Lief's doubt lasted for about three seconds, before being swept away by a wave of exhaustion that weighed down his eyelids.
What does it matter?
If the neighbor's son wanted to stay up all night, soaking himself to the bone and playing Benjamin Franklin in the middle of a thunderstorm, that was his problem and his parents'.
However eccentric or suicidal the boy's behavior seemed, it paled in comparison to the emotional and physical rollercoaster Lief had just lived through.
His "weird things" bar was full for today.
The mental tiredness returned, clouding his judgment.
Yawning, he closed the curtain of the bathroom window, isolating him from the insane rain.
Right now, his only religion was sleep.
Even if the sky fell or the boy invoked Frankenstein, it would have to wait until tomorrow.
.....
The next morning, the world was a different place.
Lief woke up, not to an alarm, but to the unmistakable aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the crackling sound of bacon in the pan rising from the kitchen.
He opened one eye.
Sunlight filtered through the slits of the blinds, painting lines of dust in the air.
The apocalyptic storm from the night before seemed like a distant memory; looking out the window, the sky was an insulting blue.
He sat up in bed and stretched, feeling his vertebrae crack one by one.
...
"Good morning."
At the dining table, John turned the page of the newspaper without looking up.
"Morning, Dad," Lief replied, dragging a chair.
His mother was efficiency itself, and before he could fully settle, she had already slid a steaming plate in front of him: fried eggs with the perfect yolk, strips of crunchy bacon, and buttered toast.
"Eat quickly, the bus will pass in ten minutes," she urged, while also pouring him coffee. Then, she directed her attention to the other side of the table: "You girls too. Stop playing with your food."
"Got it, Mom," the three girls replied in unison.
"..."
Lief took a sip of his coffee, observing them over the rim of the cup.
The three looked like the picture of innocence.
However, at the precise instant their parents turned away, Lillith looked up and her eyes crossed with Lief's.
In a fraction of a second, the sweet girl mask vanished, replaced by coldness, before she composed that angelic smile again just as his mother turned around.
"We're leaving, it's getting late!"
John folded the newspaper under his arm and Sarah wiped her hands on her apron. Both kissed the girls' heads and headed for the entrance.
"Take care," Lief said, raising a hand.
"Goodbye, Dad! Goodbye, Mom!" shouted the three little ones, waving their hands enthusiastically.
The sound of the front door closing and the click of the deadbolt resonated in the house.
And then, the homey atmosphere evaporated.
Lillith dropped her fork onto the plate with a deliberate clatter. Her posture relaxed, losing all childishness, and she leaned back in the chair with a bored expression.
Next to her, Emma stopped chewing, while the corner of her mouth slowly curved upward.
Esther let out a long, heavy sigh, resting her chin on her hand with an expression of existential tedium.
Now this: "Fine, since you're done with the act..." Lief stood up, breaking the silence. "Finish eating quickly. The bus isn't going to wait for you."
After sending them off to the bus and watching them disappear around the street corner, Lief let out a sigh, ready to resume his own routine.
He turned to go back into the house and grab his backpack, but the sound of a door opening caught his peripheral attention.
At the house next door, the door cracked open.
Victor stepped out... and he looked terrible.
He was carrying a huge backpack on his back that seemed to weigh a ton, disproportionate for his thin and skeletal frame. His face was pale, and deep dark circles stood out under his eyes, screaming to the world that he hadn't slept a single minute.
He walked stiffly, looking all around nervously.
"Hello, Victor," Lief greeted, stopping in the driveway. "Good morning."
!
Victor gave a visible start, as if he had been given an electric shock.
He gripped the straps of his backpack with white knuckles and turned his head sharply, and seeing that it was just Lief, his shoulders relaxed.
"Ah... G-good morning... Lief," he stammered forcing a smile that looked more like a grimace of pain.
".."
Lief observed him closely, noticing the dried mud on his sneakers.
"Did you sleep well last night? The storm was crazy," he asked maintaining a casual tone.
Victor's gaze fled immediately. He fixed his eyes on the ground, kicking a small stone, unable to hold eye contact.
"The... the storm? Oh, yes... I guess," he shrugged. "I... u-uh... I slept very deeply. I really didn't hear anything."
Lief arched an eyebrow.
It was the most pathetic lie he had heard in a long time.
However, he decided not to press him.
