CHAPTER 1: THE WEIGHT OF A CROWN
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EXT. AURORA CITY SKYLINE – NIGHT
The city spread below like a live circuit board—millions of lights flickering in windows, along streets, across bridges. Forty stories up, the wind had teeth. It cut through the thin hoodie wrapped around a fifteen-year-old boy who was currently hurtling through the air with nothing but strands of pale-gold light keeping him from becoming a smear on the pavement below.
Rez's eyes went wide behind the blue mask covering the top half of his face. The landing ledge was coming fast. Too fast.
Thwip.
His right hand fired a thread toward a water tower. The energy strand caught—but the anchor point was wrong. The angle was off. He'd misjudged the distance by three feet, which at this height might as well have been three hundred.
REZ: Whoa—whoa—
His body whipped toward the building instead of arcing past it. He threw his left hand out, firing another thread on pure instinct. That one caught a drainage pipe, but the momentum was already twisted. His shoulder slammed into brick, the impact rattling his teeth. His grip slipped. For one horrible second, he was falling—
Then his threads caught him.
He dangled there, twenty feet above a fire escape, breathing hard. The pale-gold lines connecting his palms to the water tower and drainage pipe hummed faintly, visible only to him. Below, the city continued its indifferent hum—taxi horns, distant sirens, the bass thump of a passing car's stereo.
REZ: Nice save. Real graceful, Spider-Guy.
He pulled himself hand over hand until his sneakers found the fire escape ladder. The moment his weight settled on metal, the threads dissolved into nothing, their light winking out like someone had blown on embers.
Rez sat down heavily on the grated platform. His hands were shaking. They always shook after close calls. The crown-shaped mark on his chest, hidden beneath his hoodie, pulsed with a warm throb that matched his racing heart.
Three weeks since the first time the energy had manifested. Three weeks of sneaking out at night, testing limits, pushing further. And he still couldn't control it.
He pulled up his hoodie just enough to look at the mark. It glowed faintly—an intricate pattern of lines forming a small crown just below his collarbone. Sometimes it burned. Sometimes it hummed. Sometimes, like during the swing just now, it seemed to flicker, and the threads would waver like a bad signal.
REZ: I don't know what you want from me.
The crown, predictably, did not answer.
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EXT. ALLEYWAY – 47TH AND GRAND – LATER
Rez had planned to head home after the near-miss. Call it a night. Try again tomorrow when his hands weren't trembling and his shoulder didn't scream every time he moved it.
But then he saw the woman.
She was walking fast through the alley, a shortcut between two busy streets. He recognized the body language—head down, keys clutched between knuckles, shoulders tight. The walk of someone who knew this city's dark corners too well.
Behind her, twenty yards back, two men followed.
They weren't running. They weren't shouting. They were just there, matching her pace, hands in pockets, heads low. The kind of casual that wasn't casual at all.
Rez was on a rooftop across the street, about to swing home. He stopped.
Not your problem. You almost died five minutes ago. You can barely aim.
The woman glanced back. Saw them. Walked faster.
The men matched her pace.
Not your problem. Call the cops. Someone else.
One of the men reached into his pocket. Rez couldn't see what came out—but the woman saw it. Her stride broke into a run.
Rez was already moving.
He dropped off the roof edge, firing a thread toward a lamppost. The swing was sloppy—too much arc, not enough control—but it got him to the alley mouth ahead of the woman. He landed hard, stumbling, catching himself on a dumpster.
The woman skidded to a halt, eyes wide. The two men stopped twenty feet back, assessing.
Rez straightened. The hoodie. The mask. The way his hands still faintly glowed.
REZ: Evening.
His voice cracked. Great.
The woman stared. One of the men laughed—a short, humorless sound.
MAN: The hell is this? Some kinda cosplay?
The other man pulled a knife. Not huge. But real.
Rez's chest burned. The crown mark flared under his hoodie, responding to adrenaline, to fear, to the sudden spike of this is really happening.
REZ: I'm going to need you to walk away.
He tried to sound steady. He did not succeed.
The man with the knife stepped forward.
MAN: Or what? You gonna web me up, Spider-Boy?
Behind them, the woman was frozen. Rez could see her weighing options—run, stay, scream.
Focus. Protect her. That's the job.
He raised his hand, intent on firing a thread to disarm the knife. He visualized the energy lancing out, snagging the blade, yanking it away. Simple. Controlled. He'd practiced this on water bottles in an abandoned parking garage.
The energy erupted.
