Chapter 2

We took the stairs. The elevator was a death trap when you were dealing with Void Static.

As we climbed past the fourth floor, the air pressure dropped. My ears popped. The shadows in the stairwell seemed to detach themselves from the corners, stretching and warping like oil on water.

"Stay behind me," Silas commanded.

His voice had changed. It wasn't the rough baritone of my roommate anymore. It was deeper, layered with a resonant frequency that rattled the railings. His spine cracked audibly as he hunched forward, his fingernails lengthening into black, obsidian claws.

"I can walk, Silas," I wheezed, adjusting the straps of the heavy rig on my back. "I’m the one with the map."

"You are the payload," he corrected. "I am the delivery system."

We hit the landing of the tenth floor. The emergency light flickered and died, plunging us into darkness.

"Leo," Silas whispered. "Why are you doing this?"

The question caught me off guard. "What?"

"You haven't slept in three days. You risked your job. You risked your life. You are a genius, Leo. You could be solving energy crises or writing algorithms for billionaires. Instead, you are breaking the universe for a stray dog."

I paused, my hand gripping the cold metal of the railing.

I thought about the last two years. I thought about the isolation of my brain—the way I saw code where other people saw feelings. I thought about the night I found Silas bleeding out in an alley behind a dumpster, shivering from a dimensional sickness that no doctor could diagnose.

He was the only variable in my life that I couldn't predict. He was the only person who didn't look at me like I was a calculator.

"Because the math said it was impossible," I lied, keeping my voice steady. "And I hate being told what I can't do."

Silas snorted in the dark. He knew I was lying. He knew he was the only friend I had.

"Let's go," I said, pushing past the emotion. "Physics doesn't wait for sentiment."

We burst through the roof access door and into the storm.

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