The hum of the lab was no longer just sound — it was pulse.
It lived in the walls, in the wires, in the spaces between heartbeats. Leo felt it before he even opened the door, that quiet, mechanical rhythm syncing with his own. It had become his second heartbeat. His second cage.
Felix stood by the console when Leo entered. The pale light from the monitors carved faint hollows beneath his eyes. He didn't look up when he spoke.
"You're late."
"I didn't think time mattered down here."
"It matters to those who waste it."
Leo exhaled softly. "I didn't sleep."
Felix turned then, finally meeting his gaze. His eyes were steady, but behind the calm was fatigue — not of the body, but of restraint.
"You'll need focus," he said. "Fatigue breeds distortion."
He gestured to the center table. Glass basins gleamed under cold light, each filled with water clear enough to look like air. Wires looped through them like veins.
Leo hesitated. "This doesn't look like science."
"It's closer to prayer," Felix murmured, fastening a thin sensor around Leo's wrist. "Today, you learn to move what refuses to be held."
Leo half-smiled. "That's comforting."
Felix said nothing. The machines whirred alive with a low, rising hum. The water trembled. "Begin with breath. Let the pulse guide you, not the thought. Cohesion first. The rest will follow."
Leo placed his hands above the basin. His reflection wavered — tired eyes, bruised crescents beneath them. He inhaled, matching the rhythm that thrummed under his skin. Slowly, the water rippled, then stilled again.
"Good," Felix said quietly. "Now persuade it to move."
The surface shivered once, then again. Ripples gathered at the center like breath drawn inward. Leo didn't move his hands. The water rose — thin, trembling — then fell with a soft splash.
He blinked. "That—"
Felix didn't let him finish. "Again."
The second attempt lasted longer. A dome formed, perfectly smooth for half a heartbeat, then collapsed. Water scattered across the table, wetting his sleeve.
Leo laughed under his breath — not joy, just disbelief. "I actually did it."
"It's physics," Felix said, eyes fixed on the readings. "Just the kind no one writes down."
Leo pressed a hand to his forehead. "Feels like running with my mind."
Felix adjusted a dial. "Because you're forcing what should be allowed. Water listens. It doesn't obey."
Leo frowned. "That's a nice riddle, but I have no idea what it means."
"Stop thinking. Feel the rhythm, then step aside. The energy doesn't want control — it wants coherence."
Leo tried again, slower. The water followed this time, a narrow thread twisting upward like breath made visible. For a moment, it hovered there — weightless, luminous.
Then pain flared.
A searing pulse ran up his arm. The mark of the Bracelet lit through his skin like a live ember.
Felix was beside him in an instant. "Stop." His tone wasn't sharp — it was final.
The thread collapsed, splashing down. Leo staggered back, clutching his wrist. "I didn't—mean to—"
"You reached too far," Felix said, adjusting the monitor. "Your resonance spiked beyond safety."
"I thought that was the point."
Felix's eyes flicked toward him. "Control isn't conquest."
Leo's voice broke. "Then what is it?"
"Survival."
Silence filled the room, punctuated only by the steady drip of water from the table's edge.
Felix removed the sensor, his movements careful, precise — the way someone handles fragile glass. Then, almost softly: "You did well. Better than expected."
Leo gave a thin smile. "Progress that almost kills me. Great sign."
Felix's mouth twitched — not amusement, but something quieter. "Every discovery begins with pain. The question is whether it ends there."
Leo didn't answer. The basin beside him quivered, ripples moving though he hadn't touched it. His reflection smiled a half-second late, and his chest tightened.
He said nothing. Neither did Felix.
The next morning, the lab felt sharper. The air carried the faint sting of ozone.
A tall glass chamber now stood where the basin had been. Fog swirled inside it, silver and restless. Felix stood beside it, entering commands.
"I'm not getting in there," Leo said.
Felix didn't look up. "Not yet. The chamber is for control, not confinement."
"Comforting."
"Not meant to be."
He handed Leo a new wristband, sleeker, colder. "Today you shape air."
Leo blinked. "You mean gases."
"Names don't matter. Air moves faster than thought. You'll learn to follow it without losing yourself."
Leo hesitated, then strapped the band on. "And if I do lose myself?"
Felix's tone didn't shift. "Then I'll find you before it kills you."
That wasn't reassurance — but it was something like care.
The hum deepened. Inside the chamber, fog began to curl, rising like smoke. Felix's voice dropped low. "Don't command it. Listen. Every current wants to return home."
Leo exhaled slowly. The fog moved. Not from wind, but from rhythm — his rhythm. Threads of vapor twisted into a spiral, gentle at first, then sharper, forming a small cyclone that shimmered like glass.
Felix watched, still as stone. "Good. Now hold."
The spiral trembled. Leo's focus wavered.
Felix coughed — just once. The sound fractured the silence.
The cyclone snapped, slamming into the chamber wall with a deep boom. A pressure wave burst outward, rattling the glass and knocking equipment from the tables.
"Stop!" Felix's voice cut through the roar.
"I can't!"
Felix lunged, hitting the kill switch. The chamber hissed; the fog collapsed inward. Silence fell, thick and echoing.
