Jason came back to himself slowly.
Not with a start. Not with panic. Just a slow, uncomfortable awareness of weight.
His cheek was pressed into something soft and wet. His arms were wrapped around it. His fingers had gone stiff.
The rain had lessened. It fell now in a steady, tired drizzle instead of the earlier downpour. The pit smelled worse than before. Water had pooled in the lower edges, turning ash into a thick paste that clung to everything.
He didn't open his eyes immediately.
His body felt strange.
Heavy, but not in the way it should have. The bruises were still there. He could feel the soreness in his ribs when he inhaled. But underneath that… something else sat in his chest. Warm. Faint. Steady.
He swallowed. His throat was dry despite the rain.
Then he realized what he was holding.
His eyes opened.
The dark, rounded mass was still pressed against him, tucked between his chest and forearms like something he had protected in his sleep.
For a moment he didn't remember picking it up.
Then it came back in fragments. The warmth. The pulse. The way it had felt alive under his hands.
He pushed himself upright slowly.
Mud slid from his shoulders. His head was aching but didn't spin. He had expected dizziness. Nausea. The kind of weakness that followed a beating and a night in the rain.
Instead, he felt… alert.
Too alert.
The thing in his arms shifted slightly as he moved.
Jason froze.
It had not rolled. It had not slipped.
It had shifted.
He stared down at it.
Its surface looked almost dull in the gray light. Dark brown, nearly black, streaked with muck. No visible seams. No cracks. No sign it had ever been broken off from something else.
He lifted one hand carefully and pressed two fingers against it.
Warm.
Not faint warmth this time.
Actual heat.
His fingers twitched.
He should drop it.
He should throw it back into the refuse and climb out before anyone came looking. If someone saw him clutching this thing like a starving dog, it would only confirm what they already thought.
But he didn't drop it.
Instead, he lifted it slightly away from his chest and examined it more closely.
It was heavier than it looked. Dense. His arms trembled slightly as he adjusted his grip.
A faint ripple passed across its surface.
He blinked.
Nothing.
Rain slid over it in thin lines.
He shifted it again. Mud peeled away in clumps.
There.
For a second, under his palm, it thudded.
Slow.
Deep.
Jason's own heartbeat stuttered in response.
He held still, barely breathing.
The thud did not come again.
He told himself it was his imagination. His pulse echoing through his arms. The rain playing tricks on sensation.
He let out a careful breath.
Then he pressed his ear against it.
Cold rain soaked the side of his face immediately. The surface of the thing was smoother than he had realized, almost… leathery.
He listened.
Nothing.
Only the distant drip of water sliding down into pooled sludge.
He stayed like that longer than he meant to.
Then, faintly, so faintly he almost convinced himself he was inventing it, something vibrated under his ear.
Not a sound.
A tremor.
Slow.
Jason jerked back so abruptly he lost his balance and slid sideways into the mud.
The object rolled from his arms and settled a few inches away.
He scrambled backward, breath coming faster now.
It lay there, half-cleaned by rain, unassuming.
Still.
His heart hammered.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
The pit remained what it was. Rotting wood. Torn sacks. The dull gray of morning light pressing in from above.
He swallowed.
"You're tired," he muttered to himself.
His voice sounded rough. Scraped thin.
He crawled forward again despite himself and reached out slowly.
His hand hovered just above it.
Warmth brushed his palm before he touched it.
He clenched his jaw and grabbed it firmly.
Heat flared sharper this time.
Not burning.
But deeper.
It traveled up his arms, into his shoulders, across his collarbones like something spreading beneath skin. His breath caught.
He gasped and nearly dropped it again.
The sensation didn't stop.
It moved downward too, into his ribs, down his spine. A heavy pulse behind his sternum. Not pain. Not exactly.
Pressure.
His vision flickered at the edges.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
For a heartbeat, darkness filled him.
Not the darkness behind closed lids.
Something larger.
Something open.
He saw nothing clearly. No shapes. No forms.
Just the sense of vast space.
Then it was gone.
Jason opened his eyes abruptly.
The pit returned.
The rain. The stink. The estate walls barely visible beyond the slope.
He was kneeling in mud, clutching a piece of trash like it mattered.
He laughed once, short and strained.
The sound startled him. It didn't feel like his.
He lowered the object into his lap and examined it again, forcing his breathing to slow.
There were faint lines along its surface now that he hadn't noticed before. Not cracks. More like ridges. Subtle. Organic.
He traced one with his thumb.
It seemed to respond.
A faint warmth intensified along the path of his touch.
Jason jerked his hand away.
"No," he whispered.
He did not know what he was refusing.
He tried to stand.
His legs obeyed more easily than expected. The soreness in his ribs remained but dulled, as if pushed slightly farther away from the surface of his thoughts.
He climbed halfway up the slope of the pit before slipping again. Mud clung to his boots.
He looked down at the thing in his arms.
He should leave it.
If he carried it back toward the estate walls and someone saw, they would ask questions, gossip or even might want to take it from him even though it looks nothing other than a waste. Or worse, accuse him of stealing something cursed.
But the idea of setting it back down made his chest tighten.
It was ridiculous.
It was refuse.
He told himself that.
Still, he tucked it against his side and climbed the rest of the way out.
The ground beyond the pit felt firmer. Grass bent under the weight of rain. The estate walls rose ahead, gray and indifferent.
He took a few steps away from the pit and paused.
His breathing felt deeper.
Not easier. Just fuller.
He flexed his fingers.
They didn't tremble.
He glanced down at his bruised knuckles.
The swelling looked slightly reduced.
He stared at them longer than he meant to.
That wasn't possible. Not overnight. Not after yesterday.
He touched his cheek carefully where Marcel's fist had landed.
Tender.
But not as sharp as it had been before he lost consciousness.
He exhaled slowly.
This is nothing, he told himself. The rain cooled the swelling. That's all.
The object shifted faintly again under his arm.
He tightened his hold instinctively.
A strange thought crept in.
If he let go of it now, something would go quiet inside him.
He didn't know how he knew that.
He just did.
He turned away from the estate and took a few steps toward the tree line instead.
He needed to think.
He needed to understand what he was holding.
As he walked, he felt it again.
Not in his hands this time.
In his chest.
A second rhythm.
Slower than his own.
He stopped mid-step.
The warmth pulsed once.
Deep.
Jason pressed his palm flat against his sternum.
His own heart hammered beneath it.
But beneath that… something else answered.
He stood there in the drizzle, mud streaked across his clothes, clutching something he did not understand, and listened to two beats where there should have been one.
A cold realization slid quietly into place.
Whatever this was, it was unknow and
It had found him.