The blue light of the floating prompt faded, but the fire it left in Zephyr's blood did not. He stood in the center of the clearing, his chest heaving, feeling as though his soul had been rewritten.
The cat ran and was gone, a golden ghost lost to the brush, but it had left something behind. Something heavy. Something hungry.
He looked down at his hands. They looked the same, yet they felt different. Every nerve ending was singing, vibrating with a high-frequency awareness.
He could feel the exact direction of the wind against his peach-fuzz skin; he could hear the skittering of a beetle under a log twenty feet away.
Then, the sun began to dip below the horizon, casting the woods into a bruised purple twilight. Normally, this was the time Zephyr's heart would fail him.
The darkness was where the "things" lived. But as the shadows lengthened, his eyes did something impossible.
There was a sharp, audible click behind his pupils.
The world didn't go dark. Instead, the forest floor ignited in a spectrum of silver and neon grey.
The deep shadows under the ferns became as clear as a midday meadow, rendered in sharp, monochromatic detail.
He could see the veins in the leaves; he could see the moisture clinging to the bark of the high oaks.
[Night Vision: Active]
The whisper in his mind was cold, but the thrill in his gut was hot. He wasn't just seeing like a cat; he was starting to feel like one. A restless, coiled energy settled into his thighs and lower back.
He ran.
This wasn't the desperate, heavy-footed sprint of the boy who had collapsed in the snow three years ago.
This was liquid.
This was silent.
He moved through the tangled undergrowth without snapping a single twig. His feet found the narrowest paths between the thorns with an instinctual precision that bypassed his brain entirely.
He leapt over a fallen cedar, and for a second, he felt the gravity let go. He didn't just jump; he launched, landing on the other side with his knees bent, his fingers grazing the dirt for balance.
He was a predator. And for the first time in his life, he wasn't the one being hunted.
By the time he reached the cottage, the stars were out, but to Zephyr, it felt like twilight. He was vibrating with a terrifying, beautiful secret. He burst through the front door, the wood slamming against the brick wall.
"Flor! Flor, you won't believe it!"
Flor was at the hearth, stirring a pot of thick mutton stew. She jumped, the wooden spoon clattering to the floor. "Zephyr! Heavens, boy, you scared the life out of me! I was about to go out with a lantern looking for you. You've never stayed past the door even more so out past dusk."
She hurried to him, her face etched with motherly worry, but as she reached for his face, she stopped.
Her hand hovered in the air. "Your eyes..." she whispered. "Zephyr, your pupils... they're like needles."
Zephyr grabbed her arms, his grip firm and energized. "I touched it, Flor. The cat. The gold one by the oaks. There was a light, a screen in the air, and then I... I could see. I could hear the wind before it hit the trees. I ran all the way back and I didn't even break a sweat!"
Flor pulled back, a nervous laugh escaping her lips. "Slow down, child. You've had too much sun. The wind? Seeing in the dark? You've just got a bit of a fever from the excitement of finally going outside."
"No! Look!" Zephyr scanned the room, his mind racing. "There's a mouse behind the flour sack. I can hear its heart beating. It's fast, thump-thump-thump."
Flor sighed, her expression softening into pity. She reached out and felt his forehead. "You're cool as a stone. It's just your imagination, Zephyr. The mind plays tricks when we finally face our fears. Sit. Eat some stew. The world is just the world, no matter how much we want it to be magic."
"I'm not lying!" he cried, frustration bubbling over. "I feel it! There's a cat inside me, Flor! It's waiting to move!"
But Flor only shook her head, turning back to the stove. "Eat, Zephyr. Tomorrow we'll see things clearly."
The frustration was a physical weight in his chest. He couldn't let her believe he was losing his mind. He needed to prove that the boy she saved was no longer just a broken refugee.
He bolted for the stairs.
"Zephyr? Where are you going?" Flor called out, her voice rising in alarm.
He didn't answer. He threw open the small window in his attic bedroom. The night air rushed in, smelling of woodsmoke and damp earth.
Outside, the thatched roof sloped steeply down toward the garden. It was a twenty-foot drop to the hard-packed dirt below, enough to break the legs of any normal man.
He climbed onto the windowsill. His heart hammered, but not with the old fear. The "Chimera Link" in his blood whispered to him: The distance is nothing. The landing is certain.
"Zephyr! Get down from there!" Flor had followed him up, her face turning ghostly pale as she saw him balanced on the ledge. "Are you mad? You'll kill yourself!"
"Watch," Zephyr said. His voice was calm, almost predatory.
He didn't just fall; he pushed off.
Flor screamed, rushing to the window, her hands covering her mouth. She expected the sickening thud of bone against earth. She expected to see her son crumpled in the dirt.
But Zephyr didn't fall like a boy.
In mid-air, his body twisted with an impossible, fluid grace. His spine arched, his limbs extending instinctively to catch the air. He flipped, his eyes locked onto the ground with surgical focus.
He hit the dirt with a soft whump.
He didn't land on his feet. He landed on all fours, palms flat, knees bent, his weight distributed perfectly across his limbs.
His head was up, his gaze sharp and wild. He didn't stumble. He didn't groan in pain. He looked like a statue of a crouching panther carved from the moonlight.
Flor stood at the window, frozen. The silence was absolute, broken only by the distant hoot of an owl.
Slowly, Zephyr stood up, dusting the soil from his trousers. He looked up at her, his eyes catching the light of the indoor candles and reflecting a bright, feline emerald.
"I told you," he whispered, his voice carrying through the still night. "I'm not just Zephyr anymore."
Downstairs, Flor stumbled out the front door, her knees trembling. She approached him as if he were a wild animal that might bite. She looked at the height of the roof, then back at him.
"How?" she breathed, her voice cracking. "What did that cat do to you?"
Zephyr looked at his hands, where a faint blue glow was beginning to pulse again. The screen flickered back into existence, visible only to him.
[Acclimatization Complete: 100%]
[New Ability Available: Silent Step]
"I don't know," Zephyr admitted, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his face. "But I think I want to find out what else is out there in the woods."
Flor didn't smile back. She looked at the small boy she had raised for three years and, for the first time, she felt a flicker of the old fear, not for him, but of what he was becoming.