"That is having a heavy sleep," he said with a slight smile. "Better run. The bus is about to pass and you won't want to be late."
"Y-yes... you're right. Bye, Lief."
Victor nodded quickly and walked away almost running, with the backpack bouncing heavily against his back.
Lief watched him walk away, and then went into his house to get his things.
While he walked toward school, his mind couldn't stop reviewing the image from the night before and connecting it with Victor's erratic behavior this morning.
That kid had done it.
Victor had revived his dog, Sparky.
The idea was absurd by any logical standard. But he had already seen enough things in this world to know that "normality" was a fragile concept.
Besides, what Victor had done transcended simple science... it bordered on magic.
He had used nature, stealing the raw energy of a lightning bolt, channeling it through kites to rip a soul from death and put it back into a patched-up body.
A genuine smile of admiration curved his lips.
Upon arriving at the campus, the atmosphere was chaotic. The hallways buzzed with conversations.
The topic of the day, of course, was the storm.
"Hey, did you guys hear? Last night's lightning fried the town substation! New Holland was in the dark for almost an hour!"
"My dad said he had never seen anything like it. He said the sky looked like it was breaking."
"The lights in my house flickered like there was a ghost or something."
Frank was in the center of the classroom spewing exaggerated theories while narrating his version of events to a group.
Lief entered the classroom, ignoring the white noise of the gossip.
His steps took him straight to his desk, in the back where he tossed his backpack before sinking into the chair and forming a pillow with his crossed arms on the table, resting his chin as the exhaustion returned.
Everyone... they only saw the light show.
None of them had the slightest idea that the true epicenter of that storm, all that energy, had not hit the substation by chance.
It had converged on his neighbor's roof, directed by the hands of a sad boy who missed his dog.
"..." He closed his eyes, preparing to sleep a little before the teacher arrived.
"What a damned genius."
The morning dragged on with an agonizing slowness.
He spent the hours in a state of suspended animation, with his chin resting on his hand and his gaze lost on some undefined spot on the blackboard.
The professor's voice, though passionate and theatrical in explaining, became an irrelevant background hum to him.
He already had that basic knowledge assimilated and his mind was operating on a completely different frequency.
While pretending to take notes, he took a mental inventory of his resources.
He had power, without a doubt.
He possessed high-caliber weapons like Ebony and Ivory, weapons capable of destroying supernatural threats, in addition to an arsenal of abilities that allowed him to confront demons and spirits.
But there was a fundamental imbalance in him: all his power came from the mystical side or the "system."
He was missing the other side of the coin: technology.
He needed an engineer, and not just any one, but a visionary.
Someone capable of looking at an artifact and not seeing "witchcraft," but a source of energy to be decoded.
He needed a "Technical Expert" with a mind open enough to accept the impossible and hands skilled enough to build the unimaginable.
Someone who could analyze the composition of his objects, replicate them, improve them, or even fuse magic with science to create a new type of weapon.
And the answer was literally living on the other side of his fence.
Victor Frankenstein...
'Such talent, such creativity... it's a waste that he only uses it to play with his dog,' he thought, drumming his fingers on the desk. 'He is the perfect candidate.'
An audacious plan began to crystallize in his mind. He had to recruit him. Victor had to become the brain behind his agency's technological development.
"Ding, ding, ding..."
The final bell rang, releasing the students.
Lief's lethargy evaporated instantly.
He got up from his seat with renewed energy and slung his backpack over his shoulder with a fluid movement.
The sleepy figure from a few seconds ago disappeared, replaced by that of someone with a clear mission
Leaving the building and ignoring the flow of students running toward the buses. He walked at a quick pace back to the neighborhood.
But he didn't go to his house.
Instead, he stopped next to the fence that separated his yard from the sidewalk.
He leaned on it with relaxed shoulders, put his hands in his pants pockets and fixed his gaze on the street corner, where the school bus always passed.
He was hunting. Or rather, he was waiting for his future investment.
And he didn't have to wait long.
A small, thin figure turned the corner, dragging his feet.
Victor walked with his head bowed, looking at the cracks in the sidewalk, with that huge backpack curving his back.
Upon seeing him, a smile spread across Lief's face.
"Let's hope he accepts."
The moment arrived.
Stepping away from the fence, he straightened up and fixed his shirt collar, using the movement to take a step toward cutting off the boy's path.
"Victor."
________
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