The world returned in a throbbing, nauseating pulse. Leo lay on the cool linoleum of his apartment floor, every nerve ending screaming in protest. It wasn't pain, not exactly. It was a profound, systemic emptiness, as if his very soul had been used as fuel. The coppery taste of blood was thick in his mouth, and a dark, red smear decorated the floor beneath his nose.
He had done it. He had stopped the Grief-Eater.
The thought was a tiny, fragile lifeboat in a sea of exhaustion. He clung to it, even as his body felt like a shattered vessel. He tried to move, to push himself up, but his limbs were leaden, unresponsive. The simple act of blinking felt like a monumental effort. This was the cost. The Hundredfold Application didn't just borrow energy; it took a loan against his entire being, physical and mental, and demanded immediate repayment with interest.
He must have passed out, because the next thing he knew, the harsh white light of morning was streaming through his window. The headache had receded from a blinding nova to a dull, persistent throb behind his eyes. He could move again, shakily, like a newborn fawn. Stumbling to the sink, he gulped down water, his body craving hydration. He was ravenously hungry, his stomach a hollow pit.
As he mechanically ate some nutrient paste from his dwindling supplies, his mind began to clear, and with clarity came fear. Not of the Gloaming, but of his own actions. He had interfaced with the enclave's core network. He had overridden a secured system. That would leave a log, a digital fingerprint. He was a data clerk; he knew how this worked. The system administrators, the Sweeper command, someone would be looking for the anomaly.
He was no longer just an ordinary man with a secret. He was a fugitive in the making.
For three days, he lived in a state of heightened paranoia. Every footstep in the hallway outside his apartment made him jump. Every official-looking vehicle that passed his window sent a jolt of adrenaline through him. He didn't dare use his talent again, the memory of the collapse too fresh.
He went back to work, the monotony of data entry now a strange, comforting shield. He kept his head down, his movements small and unremarkable. He was playing the part of Leo the Zero with an Oscar-worthy performance, all while his mind screamed that he was anything but.
His supervisor, a perpetually weary man named Mr. Evans, stopped by his cubicle on the fourth day. "Leo. Sweeper Command has a data collation request. High priority. They need someone to cross-reference maintenance logs from Sector 7 with energy spike reports from the day of the... incident. You're good with this tedious stuff. Handle it."
Leo's blood ran cold. The incident. This was it. They were closing in. They were testing him.
"Of course, sir," he heard himself say, his voice miraculously steady.
He spent the day buried in the data, his heart hammering against his ribs. He saw his own digital ghost in the logs—the unauthorized access, the command string that activated the purge conduit. It was all there, a glaring red flag. But to his surprise, the official report attached was marked "Conclusion: System Glitch / Unexplained Resonance Event." They hadn't found him. They had dismissed a miracle as a malfunction.
The relief was so potent it left him dizzy. They weren't as omniscient as he feared. Their understanding of the Gloaming, and of anomalies like him, was flawed. This was his advantage.
But as he was about to log off, a new file appeared in the shared drive, unflagged and unannounced. It was a personal memo from Captain Valerius, head of the local Sweeper contingent. The subject line was simple: "Observation."
The body of the text was even more cryptic.
*"The Grief-Eater's dissipation pattern was atypical. Not dispelled. Unraveled. The energy signature of the purge conduit was 400% above standard output, yet the conduit itself shows no stress fractures. Cause: Unknown. Hypothesis: An external catalyst amplified the effect. An Aptitude of significant, focused power. The individual responsible remains at large. Monitor for further anomalies. They will likely manifest again. Power of this magnitude is not easily contained."*
They knew it wasn't a glitch. They knew someone was out there. And Captain Valerius, a man renowned for his cold, analytical brilliance, was hunting him.
Leo deleted the file from his local terminal and cleared the cache, his hands trembling. The shield of obscurity was cracking. He couldn't just hide. He had to learn. He had to control this power before it controlled him, or before it drew the wrong kind of attention from both inside and outside the walls.