Dawn bled through the blinds, painting stripes of pale gold across Kai's bedsheets. He lay perfectly still, eyes fixed on the ceiling, counting each breath as if it might be his last. The morning light felt too bright—an intrusive spotlight on the charade he was about to perform.
Act normal, move normal, and be normal.
His body ached in places that shouldn't exist—deep in the marrow, behind his ribs, where something coiled and uncoiled with every heartbeat. But when he rolled up his sleeves, his arms were clean. No black veins. No bone ridges splitting through skin. Just the same old scars, silvered with time.
Was it a dream?
Then he caught it—the faintest trace of synthetic strawberries clinging to his jacket sleeve.
No. She was real. The band is real. And now...
Now he had to walk through the halls like nothing had changed.
The corridors of Wolfram Institute buzzed with their usual morning rhythm—students shuffling to class, laughter bouncing off reinforced glass windows, the ever-present hum of the air filtration system. Kai moved through it like a ghost, his footsteps deliberately measured.
A security drone whirred past, its red sensor blinking. Kai didn't flinch, but his fingers twitched at his sides.
Are you watching me?
His reflection caught in a hallway panel—pale, sharp-featured, gray eyes shadowed from lack of sleep. The face looked the same as it always had. But it felt like a mask now, stretched too tight over something that didn't belong.
I'm still me.
But what does that even mean anymore?
Professor Veldt's voice droned through the lecture hall, dry as the holographic text scrolling beside him.
"—which brings us to the ethical implications of gene-editing without consent," he said, tapping the projection. A DNA strand twisted in midair, its helix splitting under simulated scalpel-light. "The GCC's stance is clear: human genetic material is inviolable without express—"
Kai's pen stilled on his notes.
Consent.
The word lodged in his ribs like a knife.
No one had asked him if he wanted a parasite living in his veins. No one had given him a choice before stitching something other into his DNA.
Across the room, Aria glanced at him, her brow furrowing. Kai forced his grip on the pen to loosen, his face smoothing into blankness.
Don't react. Don't give them a reason to look closer.
But the irony burned—here they were, debating ethics in a school built on secrets, in a world where the rules only applied to those who didn't know how to break them.
Veldt continued, oblivious. "—of course, these are purely hypothetical scenarios. Wolfram's research adheres strictly to—"
Kai tuned him out, staring at his hands.
Hypothetical.
Right.
Outside the window, a Pulse Tower hummed, its energy field rippling faintly against the morning sky.
Kai wondered how long it would be before something—or someone—finally cracked.
---
The courtyard was alive with the chaos of lunch period—shouts bouncing off concrete, the rustle of paper bags, the occasional shriek as someone's drink tipped over. Kai sat on his usual bench, the one wedged between a gnarled oak and the science wing's back wall, his hood pulled up just enough to soften the sunlight without looking suspicious.
In his hands, a crumpled paper bag. Inside, the real currency of Wolfram Institute: candy.
Strawberry chews. Sour belts. Chocolate coins stamped with the GCC logo (black market, obviously).
He lined them up on the bench beside him, methodical, like a dealer setting up his wares. The ritual was familiar. A role he'd carved for himself over years—The Candy Distributor. It had started as a way to keep people at arm's length while still keeping them close. Now, it was camouflage. A tiny, sugar-coated rebellion against the sterile, controlled world of the Institute.
And today, it was the only thing holding him together.
They arrived in their usual, chaotic fashion.
Yona came first, a whirlwind of limbs and loudness. She attempted to vault over a nearby bench, misjudged the distance, and face-planted spectacularly onto the pavement.
"I'm fine!" she yelled, popping up like a demented jack-in-the-box, grass stains on her elbows. "This was a social experiment! Data collected: concrete is hard."
Kai tossed her a grape gummy without looking. She caught it mid-air, then leaned in so close her nose almost brushed his.
"You look hot today," she whispered, her breath sticky-sweet. "Like—sick hot. You okay?"
Her usual flirting, but there was a thread of something real underneath. Something that made his chest ache.
Too close.
He nudged her away with his elbow. "Eat your candy, Yona."
Aria arrived next, swinging a bag of apple slices like a weapon. "Emotional support tax," she declared, plucking a chocolate coin from Kai's stash before he could protest.
