Kai stood in the doorway, still battling the weight in his chest. Living alone had been his reality for so long that the idea of sharing space—warm walls, laughter in the other rooms—felt more like an intrusion than a gift. But he swallowed that old pride, that instinct to back away, and followed Mattethis inside.
Neo was there waiting. His grin broke wide, and before Kai could prepare himself, he was pulled into a hug. Kai stiffened immediately, ribs screaming under the pressure, and a sharp "ouch" slipped past his lips. Neo froze, then drew back, already fussing with Kai's side. Fingers brushed over bandaged ribs, searching for damage. Kai waved him off with an awkward half-smile. "I'm fine," he muttered, voice tight. But Neo didn't look convinced. He was always like that—too stubborn to ignore someone else's pain.
They showed him the spare room. It wasn't much: plain walls, a bed, and a small desk. But Matt clapped him on the shoulder and said, "It's yours now. Don't worry about rent for a while." For Kai, that was more than enough. Gratitude hit like a sucker punch. The realization settled heavy: he was safe. That night, lying in a bed that didn't belong to a shelter or the street, he slept deeper than he had in months.
The Weeks That Followed
Life began to take shape around Kai in ways he hadn't expected. Nynxreach lessons filled his mornings, hammering him with theory on resonance, long-winded lectures on the history of the Realms, and blunt survival practice that often left him sore and humbled. It wasn't easy to keep up. The rules and mechanics of resonance were complex, a living system that seemed to breathe around them, but Kai listened hard. Every bit of knowledge felt like another layer of armor, something that put distance between him and the version of himself that had scraped by in alleyways. Malakai Apolix, once the boy who measured his worth in cigarettes and shadows, was now training as a Resonant. That single thought kept him from drifting when the words became heavy.
Afternoons were quieter, but not restful. He slipped away from the academy, winding through the streets that had once been his world. The city didn't change for him—it pulsed with its same rhythm, vendors shouting, guards patrolling, the hum of machines rising from every corner—but his perspective shifted. He saw it now as someone inside the walls rather than scratching at their edges. Still, he couldn't resist collecting the pieces of himself he had hidden away. His old dead drops remained where he'd left them, tucked into vents, buried under trash, wedged in loose bricks.
At each cache he recovered fragments of a life defined by desperation: a backpack with frayed straps, his lighter with its scratched casing, a phone whose spiderwebbed screen still flickered when charged, a communicator that blinked green as if waiting for him all this time. They weren't just tools. They were reminders that he had endured, that even in the worst places he'd thought to preserve something for the future.
Back in his room, he arranged these artifacts in a corner, side by side with the neatly folded bedding and the desk where his Resonant notes piled. Old scars beside new beginnings. A strange kind of shrine.
By the third week, he had slipped into routine. Wake, train, study, eat, sleep. Repeat. Evenings with Neo and Matt brought a warmth he had never known—two voices filling the apartment, bickering over meals or sharing quiet laughter that cut through the silence he used to call safety. At first it unsettled him, like living in someone else's rhythm, but slowly it became familiar.
Yet no matter how safe the new walls felt, his mind drifted back to the Lawless City.
---
The Dream of Crest
That night, sleep pulled him into something sharp and vivid. He saw Crest, a little girl alone in a place of shifting white walls. Her voice echoed, fragile and distant, like she was calling for someone who never came. He woke drenched in sweat, the image clinging to him.
The next day, he told Tara. She listened, arms folded, eyes narrowing with the kind of weight that carried secrets. Then she sighed and told him something he wasn't supposed to know: the White Room.
She explained in clipped, careful words. The White Room was a program under Concord supervision. A place designed to shape, test, and—sometimes—break children who might become Resonants. The ghoul Kai had faced earlier? One of the early results, an experiment that had escaped. "Never speak of it to anyone," Tara warned, her tone colder than usual. "It's confidential. Even talking about it could get you in trouble."
Still, she gave him a little more than rules. She admitted she was in line to become a Concord member herself, that with her rising influence, she might be able to help him someday. She even handed him a slip of paper with a secure website link. "Only those who know can enter. With permissions," she said.
Kai sat with the weight of it, thinking of Crest. He couldn't shake the dream, the hollow look in her eyes. She had no one. The thought burned inside him—he wanted to adopt her, to give her something better than the void she was trapped in.
Tara's face softened at that. "It's possible," she said. "But not yet. The White Room runs in cycles. Every five years, the Concord selects young people to become Resonants. Until then, she's under their control. When it ends, when she's free… then we'll talk about it."
It wasn't the answer he wanted, but it was a thread of hope. For Kai, that was enough to hold onto.
---
Return to the Apartment
By the time he got back, night had already settled over the city. The apartment was quiet, only Neo inside. He was sprawled on the couch, but he sat up as Kai came in. His eyes flicked to Kai's side, checking for any limp, any fresh pain.
"Looks like you're healing up," Neo said, voice lighter than the weight in Kai's chest.
Kai nodded. The medicine they'd given him for his kidney—the one part of his body that seemed to protest every step of survival—had finally dulled the ache. His ribs had knit, bruises fading into the background. He wasn't whole, but he wasn't falling apart anymore either.
He sat down across from Neo, letting the silence hang. For once, silence didn't feel like loneliness. It felt like rest.
The weeks had carved something strange into him: a rhythm. Lessons, meals, reclaiming fragments of the past, dreaming of futures not yet possible. Crest haunted his sleep, but the thought of someday saving her gave him purpose. And here, in this small apartment with two people who wouldn't let him disappear, Kai was learning what it meant to be safe.
And maybe—just maybe—he was starting to believe he could stay that way.