Jup sat frozen on the mattress.
Every sound came sharpened: shoes scraping the floor, a tool case hitting the ground too fast, Dominique’s uneven breathing, Mark’s low urgent voice telling someone to hurry, and Aya repeating his name as each call drew closer.
For a moment, he thought Civic had found him.
Then Aya appeared in the doorway.
She stopped so abruptly that Mark nearly collided with her.
Dominique clung to her side, wrapped in the same blanket from the couch, her eyes red and far too awake for morning.
Behind them stood a building worker with a compact door tool and a maintenance case, his expression already shifting toward regret.
The room caught their attention first.
Broken lamp.
Scattered tools.
Scorched wall.
The ruined pieces held them only briefly before their focus settled on Jup: sleeves riding high on his wrists, shirt strained across broader shoulders, street grit still clinging to his shoes.
The worker glanced past him into the room, then back at Jup.
“Nope.” He raised one hand and retreated.
“I fix doors. Not whatever this is.”
He turned and left.
No one stopped him.
Aya stepped forward slowly, as if any sudden movement might make Jup vanish.
Her eyes traced his face, jaw, shoulders, and new height, taking in the frame that still resembled her son while no longer matching the boy who had opened the box only hours earlier.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
Jup opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Mark moved fully into the room, attention snapping from the doorframe to the glass on the floor, then to Triōhnah on the desk.
“We came back with help because your door wouldn’t open. The building system flagged smoke and kept trying to contact emergency services. Then we got back and the door was… normal.”
His attention settled on Jup.
Dominique stared up at him.
“Why are your clothes too small?”
Jup glanced down.
Sleeves too short.
Shoes crushing his toes.
Ordinary details, which somehow made the impossible harder to stand inside.
Aya reached toward his face and stopped short of touching him.
Her hand trembled.
“You were screaming. We thought you were dying.”
“I’m okay,” Jup said.
“No.” Aya’s voice sharpened.
“You don’t get to say that after what we heard through that door.”
The words tightened the room.
Mark’s jaw clenched.
“What happened in here?”
Triōhnah’s frame rested on the desk like a second set of eyes.
Jup couldn’t explain the drone, the street, the concrete yielding under his hand, or the way his body had been dismantled and rebuilt with improvements he had never asked for.
So he offered the smallest truth he had.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer,” Mark said.
“I know.” Jup’s voice came out raw.
Mark studied him another second, then pointed down.
“Your shoes.”
Street dust.
Pale concrete streaks.
Of course Mark noticed.
“I couldn’t breathe in here,” Jup said quietly.
“So I went outside.”
Aya recoiled.
“After what happened?”
Mark dragged a hand over his face.
“You went outside after all that?”
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
Aya’s face changed at that, but before she could answer, his wrist comm flickered near the bed.
The projection tried to unfold, flashing a distorted image for less than a second: a figure in a hoodie, a crowd pulling back, a Civic drone descending, his face swallowed by static.
Then the screen went black.
Aya’s expression shifted.
“That was you?”
Jup’s throat tightened.
“I didn’t mean to.”
Mark stepped back, needing distance.
“You need a clinic.”
“No.” The answer came too fast.
“If I go anywhere official, they’ll scan me.”
Mark didn’t argue.
That told Jup enough.
Aya’s mouth pressed into a hard line.
“Then we need someone off-record.”
“No Civic,” Jup said.
For a moment, they stood together in the wreckage with that agreement sitting between them.
Whatever had happened to him, they were already hiding it.
Dominique spoke in a smaller voice than usual.
“Are you still you?”
Jup crouched slowly so he was closer to her height.
The movement came too smoothly, too balanced inside his altered frame, and everyone noticed.
“I’m still me.”
Dominique studied him.
“You’re taller.”
“I know.”
“And scary.” She hesitated.
“A little.”
His chest tightened.
“I know.”
Her eyes shifted past him to Triōhnah.
“That thing is ugly.”
For the first time since waking up, something almost like a laugh moved through Jup’s throat.
“It’s not exactly my favorite either.”
Triōhnah’s lens clicked once and turned toward Dominique.
LIFE-FORM SCAN INITIATED
Dominique froze.
“Why did it look at me like that?”
Jup stared at the drone.
Did you just scan my sister because she called you ugly?
The answer settled directly into his awareness, precise and contained, without distance or direction.
Correction: I scanned all nearby life-forms.
Jup went rigid.
The voice hadn’t come from the drone.
It hadn’t crossed the room at all.
It had appeared inside him.
How are you doing that?
Cognitive interface established during host stabilization.
His stomach tightened.
You connected to my head?
Partially.
Can they hear you?
No. Can you hear me when I think?
Yes.
Jup stared harder at the drone.
That’s worse.
Host cognitive pattern is partially accessible.