Leo knelt, dizzy, gasping for breath. "It—it felt alive."
Felix crouched beside him. His voice was quiet, but there was steel underneath. "It was. Air remembers movement. Once you teach it chaos, it repeats it."
Leo lifted his eyes. "You said it listens. What happens when it stops listening?"
Felix stood, checking the monitors. "Then you've taught it to speak."
Leo stared, unsure if that was a warning or a confession.
The readings pulsed red. Felix's brow furrowed. "Your resonance increased by forty percent during the surge."
"Is that… bad?"
"If you were ordinary, it would've killed you."
Leo swallowed. "Then what am I?"
Felix didn't answer. He turned away, the question hanging between them like static.
The next day, the lab was quieter — but not calm. The hum had shifted, higher, electric. The walls glowed faintly with contained energy.
"Plasma," Leo said under his breath as he entered. "You're serious."
Felix stood beside a reinforced platform, its edges lined with insulated cables. "You've learned structure," he said. "Now you learn what happens when there is none."
Leo approached slowly. "And if I lose control again?"
Felix met his gaze. "Then I stop you."
There was no threat in his tone, but no mercy either.
He handed Leo a glove — metallic, lined with micro-filaments that pulsed faintly. "This will help direct the current."
"Help," Leo echoed. "Not protect."
Felix's silence confirmed it.
The machines came alive with a sharp, rising hum. The air itself began to shimmer.
"Focus," Felix said. "Think of a single pulse — light without shape."
Leo closed his eyes. The rhythm within him grew louder, aligning with the lab's electric song. A spark flickered between his fingers — small, trembling, alive.
"I see it," Leo whispered.
Felix's tone softened. "Guide it. Don't hold."
The spark stretched upward, a slender filament of white-blue light. Heat built in his arm, too fast. "Felix—"
"Steady."
The light swelled, blinding. It snapped outward, striking the far wall in a burst of white. Metal scorched. The air filled with the scent of ozone and something bitter — burnt resonance.
Leo fell back, blinded. The hum roared from inside his chest, not from the room. The light flared once more — and then everything went still.
When sound returned, it was only his breathing.
Felix was beside him, shutting down the consoles. "Leo. Look at me."
"I'm fine," Leo rasped.
"You're burning out."
"Then why doesn't it hurt?"
Felix checked the readings — then stopped. His hand trembled once before he stilled it. "Because it's learning you."
Leo tried to laugh but couldn't. "That doesn't sound better."
Felix looked up, eyes distant. "Plasma has no memory, no restraint. It mimics the one who calls it. You didn't control it — it recognized you."
Leo's chest tightened. "Recognized me?"
"As one of its own."
Silence. The hum faded, leaving only the sound of Felix's breathing — ragged, uneven.
Leo watched him. "You're shaking."
"Overextension," Felix said. "It'll pass."
But it didn't sound like belief.
The following morning, the lab was wrong.
Too still.
The familiar vibration through the floor was gone.
Felix stood by the console, hands braced against the metal. He didn't turn when Leo entered.
"You're pale," Leo said carefully. "And not in your usual way."
Felix's answer came after a long pause. "Late nights. The systems needed correction."
"After I nearly set your lab on fire, you mean."
Felix's mouth lifted faintly. "It survived."
Leo studied him. The dark beneath his eyes was worse. His posture slumped, shoulders drawn inward — as if gravity had found him at last.
"You sure you're okay?"
"I'm functioning."
"That's not the same."
Felix said nothing. He turned a dial that didn't need turning.
Leo's voice softened. "You said the resonance passes through you when I train. That it stabilizes through you."
Felix froze, then replied without looking up. "It does."
"And that's why you look like this."
He didn't answer.
Leo took a step closer. "You didn't tell me it hurt you."
"It wasn't relevant."
"It feels relevant when your hands are shaking."
Felix's reflection wavered in the glass — eyes hollow, expression unreadable. "Don't worry about me."
"I already am."
The air between them tightened, filled with things neither wanted to name.
Felix finally turned, his face composed but pale. "This isn't killing me, Leo. It's reminding me I'm still human."
The words sounded like they were meant to reassure. They didn't.
He picked up a small device from the table — a resonance stabilizer — and adjusted its fading light until it steadied. "We'll resume soon," he said. "Your body adapts faster each time. That's promising."
Leo studied him. "You sound like someone trying to convince himself."
Felix didn't deny it.
After a moment, Leo said quietly, "Then maybe we stop for a few days."
Felix's head lifted sharply. "We don't have a few days."
The weight in his tone stilled Leo where he stood. "What do you mean?"
Felix turned away again, typing something into the console. His voice was low, final. "Go home, Leo. Rest."
The dismissal felt colder than any machine hum.
Leo hesitated, wanting to say more — then didn't.
He left the lab without another word.
In the stairwell, the air was colder. Through the heavy door, he could still hear the systems winding back to life — and beneath them, a faint cough that didn't stop.
Leo gripped the railing, his pulse matching the rhythm of that sound.
For the first time, he wondered whether this training was meant to make him stronger —
or to keep Felix alive.