Toronto, Ontario – August 24, 2025. 3:19 a.m. EST.
The east wing had settled into something that almost felt like routine, which was the most dangerous illusion of all.
Three days in the factory and the group had carved out fragile pockets of normalcy. A corner for sleeping, a corner for eating, a corner where Kwame's vines had grown into a loose lattice wall that let air through but muffled sound. They'd scavenged a few battery lanterns—dim, yellow, less eerie than the chemical sticks. The light made everyone's faces look softer, younger, more human. That was the lie.
Malik's fever had broken sometime after midnight. He was awake now, sitting propped against a stack of folded tarps, sipping water Aisha held steady. His voice was still rough, but the words came easier.
"You didn't have to bring me here," he said, eyes on his sister. "You could've left me."
Aisha didn't look up from the rag she was wringing out over a cracked plastic bowl.
"Shut up."
Malik gave a weak half-smile. "Still bossy."
She flicked water at his face. He flinched, then laughed—short, hoarse, real.
Elias watched from the far side of the bay, leaning against a support pillar. He hadn't slept. He rarely did now. The black vein that started on his forearm had crept across his collarbone overnight, thin and branching like frost on glass. Every few minutes it gave a faint, almost pleasant throb—reminding him it was still growing, still feeding.
Zara sat on a crate nearby, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. She'd been quiet since the elves. Not scared—more like she was turning something over in her mind and hadn't decided how to say it yet.
Jamal was sharpening the edge of his pipe against a broken concrete block. The scrape-scrape-scrape was steady, almost meditative.
Talia paced slowly along the vine lattice, eyes flicking toward the shadows beyond it every few seconds.
Kwame sat cross-legged near the vines, fingers buried in the soil that had collected in cracks. Small tendrils curled around his knuckles like affectionate pets.
No one spoke for a long time.
Then Malik broke it.
"So… what now?"
Aisha glanced at Elias without turning her head.
Elias pushed off the pillar. Walked over slowly. Stopped a few feet away.
"Now you rest," he said. "You're no good to anyone dead."
Malik studied him. "You're not telling me what happened to me. Why my veins look like yours."
"Because I don't know yet."
Malik waited.
Elias exhaled through his nose. "The Hollowed did something to you. Injected you, marked you, I don't know. It's the same root as what happened to me when I accidentally mainlined my own serum during the storm. Different dose. Different outcome. You're still you. Just… louder inside."
Malik looked down at his hands. The black threads under his skin pulsed faintly when he flexed.
"I can feel things. Not like Kwame's plants. Like… pressure. In people. In the air. Like the room is breathing and I can tell when it's about to exhale."
Elias crouched so they were eye-level.
"That's useful."
Malik's mouth twisted. "Useful like a bomb is useful."
"Everything's a bomb now," Elias said. "Question is whether you light the fuse or not."
Malik looked at his sister. Then back at Elias.
"You're not scared of me."
"I'm not scared of anything that bleeds," Elias said. Simple. Flat.
Aisha's hands stilled on the rag.
Zara spoke from her crate—soft, almost careful.
"You're not scared of much at all."
Elias didn't look at her. "Fear is expensive. I'm saving it for when it matters."
Jamal snorted without stopping the sharpening. "That's the most pretentious thing I've heard all week."
Elias glanced over. "You got a better line?"
Jamal thought about it. Shrugged. "Nah. Keep talking like that. Maybe the monsters'll die of secondhand embarrassment."
A small, surprised laugh escaped Aisha. She covered it quickly, but it was there.
The tension in the room eased—just a fraction.
Talia stopped pacing. Leaned against the vine wall.
"We can't stay here forever. Nightclaw might be polite now, but they're still predators. Hollowed are still out there. Elves too. And whatever else is waking up."
Elias nodded once.
"We don't stay forever. We stay long enough to breathe. Long enough for Malik to stand on his own. Long enough to figure out what we're actually dealing with."
Kwame spoke without opening his eyes. "And then?"
"Then we move. North. South. Doesn't matter. We pick a direction and we make it ours."
Malik looked around at them—six people who barely knew each other three days ago.
"You're building something," he said quietly.
Elias met his eyes.
"I'm surviving something. The rest is just math."
Malik didn't argue.
11:47 a.m.
The yard outside was quiet again.
Too quiet.
Elias stepped out alone.
He didn't tell anyone he was going. He just walked.
The air smelled of wet iron and distant smoke. The sky was low, gray, pressing down like a lid.
He stopped in the middle of the open space between buildings. Closed his eyes.
Breathed.
The black vein across his collarbone warmed.
Something shifted.
Not in his body.
In his vision.
When he opened his eyes again, the world looked… different.
Not dramatically. Not yet.
But colors were sharper. Edges cleaner. Faint violet threads drifted in the air—thin, almost invisible, like smoke from a candle that had just been blown out.
Energy.
Not heat. Not light. Something deeper. Flowing through living things, through the ground, through the walls.
He turned slowly.
Saw Aisha standing in the doorway, watching him.
Saw Zara a step behind her—closer than she needed to be.
Saw the faint violet lines that connected them both to him—thicker, brighter than the others.
Emotional resonance.
Attachment.
Conflict.
He blinked.
The threads dimmed. Not gone. Just… quieter.
Melancholy.
The name arrived without fanfare.
Not borrowed. Not copied.
His.
Born from melanin that had been pushed far beyond skin pigment. Eyes that had turned purple because they were saturated with it. A gaze that could read the flow of life itself—energy, intent, emotion—because every emotion had a weight, a current, a color in the spectrum only he could see.
He didn't smile.
He just exhaled.
And the world snapped back to normal.
Almost.
The violet afterimage lingered at the edges of his sight for several seconds.
Aisha stepped out. Walked toward him.
Not angry. Not soft. Just… present.
"You didn't tell us you were going outside."
"Didn't think I needed permission."
"You don't." She stopped a meter away. "But you're not invisible, Elias. We notice when you disappear."
He looked at her.
Really looked.
Saw the violet thread between them—taut, flickering, alive with worry and anger and something warmer she wasn't ready to name.
"You're worried about your brother," he said.
She blinked. "Yeah. Obviously."
"And about me."
Her mouth opened. Closed.
He didn't push.
Instead he said, "I saw something just now. Not with normal eyes. Something new."
Aisha waited.
"I can see… currents. Energy. The way things connect. The way feelings move through people like blood."
She studied his face.
"Your eyes are brighter," she said quietly.
"They've always been purple."
"Not like this."
He didn't deny it.
Zara appeared at the doorway. Watched them. Didn't come closer.
Aisha noticed.
She looked back at Elias.
"You're collecting people," she said. Not accusing. Just stating.
"I'm not collecting anyone," he answered. "People are choosing where to stand."
"And if they choose wrong?"
"Then they bleed. Same as the rest of us."
Aisha exhaled. Looked north.
"I want Malik safe. That's all I want right now."
Elias nodded once.
"Then we keep him safe."
She met his eyes again.
"And after that?"
He didn't answer immediately.
After a long moment he said, "After that we decide what kind of world we want to wake up in."
Aisha gave a small, tired smile.
"You make it sound simple."
"It's not simple. It's just the only option left."
She turned to go back inside.
Paused.
Looked over her shoulder.
"Your eyes are changing. Whatever you're becoming… don't forget who you started as."
Elias watched her walk away.
Then he looked at Zara.
She hadn't moved.
Just watched.
The violet thread between them was different—sharper, hungrier, less conflicted.
He didn't call her over.
He didn't need to.
She'd come when she was ready.
Or she wouldn't.
Either way, the current was there.
And he could see it.
(End of Chapter 9)