Partially?
Enough to identify panic, hostile intent, pain response, and repeated bad decision patterns.
Repeated what?
Bad decision patterns.
You keep saying that like you’re not one of them.
Assessment disputed.
Jup stopped breathing for a beat, and the room seemed to slip out of focus.
Aya remained beside the bed.
Mark stood near the door.
Dominique watched him from inside her blanket.
Everything appeared normal, yet normal had lost its authority because something was speaking inside a place no one else could hear.
His fingers curled against his palm.
“Jureel,” Aya said sharply.
Jup blinked.
Everyone was staring.
Dominique leaned a little closer to Mark.
“He did the creepy statue thing.”
Mark kept his attention on Jup.
“You were staring at nothing.”
“It didn’t feel that long,” Jup said.
“It felt long from this side,” Aya replied.
Jup swallowed and forced himself to stay with them, even as Triōhnah’s presence pressed against the back of his thoughts like a door that had opened where no door belonged.
Triōhnah’s lens shifted across the room again.
LIFE-FORM SCAN COMPLETE
No immediate contamination detected.
Jup turned toward the desk.
“…what?”
Aya caught the reaction instantly.
“What just happened?”
“Nothing,” Jup said too quickly.
Mark narrowed his eyes.
“You keep saying that.”
Jup barely heard him.
Contamination?
Corrupted life-energy residue.
Classification incomplete.
Jup held his face steady.
Is my family in danger?
Negative.
His attention moved to Dominique beside Aya.
Then why are you telling me this?
Host stabilization activated monitoring protocols.
Monitoring for what?
Corruption.
Hostile intent.
Structural instability.
Output failure.
That list did nothing to comfort him.
A shift moved behind Jup’s ribs, deeper than pain, like pressure turning slowly in a place his body had never had before.
His breath caught, though the room itself hadn’t changed.
Aya was watching him.
Mark waited near the door.
Dominique clutched the blanket tighter.
Only Jup felt it.
Triōhnah’s voice cooled.
Divine Core activity stabilized.
Jup’s fingers tightened against his palm.
Divine what?
Dormant Essenz structure.
Active now.
Your body was altered to survive it.
The words landed too cleanly for something that made no sense.
You’re saying this was already inside me?
Affirmative.
And Dad knew?
Unknown.
That answer hit harder than Jup wanted it to.
A thin pulse moved once behind his ribs, and words unfolded across his awareness without appearing in the room.
ESSENZ FRAGMENT DETECTED
STATUS: CORRUPTED / ISOLATED
Jup stared past the wreckage while the words stayed fixed somewhere behind his eyes.
Fragment?
Unsafe residue, Triōhnah answered.
It has been isolated to prevent contamination.
His fingers curled slowly against his palm.
The word contamination did not belong in a bedroom with his mother standing close enough to touch him and Dominique wrapped in a blanket near the door.
Can it hurt me?
If containment fails, yes.
Jup looked toward Aya, then Dominique, then Mark, taking in how close they all were to something inside him he did not understand.
Can I use it?
Negative.
Purification is required before integration.
Purification for what?
Essenz stabilization and core-level progression.
The phrase landed too cleanly, too organized, as if whatever had crawled into his life already had rules waiting for him.
Core-level progression?
One hundred purified fragments may form one standard Essenz Core.
Jup’s mouth went dry.
One hundred?
Affirmative.
Standard Essenz Core formation is not equivalent to Divine Core formation.
Normal words.
A standard core is condensed Essenz.
Your Divine Core is source-level.
The room seemed to narrow around that answer.
Already?
Affirmative.
You already possess a Divine Core.
Then what are fragments for?
Corrupted fragments are residue.
Purified fragments are progression material.
That answer was worse than a warning because it sounded like a rule.
Triōhnah continued before he could decide if he wanted one.
Purified fragments may increase Essenz density, improve regulation, strengthen synchronization, and support future Divine Ability development.
They do not create your Divine Core.
Jup stared at the broken lamp, the scattered tools, the damage on the wall.
Everything in the room had become evidence of a night he still could not explain, and now there was a piece of it inside him with a number attached to it.
And I have one?
One corrupted fragment, Triōhnah corrected.
It is isolated, not purified, and not integrated.
That did not make it feel safer.
If anything, it made the thing inside him feel more deliberate, like a splinter someone had wrapped in glass and left near his heart.
So I’m collecting pieces of whatever that thing left behind?
Current fragment originated from corrupted Essenz residue.
That’s not a no.
No. Jup swallowed, but the tightness in his throat stayed where it was.
How do I purify it?
Current host stability is insufficient.
Process unavailable until regulation improves.
Unavailable?
Locked.
For once, he was grateful Triōhnah did not continue.
“Jup,” Mark said.
Jup’s eyes snapped toward him.
