Sid sat alone in the dormitory chamber — if it could even be called that. The walls were steel, unadorned. The lights were dimmed, casting thin bars of shadow through the grated ceiling.
He stared at his hands.
They had stopped shaking, but they hadn't stopped burning — not really. That creeping flame from earlier, that whispering heat coiled beneath his skin — it still lingered like smoke in his veins.
He remembered the way Yara looked at him. Not impressed.
Wary.
Afraid.
I almost lost control…
The thought repeated in his skull like a curse.
He had wanted to prove himself. Just once. Just to show he wasn't some mistake of fate. But in that moment, he had stepped too far — and something had stirred in the dark beneath him.
A whisper.
A voice.
Not Nox. Not Yara. Not human.
"Let me help you."
He shivered.
He had heard it only faintly, but it hadn't come from outside. It had come from inside.
He clenched his jaw, trying to shake the memory.
"You're weak," it had said. "But I am not."
The door slid open behind him.
He didn't turn.
Footsteps. Familiar.
Nox.
The man said nothing at first. Just stood at the threshold, hands behind his back.
Then, quietly:
"You almost lost yourself."
Sid nodded. "I know."
"And yet… you wanted more."
Sid closed his eyes. "I didn't mean to. I just… I thought I could handle it."
"You thought wrong."
That silence again.
Cold. Final.
Then Nox walked further in and took a seat opposite him.
"You are afraid of what's inside you. That's good. That fear is what keeps it chained. But fear alone won't be enough."
Sid looked at him. "Then what will?"
Nox didn't answer right away. Instead, he pulled a small glass tube with rubber on it from his coat. Inside was a thin, pulsing liquid — dark, almost black, but threaded with a shimmer of red.
"This is blood," Nox said. "From someone like you. Someone who couldn't control it."
Sid's throat tightened.
"He burned his entire village," Nox said. "Didn't even realize he'd done it until the fire stopped. When we found him, he begged us to kill him."
Sid looked away.
"So we did."
The tube disappeared back into Nox's coat.
"This power does not forgive weakness," Nox said. "You either master it, or you become its puppet."
Sid buried his face in his hands.
He wanted to scream. Not because of the power — but because of the regret. Because a part of him, for one brief second, had liked it.
The strength.
The speed.
The way it made Yara falter.
And that scared him more than anything else.
"You'll need me eventually," the voice whispered again. "And when that day comes… I'll be waiting."
Later that night, as Sid lay in bed — if a slab of steel could be called that — he didn't sleep.
He didn't dream.
But the demon did.
And in the dark, the fire stirred.