The rooftop of Maywether High-School was quiet in a way that felt unnatural.
Not silent.
Controlled silent.
Below, the building was still alive in its modern rhythm.
Surveillance bots drifted between corridors like slow metallic fish in an invisible aquarium, their optical sensors scanning every corner in smooth repeating cycles.
They were normal.
Expected.
Part of the school’s safety protocol since the early 2900s.
They hovered through stairwells, classroom halls, even outside the athletic wings, mapping behavior patterns and reporting anomalies to the central system.
But here—
Above it all—
Nothing moved.
No drones.
No hovering cameras.
No silent security units gliding across the rooftop perimeter.
Just open air.
And the city stretching beyond it like a sleeping mechanical ocean.
Damien noticed immediately.
He stepped fully onto the rooftop, the door sliding shut behind him with a soft mechanical click.
Dr.
Frost was already waiting.
Still calm.
Still composed.
Like he belonged there more than the building itself.
Damien’s eyes narrowed slightly.
The absence of surveillance wasn’t accidental.
It felt… deliberate.
And that made the situation worse.
Because people who controlled surveillance didn’t usually turn it off unless they didn’t want something seen.
Or unless they didn’t care if it was seen.
Dr.
Frost turned slightly toward him.
The wind moved gently across the rooftop, brushing against both of them.
The city lights flickered in the distance like distant stars trying to pretend they were close.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then—
It happened.
Dr.
Frost moved.
There was no warning.
No shift in posture.
No buildup of tension that the human eye could naturally catch.
Just motion.
A single step forward that became a strike.
His fist collided with Damien’s face with a sharp, clean impact that echoed through the rooftop like a cracked signal.
The force sent Damien’s body backward.
He hit the ground hard, sliding slightly across the rooftop surface before stopping near the edge markings.
A metallic taste filled his mouth instantly.
Blood.
It dripped from the corner of his lips in a thin red line.
For a second, Damien just lay there.
Staring upward.
Processing.
Not fear.
Not confusion.
Just calculation trying to catch up to something it had never been trained for.
Then he slowly pushed himself up.
His eyes locked onto Dr.
Frost.
“What the fuck did you do that for?” Damien said sharply, his voice carrying something it almost never did.
Anger.
Dr.
Frost didn’t look alarmed.
If anything, he looked… amused.
He exhaled a small laugh.
Not loud.
Not mocking.
Just like someone confirming a theory.
“This must be new to you, I presume,” Dr.
Frost said casually, stepping closer.
His voice was calm, almost conversational, like they were discussing weather patterns instead of assault.
“The tingling in your face, I mean.”
He tilted his head slightly.
“That is what normal people call pain.”
He watched Damien carefully.
“I’m willing to bet my life this is the first time you’ve felt something like this.”
Damien wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand.
His eyes didn’t leave Dr.
Frost.
The sensation still lingered.
Sharp.
Unpleasant.
Real.
It wasn’t just pain.
It was information his body had never needed to process before.
Dr.
Frost continued, pacing slowly now.
“And that red liquid,” he added, glancing at the smear of blood on Damien’s hand, “is called blood.”
He smiled faintly.
“You must have seen it before. On screens. In training simulations. Maybe even in accidents far away from you.”
A pause.
“But never like this.”
He stopped walking.
Turned fully toward Damien.
“Now,” he said, voice lowering slightly, “let me get to the main point.”
Damien’s jaw tightened.
Dr.
Frost pointed at him lightly.
“Have you ever wondered where your exaggerated physical prowess comes from?”
Silence.
The wind shifted again.
Somewhere far below, a drone passed by, unaware of what was happening above.
Dr.
Frost didn’t wait for an answer.
“Or why you’ve never fallen ill once in your seventeen years of life?”
His gaze sharpened slightly.
“Or why you look like a top-level athlete without ever lifting a finger?”
Damien didn’t speak.
But something inside him tightened.
Not fear.
Recognition without context.
Like hearing a word you don’t remember learning but somehow understand.
Dr.
Frost stepped closer again, slower this time.
“People like you don’t just exist by chance,” he said quietly.
“Not in this era. Not on this planet.”
A faint pause.
Then he sighed, almost like he was annoyed at how complicated things were.
“If you really want to know,” he said, reaching into his coat pocket, “I suggest you find me by the end of the week.”
He pulled out a small object.
A card.
It looked simple at first glance.
But Damien noticed something off immediately.
It wasn’t paper.
It wasn’t plastic.
It was some kind of hybrid material that didn’t reflect light properly.
Like it existed slightly out of sync with the rooftop lighting.
Dr.
Frost held it up.
“This,” he said, “will lead you to the location of our next meeting.”
He paused again, squinting at it slightly as if even he wasn’t fully confident in it.
“I think.”
Damien frowned.
“…You think?”
Dr.
Frost smiled.
Not reassuringly.
More like someone standing at the edge of certainty, deciding whether to step forward or step back.
“Hey, what do you—”
Damien started forward.
But Dr.
Frost interrupted instantly.
“See you then, Mr. Gray.”
And then—
He was gone.
Not a jump.
Not a teleport effect with light distortion or sound cues.
No mechanical transition.
No traceable movement.
Just absence.
One moment he was there.
The next, he wasn’t.
The rooftop air felt slightly heavier afterward, like reality had been disturbed and quickly stitched back together.
Damien stood still.
Holding nothing but the fading sting in his face and the strange card still resting in his mind more than his hand.
He slowly looked around.
Empty rooftop.
No footsteps.
No exit movement.
No drone interference.
Nothing.
Only the distant hum of the city below and the faint wind brushing across the rooftop edge.
Damien stared at the space where Dr.
Frost had been.
His expression remained controlled.
But his thoughts were no longer quiet.
Pain still lingered in his face.
Real pain.
Not simulated.
Not accidental.
Not familiar.
And that alone made everything Dr.
Frost said echo louder than it should have.
Seventeen years.
No illness.
No injury that ever felt like this.
No limits that ever made sense when tested against normal human comparison.
He slowly looked down at his hand again.
At the faint smear of blood.
Then back toward the empty rooftop.
“…What am I?” he muttered under his breath.
The wind didn’t answer.
But for the first time in his life—
Damien Gray didn’t feel like the world was normal anymore.