Mark’s expression had shifted from fear to something sharper.
“You stopped again.”
Dominique looked between them.
“Is he talking to the ugly thing?”
Jup’s stomach dropped.
Aya went rigid.
“What?”
“I don’t know!” Dominique said quickly.
“He keeps looking at it without looking at it.”
Mark faced Jup fully.
“Is she right?”
Jup’s mouth opened.
Closed.
Triōhnah offered nothing.
That felt intentional.
Jup glanced at the drone, then back at his family.
“It’s… doing something.”
Dominique’s eyes widened.
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Mark stepped closer.
“Can it hurt you?”
Triōhnah sat silent on the desk, lens dim, like it had nothing to do with the terror it had put inside him.
“I don’t think it’s trying to.”
“That is not the same as no,” Mark said.
“I know.”
Aya’s face went pale, though her voice stayed steady by force.
“Can it hurt us?”
Jup took in Dominique, Mark, then Aya.
They were close enough to touch him, close enough to be hurt by anything inside him he didn’t understand.
“No,” he said.
Triōhnah’s answer arrived a fraction later.
Current family threat level: negative.
He kept that part to himself.
Aya watched him like she knew he had withheld something.
Maybe she did.
Mothers had their own systems.
“Whatever this is,” she said carefully, “you are still in this room with us.”
Jup nodded once, not trusting his voice yet.
Mark’s eyes flicked to the drone.
“And if that thing says or does anything important, you tell us out loud.”
Dominique lifted one hand halfway.
“Unless it’s rude about me.”
A weak breath escaped Jup despite everything.
Correction available.
Don’t.
Correction withheld.
The broken glass scattered across the floor caught a thin line of afternoon light.
Some birthday.
The thought came and went before he could hold it.
“I don’t know how to explain it yet,” he said.
“But Dad left something he shouldn’t have.”
Aya froze.
So did Mark.
“That’s all?” Mark asked.
“No,” Jup said quietly.
“But it’s all I know how to say right now.”
Aya closed her eyes for one breath.
When she opened them, Jup saw how hard she was working to stay upright.
“We clean this room,” she said.
“We get him clothes that fit. We keep him away from Civic. The rest comes after everyone stops bleeding inside.”
They worked in near silence.
Mark swept glass with sharp, angry strokes.
Aya checked Jup’s ribs three separate times.
Dominique sat on the bed, blanket pulled tight, watching Triōhnah like it might blink.
By afternoon, the room looked less destroyed, which somehow made it feel more dishonest.
The lamp was gone.
The wall dent and burn mark remained.
So did the fact that Jup had to roll up his sleeves because they no longer reached.
Aya handed him one of Mark’s older shirts without comment.
It fit better.
Everyone grew quieter.
Jup tried to eat and discovered the hunger had changed too.
The first bite barely touched the emptiness in him.
“You always eat like that now?” Mark asked.
Jup only looked at the empty wrappers because no better answer existed.
As evening settled over the apartment, exhaustion replaced the panic none of them had named.
Mark rubbed the back of his neck.
“My break is almost over. I’m supposed to head back soon.”
The weight of that settled over them.
Mark could help for now, but not forever.
Before he looked away, his eyes caught Jup’s for one second.
Whatever anger had been there had thinned into worry.
“Don’t make Mom chase you again,” he said.
Dominique eventually fell asleep on the couch.
Jup sat on the floor of his room, back against the bed, while Triōhnah rested on the desk.
He lifted his wrist and activated his comm.
No Civic alerts.
Just the regular interface.
For some reason, that felt worse.
The thin band around his wrist recognized the movement.
A soft pulse crossed his skin, and a translucent screen unfolded above his palm in familiar blue light.
Most people kept the compact display active, though comms could expand into larger interfaces when needed.
Some even shaped themselves into phone-sized projections because old habits survived longer than technology did.
Jup barely noticed anymore.
He had used one since he was a kid.
He opened the neighborhood repair board, where people posted small jobs when they couldn’t afford certified services or didn’t want questions.
Three nearby requests stood out: small repairs, walking distance, decent payout.
For a moment, the simple list steadied him.
Wires, panels, loose fittings, broken locks—problems with edges he could see.
Then the thought hit hard.
Tomorrow was quarterly scan day.
CMAS recalibration.
Full biometric assessment.
Ki evaluation.
Updated rankings broadcast across the academy.
Taller.
Stronger.
Wearing Mark’s clothes because his own no longer fit.
And scanners waiting for him.
His stomach tightened.
The academy scanners might not recognize him anymore.
He wasn’t sure he wanted them to.
A repair board could ignore him.
A scanner could report him.
He locked in the requests and lowered his wrist.
Soon, he would fix machines that actually wanted fixing.
Everything else could wait.
“Machines are easier,” he said quietly.