to hurt my family?"
Amon considered it with insulting seriousness.
Elias' spirituality flared.
Celeste's fingers glowed.
Steve tensed.
Then Amon said, "No."
No one relaxed.
He smiled faintly. "Not today."
Sarah stared at him for several seconds.
Then she looked at Elias.
"He leaves."
Elias paused.
Sarah's hand trembled slightly, but her voice became steady again.
"Steve leaves Brooklyn. I'll arrange with my cousin in Pennsylvania. A farm outside town. Far from the coast. Clean air too."
Steve looked betrayed.
"Mom—"
"You heard your uncle."
"But you said—"
"I know what I said." Her voice softened but did not weaken. "And I will come when I can. But right now, you need to live long enough to argue with me later."
Steve had no answer to that.
Elias felt relief and guilt in equal measure.
Pennsylvania was inland enough to reduce the oceanic influence. Not perfect, but better than Brooklyn. He could build protective charms, prepare breathing medicine, and create false spiritual trails.
It could work.
Temporarily.
Then Celeste's barrier suddenly flickered violently.
Amon's head tilted.
Elias looked toward the ceiling.
"What now?"
Amon smiled thinly.
"Visitors."
Elias extended his spirituality upward and immediately felt them.
Three men outside the shop.
Human.
Armed.
Carrying something spiritually contaminated.
Not the Sleeper.
Different.
Sharper.
Militaristic.
Celeste's expression hardened.
"Hydra?"
Amon hummed. "Hydra-adjacent, perhaps."
Sarah went pale.
Steve tried to stand.
Elias pushed him back down without looking.
"Stay."
"For once," Sarah added sharply.
Steve froze.
Mothers outranked destiny.
Elias walked toward the basement stairs.
Celeste followed.
Amon remained behind, smiling lazily.
Elias stopped and looked back. "You're not coming?"
Amon gestured at Sarah and Steve.
"Someone has to make sure they aren't stolen by fate, cultists, or poor decision-making."
Steve glared at him.
"I hate that he has a point," Elias muttered.
Then he climbed the stairs.
The bookstore above remained dim, boarded, and quiet.
Outside the front door, shadows moved behind the fogged glass.
Elias adjusted his gloves.
Celeste stood beside him.
"You know," she said quietly, "once this starts, hiding becomes harder."
Elias smiled without warmth.
"Hiding ended last night."
A knock came at the door.
Three slow taps.
Not polite.
A warning.
Elias opened it.
Three men stood outside in dark coats.
The middle one held a leather case marked with an unfamiliar symbol: a black sun pierced by a spear.
Not Hydra's usual emblem.
Older.
Occult.
The man smiled.
"Mr. Rogers?"
Elias did not answer.
The man continued.
"We believe you recently came into contact with property belonging to our European associates."
Celeste's eyes narrowed.
Elias' hand drifted toward the paper figures hidden in his sleeve.
"And what property would that be?"
The man's smile widened.
"A nail."
From the basement below, Steve suddenly gasped.
At the same moment, far beneath the Atlantic Ocean, something whispered his name again.