The lights were dying.
Zayn stood at the threshold of his chamber, a quiet figure carved in contrast against the strobing red alarms behind him. The corridor stretched ahead, cast in flickering emergency light, bathed in shadows that danced across titanium walls. Sirens screamed somewhere deep in the facility, mechanical and terrified.
He stepped forward slowly, barefoot against the cold alloy floor, his body trembling... not from fear, but from control.
Every inch of his skin buzzed with invisible static, a current beneath the surface. Something had cracked open in him during the tests, and now, that fracture was leaking.
The Aether around him no longer obeyed physics.
It feared him.
His footprints did not burn, but the lights above flickered out each time he passed under them. The facility sensors couldn't track him. Cameras shorted out. Even automated doors hissed open before he touched them, almost like the technology knew it couldn't contain him anymore.
He was in the deepest part of Section 14 now... and he wasn't alone.
---
Level Six: Experimental Containment Zone
The hallway ahead was lined with reinforced containment pods, each bearing a glowing status light. Most were red. Some blinked orange. One pulsed a deep, ominous purple.
Zayn paused at a pod with a cracked viewing window. Inside, a humanoid figure crouched motionless in a fetal position. The limbs were elongated, too many joints, the skin like metal stretched over bone. One eye glowed. The other was missing.
The nameplate read:
SUBJECT 12-B: KAIROS
Status: Dormant / Aggressive
Trait: Chrono-Inversion / Non-Sapient
Zayn stared at the creature for a long time, then turned away. As he did, the creature moved.
Just slightly.
He kept walking.
---
Elsewhere, on Level 3
Captain Lauren, the security commander ducked beneath a burst of stray plasma as he barked into his comms.
"Containment integrity has failed on levels five through seven. We have multiple breach events. Class-2 and above. Repeat, we are experiencing full-scale system collapse."
Static.
No response.
Laren wiped blood from his visor. His team had entered Section 14 as backup, unaware that the facility had housed experimental anomalies so far outside the standard power scale. He had lost three men already. Whatever caused the breach... it wasn't just a system failure.
It was intentional.
And the central node was missing.
"Where's Subject ZC-Null?" he shouted.
A technician, bleeding from a split scalp, looked up in horror.
"He's not in the chamber. Sir... he walked out."
---
Zayn reached a junction. The sign overhead glitched, flickering between "Upper Deck Access" and "Core Lab." Something tugged at his chest, pulling him to the left. Toward the Core Lab.
He moved without hesitation.
Doors opened ahead of him. Security bots flared to life but immediately seized up and collapsed as he passed. One of them convulsed, its glowing eye fading to black.
Zayn walked past them like a ghost.
But inside... he was burning.
His pulse thundered in his ears. Not from fear, but from resonance. The deeper he moved into the facility, the stronger the sensation became. He felt like he was walking through a pressure field.
As if the walls themselves were reacting to him.
He passed a wall mirror.
His reflection... blinked at him.
But he hadn't.
He froze.
The image in the mirror leaned forward, grinning.
"You're catching up," it whispered.
Then it vanished.
Zayn staggered back.
"What... the hell was that?"
---
Flashback: Sector 19, Age 13
He was running from enforcers. His ribs were cracked, blood dripped from his temple. He had stolen medicine for a sick child, and the enforcers wanted to make an example.
He ducked into an alley.
A woman stood at the far end. Pale. Wrapped in a gray shawl. Her eyes glowed faintly blue.
"Not yet," she said calmly. "You're not ready."
Then she vanished into mist.
---
Back in the present, Zayn clutched his head.
The visions were growing. Sharper. Not memories. Premonitions?
The Core Lab doors hissed open.
Inside, the chamber was massive. A spherical space with a giant Aether engine suspended in the center. Cables stretched like spiderwebs, all feeding energy into the black cube at the core. The hum of power was deafening.
Zayn stepped inside... and the engine flickered.
Every instrument trembled.
The black cube, the main Aether nexus of Section 14 began to disintegrate.
Like ash blowing in reverse.
Energy peeled from it, folding inward like collapsing paper. The chamber lights dimmed to nothing, and the backup power slammed on with a surge of static.
The voice of the facility AI crackled to life.
"WARNING: Central Core destabilized. Evacuate immediately."
Zayn stood at the center, staring up at the unraveling engine. He reached up instinctively.
The engine groaned.
It screamed.
Then...
It went quiet.
The cube was gone.
In its place... floated a sphere of swirling black light, like a miniature storm made of oil and stars. A shape pulsed inside. A crystalline shard.
Zayn stepped forward, drawn.
His body tingled. The veins in his arms lit up violet. His skin crawled.
As he reached out, the shard hovered toward him.
He touched it.
And the world shattered.
---
Inside the Null Zone
Zayn opened his eyes... and found himself floating.
There was no sky. No floor. Just an endless horizon of black glass and silver clouds. Shapes moved beneath the surface. Shadows of creatures, fragments of memories.
A voice echoed.
"You are not chosen... you are created."
Zayn turned. A figure stood nearby... featureless, glowing.
"You are the first born of silence. A counterweight. The others bring fire, storm, gravity... but you... bring stillness."
Zayn stepped toward it.
"What am I?"
"You are what should not exist."
---
Henna ran through the upper corridor, a data pad clutched to her chest. Her lungs burned, her legs numb. Alarms rang all around, and bodies littered the path. Some were torn apart. Others were... crystallized.
She stopped near a shuttered console.
Pulled up Zayn's last scan.
And gasped.
"His resonance curve... it's no longer flat. It's inverted."
She turned to Velon's last recorded log.
"If the Nullborn reaches the core… containment is no longer theoretical. It's spiritual. He doesn't just erase power. He cancels reality's need for it."
Henna stared at the screen in horror.
"He's becoming a black hole... for rules."
---
Back in the Null Zone
The void pulsed.
Zayn felt the shard slide into his chest like a whisper. No pain. Just fusion. His body lit up from the inside.
And for the first time... the voices went silent.
He stood.
The void cracked.
And then...
Boom.
He erupted into reality.
---
Facility Core – Present
The lab exploded outward. Panels blew apart. Glass shattered.
Zayn stood in the center, alive, untouched.
His eyes... no longer human. Black sclera. Violet irises.
He looked up as emergency teams burst in.
They opened fire.
Bullets disintegrated midair.
One soldier screamed as his rifle melted in his hands.
Zayn raised a hand.
The entire squad collapsed.
Not dead.
Just... shut off.
Like machines losing power.
Zayn walked through the smoke, eyes glowing, the air rippling around him.
And for the first time, he smiled.
He didn't understand it all yet.
But he was no longer a question.
He was an answer.