I am 15 chapters ahead on my patreón, check it out if you are interested.
Patréon.com/emperordragon
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Chapter 148: The Seeds
The air in the clinic was thick and unmoving, heavy in a way that made breathing feel like a conscious effort. It carried the faint scent of antiseptic and cold metal, and beneath that, something older—something that didn't belong in a place meant for healing. The hum of the freezers filled the silence, low and constant, a mechanical heartbeat echoing through the tiled room.
Deaton stood before the microscope, his posture rigid, his eyes fixed on the slide beneath the lens. The pale circle of light revealed a smear of cells—twitching, shifting, alive in ways they should not have been. They pulsed in a strange rhythm, neither alive nor dead, yet refusing to cease. Each contraction seemed deliberate, purposeful—like the slow, dreaming heartbeat of something ancient that had never truly died.
Lucas stood beside the table, stiff and silent. His jaw was set, and his hands stayed tucked deep into the pockets of his jacket, as though holding back the storm that built in his chest. It wasn't the first time he had seen something that shouldn't exist, but there was something about this moment—a faint tremor in the air, a whisper of recognition—that unsettled him in ways he didn't want to admit.
"I saw it," he said finally, his voice low but steady, carrying the weight of certainty. "In the visions. The parasite didn't die six years ago. It survived—by splitting itself apart, leaving behind… a piece of itself."
Deaton's eyes flicked up, meeting Lucas's. The older man's expression was grim, unreadable except for the faint crease between his brows. "I reached the same conclusion," he said, each word deliberate, measured.
Lucas's gaze drifted to the petri dish resting beside the microscope. The faint smear of movement within it seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat. "But when I killed it, I made sure nothing survived. I burned it—completely. I'm certain I destroyed the entire parasite. I saw it die." His voice cracked slightly on that last word, as though saying it aloud invited doubt.
Deaton hesitated. It was a small thing, a flicker of uncertainty that crossed his face before vanishing again—but it was there, and Lucas noticed. "Then it must have already done it before your fight," Deaton said softly. "Like a plant leaving a "seed" in the ground. The body dies, but the seed remembers. Waiting for the right conditions to return."
The words hung between them, settling like dust in the still air. Neither man spoke. The silence of the clinic felt thicker now, alive somehow, as though it were listening.
Lucas exhaled slowly, his breath fogging slightly in the cold. "Then how do we kill something that can do that? For all we know, it could've planted hundreds of those seeds—across town, across the county. Each one waiting." His voice hardened, the calm mask beginning to crack. "Waiting to start over."
Deaton turned toward him, the steady calm in his eyes the kind that comes only after years of facing the impossible. "Every creature, no matter how adaptive, has a weakness," he said. "A tether that keeps it bound to the rules of its own existence. The parasite will be no different. We just haven't found what that tether is yet."
Lucas gave a small, sharp nod, though his mind was far from still. He stared once more at the writhing smear beneath the glass. The slow, hypnotic pulse of it drew his gaze until he could almost see his reflection merging with it—his own shadowed eyes glinting faintly red in the microscope's light.
"I'll leave you to your tests," he said at last, taking a step back. "I've got people I can reach out to. Contacts who've seen… stranger things than this. Maybe they've heard whispers."
Deaton nodded once, distracted, his gaze still locked on the scope. "Go. I'll compile what I can from the cellular data."
Lucas hesitated at the door, glancing back once. The fluorescent light above him flickered—once, then twice—before steadying again. The hum of the freezers deepened, resonating through the floor, almost like a voice too low to hear clearly.
Then he was gone. The door closed behind him with a hollow click.
Deaton exhaled, the sound small but weary. "Let's hope," he whispered to the empty room, "we find our answers before the parasite finds its strength again."
Beneath the glass, the cells were no longer dividing. They moved with intent, aligning with slow precision. Their once-chaotic twitching had changed—organized—into thin, deliberate filaments stretching outward across the glass slide.
They reached toward the edge of the slide—toward the light, or perhaps toward something unseen—coiling like new roots pushing through soil after long rain.
Deaton's breath caught as he realized the filaments were moving toward the edge of the slide—toward the faint trace of his own fingerprint left on the glass.
And still, they grew.