Rey did not sleep that night.
He tried. He lay on Lucas Deroi's narrow bed with one arm over his eyes, pretending exhaustion would eventually drag him under. But every time his thoughts slowed, the same facts came crawling back.
He was dead because in less than a month, he had to walk into ROY, the institution where the main plot of The Hero's Rise truly began.
Sleep never stood a chance.
By dawn, Rey gave up.
He rolled out of bed, made instant coffee from a packet he found in the kitchen, took one sip, and nearly spat it into the sink.
"Lucas, your taste is terrible."
Still, he drank the rest. Caffeine was caffeine, even if it tasted like burnt metal.
Then he sat at the desk and wrote a survival plan.
He needed to stay inside unless leaving was necessary. He needed to speak as little as possible, avoid anyone close to Lucas and learn enough about Frost to avoid embarrassing himself in public. Most of all, he needed to find out who Lucas had been afraid of.
He stopped writing.
Was Lucas afraid?
The boy in the photos didn't look afraid. He looked like someone who had learned not to show anything.
"Don't romanticize him," Rey told himself. "You don't know him."
But that was the problem. He needed to know him.
He opened Lucas's smartwatch again.
The home screen showed the date, weather, unread messages, health status, student credentials, and several locked applications. Rey started with the messages.
Lucas did not seem popular. Most threads were short and functional.
ROY Admissions reminded him to complete a preliminary health registration before March 10. The military middle school had transferred his graduation records. An unknown sender told him not to forget what he had promised. Evan Rell had written that ignoring him would not change what happened. Marek Voss had mentioned a package at the front desk.
Rey frowned.
Marek Voss. That name was new.
He opened the thread.
Most of the messages were from Marek, rarely answered by Lucas. Marek mentioned rent, groceries, and a red-haired boy who had come looking for him. Lucas's replies were brutally short.
No.
Later.
Understood.
Rey leaned back.
"That helps."
Lucas sounded cold without being openly rude. That was manageable.
He opened the call records, then the notes. Most were academic or related to training, though a few encrypted files refused to open.
Then he found a voice memo recorded seventeen days earlier.
Rey immediately played it.
At first, there was only static. Then Lucas's voice came through.
"If this happens again, start with the basics. Name: Lucas Deroi. Age: eighteen. Former cadet of Northern Military Middle School. Accepted into ROY. Gift: Frost. Known symptoms after memory fracture: migraines, temporary disorientation, emotional instability, sensory distortion."
Rey's mind went blank, but the recording seemingly mocking him, continued anyway.
"Do not trust unfamiliar medical personnel. Do not answer calls from blocked numbers. Do not discuss Cerberus. Do not let Veyr examine you alone."
A pause followed.
Then Lucas added, "If you can't remember Mira, don't look for her. That means they found her first."
The memo ended.
Rey sat motionless.
This wasn't just a missing-memory problem. Lucas had prepared for it : He had known he might forget himself.
Rey replayed the memo twice, then saved a copy under a different file name.
"Okay," he whispered. "Lucas, what the hell were you involved in?"
The smartwatch beeped with an incoming message.
Blocked Number:
You thought you could disappear after what you saw?
Rey's skin prickled.
The message had no sender ID, no usable timestamp, and no reply option.
He stared at it until the screen dimmed.
"Not answering that."
A second message appeared.
Blocked Number:
ROY won't protect you.
Before Rey could move, a third message appeared.
You were supposed to stay dead.
Rey stood so fast the chair scraped against the floor. He checked the window, but the street below looked normal, and somehow that made the threat feel worse. He closed the curtains, returned to the desk, and added a new line to his survival plan: someone knew Lucas should not be alive.
A knock came at the door.
Three firm taps.
Rey froze.
Another knock.
"Lucas?" a man's voice called from outside. "You awake?"
Rey moved silently to the desk and picked up the combat knife. His hand shook.
"Lucas, it's Marek. Open up. I know you're in there."
It's the concierge. He seems to be harmless. I hope so.
Rey approached the door and looked through the peephole.
A large gray-haired man in a maintenance uniform stood outside with a paper bag in one hand. A scar crossed his left eyebrow.
Rey lowered the knife but kept it behind his back.
Then he opened the door only halfway.
Marek looked him up and down.
"Damn," the man said. "You look worse."
Rey kept his face blank.
"I'm fine."
"That's what you always say."
Rey said nothing.
Marek sighed and held up the paper bag.
"Soup. From the old woman downstairs. She saw you stumble in yesterday and thought you were dying."
"I'm not."
"Take the soup anyway."
Rey hesitated, then accepted the bag.
"Thank you."
Marek studied him.
"You sure you're alright?"
"Yes."
"You remember what day it is?"
Rey's grip tightened around the door.
A test?
"February twenty-fifth," he said.
Marek nodded slowly. "Good. And you remember you owe me an answer about that package?"
Package. The message had mentioned one.
"I'll pick it up later."
"That's what you said last week."
"I was busy."
"With what? Staring at walls?"
Rey gave him the coldest look he could manage.
Marek raised both hands.
"Fine, fine. None of my business."
Then his expression shifted.
"Red-haired boy came again yesterday."
Evan.
Rey waited.
"Said his name was Evan Rell. Said you'd know why he came."
"I know."
"Didn't look friendly."
"He rarely does."
The answer came naturally and Marek seemed to accept it.
"He said he'd come back if you didn't contact him."
"Ok"
Marek leaned slightly closer.
"Lucas."
Rey looked at him.
"I don't ask about your problems because you pay on time and you don't cause trouble," Marek said. "But last night, someone was standing in the alley behind the building for almost an hour."
Rey felt cold.
"What did they look like?"
"Couldn't see. Hood. Tall. Left before I went down."
"Did they do anything?"
Marek glanced at the bottom of the door.
"Check the threshold."
Rey looked down.
At first, he saw nothing. Then he noticed a thin black line near the base of the door, almost hidden in the shadow.
It looked burned into the metal.
"That wasn't there yesterday," Marek said.
Rey crouched without touching it.
The line was shaped like half a symbol.
He didn't recognize it.
That scared him more than if he had.
Because Rey had written this world. He should have known its symbols and dangers, but this mark meant nothing to him. However, with all the plot holes he had written, nothing surprised him anymore.
Marek cleared his throat.
"You want me to call building security?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
That was probably stupid, but Rey didn't know who security reported to. In this world, official channels are like traps wearing uniforms.
Marek gave him a long look.
"You military kids are all the same. Too proud to be scared."
Rey almost laughed.
He only he knew that he was terrified.
But Lucas Deroi probably wouldn't respond that.
So Rey straightened and replied, "Fear is not useful yet."
Marek stared at him for a second, then shook his head.
"Yeah. That sounds like you."
He turned to leave.
At the stairs, he paused.
"Eat the soup."
Rey closed the door and locked it twice.
He set the soup on the desk and stared at the black mark under the threshold.
The smartwatch beeped.
Another blocked message appeared.
We found you again.
Rey swallowed.
Then he returned to his paper and wrote one final line.
He let out a slow breath and lowered the pen. Fine. He could be terrified. He just couldn't let anyone see it.