Instead of a single focused thread, a wild spray of pale-gold light burst from his palm. It hit the wall beside the men, the ground beneath their feet, the fire escape ladder above their heads. One strand wrapped around the knife—good—but another tore the ladder loose from its rusted bolts.
The metal groaned.
The men looked up.
The fire escape collapsed.
It didn't fall on them—they dove clear, cursing, scrambling. But it crashed down with a deafening screech, blocking the alley, throwing up dust and debris. The woman screamed. The men ran—not toward her, away, vanishing into the side street.
Rez stood in the middle of the chaos, chest heaving, hands still sparking with residual energy.
The alley was destroyed. A twisted mass of metal where a fire escape used to be. Garbage cans crushed. Bricks gouged.
The woman was staring at him.
Not with gratitude.
With fear.
WOMAN: You—
She ran. Away from him. Away from the collapsed alley. Away from whatever the hell he was.
Rez didn't follow.
He stood there for a long minute, alone with the wreckage, the fading glow of his powers, and the sick realization settling in his stomach.
You made it worse. You always make it worse.
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INT. REZ'S APARTMENT – NIGHT
The apartment was small—living room, kitchenette, two bedrooms. Warm light spilled from the living room where the TV murmured quietly. Rez slipped through his bedroom window, the one he'd learned to leave unlocked, and eased it shut behind him.
His room was dark. He didn't turn on the light.
Through the thin walls, he could hear them.
DANI (O.S.): —worried, Elena. I'm allowed to be worried.
Dani's voice. Low, steady, the voice she used when she was trying to stay calm.
ELENA (O.S.): I didn't say you couldn't be worried. I said we shouldn't ambush him the second he walks through the door.
DANI (O.S.): He comes home at midnight, Elena. Through the window. Like we don't notice.
A pause. Rez pressed his back against the wall, heart pounding. They knew? They'd noticed the window?
ELENA (O.S.): He's a teenager. Teenagers sneak out.
DANI (O.S.): Teenagers sneak out to see girls. Or go to parties. Rez sneaks out and comes back with bruises. I've seen them. Don't tell me you haven't.
Another pause. Longer.
ELENA (O.S.): I've seen them.
DANI (O.S.): Then what do we do? Confront him? Ground him? He's not a little kid anymore.
ELENA (O.S.): He's fifteen, Dani. He's still a kid.
DANI (O.S.): He's hiding something. And whatever it is... it's hurting him.
Rez closed his eyes. His chest ached—not from the crown, but from something heavier. Something that sat behind his ribs and made it hard to breathe.
He wanted to walk out there. Tell them everything. Show them the mark, the powers, the swinging, the collapse tonight. Let them fix it, because they fixed everything.
But they couldn't fix this. This was his. His burden. His mistake to manage.
He heard Dani sigh.
DANI (O.S.): I just don't want to lose him, Elena. Not to whatever this is.
ELENA (O.S.): You won't lose him. He's tougher than he looks.
DANI (O.S.): He shouldn't have to be tough. He's fifteen.
The TV声音 swelled—late-night host monologue, laughter track. The conversation shifted to something mundane. Work schedules. Grocery list. The small machinery of family life continuing despite the cracks.
Rez slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, knees pulled up, forehead resting on his arms.
The crown mark pulsed softly, warm against his skin.
You're not as invisible as you think.
Dani's words, but also something else. Something that made him lift his head.
His phone buzzed.
He grabbed it, squinting at the screen in the dark.
Unknown Number:
You're not as invisible as you think. We need to talk. —L
Rez stared at the message. His thumb hovered over the option to delete, to block, to pretend it never arrived.
The wind rattled his window. The city hummed beyond the glass. Somewhere out there, a woman was telling someone about the glowing boy in the alley who'd made everything worse.
And someone else—L—was watching.
Rez typed back, one letter at a time:
Who is this?
Three dots appeared immediately. Then:
Someone who saw what happened tonight. And someone who knows you can do better.
Meet me. Tomorrow. Roof of the Grand Street parking garage. Midnight.
Come alone.
The screen went dark.
Rez sat in the silence of his room, the weight of the night pressing down on him. The failed swing. The collapsed fire escape. The woman's terrified face. His moms' worried voices through the wall.
And now this.
He looked at his reflection in the dark window—a boy in a hoodie, a faint glow bleeding through the fabric over his chest, eyes he barely recognized.
He didn't know if he was ready for whatever came next.
But he was starting to think he didn't have a choice.
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FADE OUT.