"That's theft," Kai said flatly.
"It's charity," Aria corrected, grinning. "You're basically a public service at this point." She lobbed an apple slice at his head. He caught it, barely. "Also, your mysterious brooding aura is at, like, an all-time high. Very cinematic."
"Thanks," Kai deadpanned. "I practice."
She winked. "It shows."
Emil slid onto the bench beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed. He didn't say anything at first, just grabbed a sour belt and chewed thoughtfully, his gaze flicking over Kai's face.
"You're quiet," he said finally, voice low.
"I'm always quiet."
"Yeah, but today you're broodier quiet." Emil nudged him. "Still having the nightmares?"
Kai's fingers twitched.
"Nothing new," he lied.
Emil held his stare for a beat too long, then shrugged, forcing a grin. "Cool. Just checking if I need to stage an intervention with more candy."
"Always."
Lani was last, as usual. She didn't sit, just hovered at the edge of the group, her sharp eyes missing nothing. When she finally spoke, it was in that quiet, matter-of-fact way of hers.
"You missed questions three and seven on the quiz," she said, holding out a stick of licorice like a peace offering. "You never miss."
Kai took the licorice. "Maybe I'm slacking."
"Unlikely." She adjusted her glasses. "Stress causes pattern disruption. Talk if you need."
"I'm good," Kai said, popping the licorice into his mouth. "Just tired."
She didn't look convinced.
Kai handed out candy with practiced ease—a sour belt to Emil, a strawberry chew to Aria, a chocolate coin to Lina. The routine was muscle memory by now.
Keep them close. Keep them distracted. Keep them from looking too hard.
They laughed, bickered, stole from each other's lunches. Aria started a food fight over apple slices. Yona attempted (and failed) to balance a gummy bear on her nose. Emil threw a sour belt at Lina, who caught it without looking, her expression unimpressed.
It was warm.
And Kai felt like a ghost watching from the outside. Every smile he forced was a lie. Every laugh was a rope he was barely holding onto.
But I'm not the same anymore.
Still, he kept handing out candy, as if sugar could glue the fractures in his world back together.
---
The library windows stretched high, framing the sky in panes of dust-specked glass. Kai sat alone at a corner desk, his fingers tracing the edge of his phone screen absently. Outside, the clouds rolled in slow, heavy waves, their underbellies stained violet by the distant Rift scar—a jagged tear in the horizon that never fully healed.
His thumb hovered over his messages, scrolling through the familiar chaos of his friends' texts:
Yona: "Let's sneak out tonight. I wanna steal muffins from the kitchen. Also, you look like you need a hug. Or a muffin. Or both."
Aria: "You owe me candy. Your debt grows. Interest rate: 100% per day. Pay up or face my wrath."
Lani: "Your quiz average dropped 3.2%. I'm concerned. Also, you're out of sour belts. This is statistically related."
Emil: "Seriously though. You good? And don't say 'fine.' I know your 'fine' voice."
Kai's chest tightened.
I want to tell them.
But the words lodged in his throat, bitter and impossible.
If they knew…
Would Yona still grin at him like he was just Kai, the candy-hoarding weirdo? Would Aria still throw apple slices at his head? Would Emil still sit beside him in comfortable silence, or would he flinch away?
Would they look at him the way everyone looked at the Rift—like something broken?
The parasite shifted inside him, a slow, mocking ripple.
"You think they're still your friends," it murmured, voice like oil on water. "You think that matters."
Kai clenched his jaw. Shut up.
He stood abruptly, shoving his phone into his pocket. The chair scraped against the floor, too loud in the quiet library. A few students glanced up, then just as quickly looked away. He shouldered his bag and walked out.
---
His locker clicked open with a familiar groan.
Something tumbled out—a small, foil-wrapped candy, rolling to a stop at his feet.
Kai froze. It wasn't his brand.
He bent slowly, picking it up. The wrapper was pink, the kind of cheap strawberry sweet sold in bulk at convenience stores. The exact kind Sylvie had been chewing the night before.
She was here.
His fingers closed around it, the crinkle of foil deafening in the empty hallway. For a long moment, he just stood there, staring at the candy in his palm. Then, without a word, he pocketed it and shut his locker.
The bell rang overhead, sharp and final.