"Please… speak of this to no one," Felzein murmured, his voice low yet resolute, the kind of voice that carried not volume, but gravity.
It hung in the air like the final chord of a solemn oath, cloaking the room in silence once more.
Rosa's lips quivered as she bit down gently, her eyes shimmering with the threat of tears.
"F-Felzein…" she breathed, his name escaping her like a sigh tangled in sorrow, as though a single syllable might bear the full weight of her confusion, fear, and aching need to understand.
Melati said nothing.
She stood utterly still, her voice stolen by the sight before her.
Felzein, no longer the fragile patient clinging to life, but a figure clad in radiant, alien armour.
The metallic sheen caught the light like tempered starlight, cold and beautiful. He looked not like a man, but like a legend remembered.
Her eyes lingered on him, wide and searching.
Within their depths swirled awe, unease, and a quiet storm of unanswered questions, all left suspended in the hush that followed, where no words could reach.
Felzein lifted his right hand with deliberate grace, fingers brushing against a near-invisible seam at his wrist.
A barely audible click followed, a whisper of motion rather than sound, and at once, a gentle blue luminescence unfurled from the point of contact.
The light spread swiftly, like a ripple across still water, tracing the intricate geometry of his armour with ethereal precision.
The suit responded with a low, mechanical murmur, as if exhaling after a long silence.
Plates at his chest and forearms shifted, sliding apart with a fluid elegance that belied their hardened form.
Beneath, the interior of the armour revealed itself, not wires and bolts, but something far stranger, an interwoven lattice of metallic sinew and organic fibre, pulsing faintly as though alive.
The blue glow deepened into gold, soft yet searing, bathing his injuries in warm, otherworldly light.
From the seams of the suit, a cloud of microscopic particles rose, gleaming motes like golden dust, each moving with sentient intent.
They danced across his burned flesh, hovering for a heartbeat before descending, silent and exact.
There was no cutting, no stitching, only transformation.
Layer by layer, the nanoscopic swarm unravelled dead tissue, dissolving the charred remnants of the electrical burns.
Where damage had festered, fresh cells bloomed, sculpted by invisible hands, coaxed into existence as though remembering what the skin had once been.
Redness faded into rose, rose into pale. Then came the shimmer of renewed skin, smooth, unblemished, untouched by pain.
Not even a scar remained. It was not healing, but unmaking, a wound reversed, history rewritten.
A cool mist hissed softly from the exposed tissue, rising in tendrils like breath on frost, the final sigh of pain departing the body.
Then, just as silently, the armour reassembled itself.
The chestplate slid shut with a muted finality, the gauntlet reformed, and the glow vanished as though swallowed by the suit.
Felzein stood as before, but something had shifted as if time itself had momentarily bent in deference to him, and then quietly moved on.
Felzein inhaled deeply, the breath long and deliberate, as though drawing in not just air but clarity, composure, control.
His eyes, dark with purpose, gazed steadily into the distance, and for the first time since the calamity, there was no sign of strain in his bearing.
He stood not as a man recovering, but as one reborn.
Rosa and Melati remained rooted to the spot, caught in the stillness that follows revelation.
Their mouths hung open, synchronised in silent disbelief, as if the laws of nature had just unraveled before them and no one had bothered to take notes.
"How can this be...?"
The question pulsed through them both, unspoken yet deafening, echoing in the hollow hush that followed the impossible.
Moments ago, they had seen it with their own eyes, or had they? The mind struggled to process what the senses insisted was true.
Armour not worn but summoned, not crafted but awakened.
Light that healed with an almost reverent touch, stripping pain from flesh as if time itself had bent to Felzein's will.
Burns had vanished, erased not with medicine, but with silent brilliance.
For a heartbeat, maybe more, the sterile world of the laboratory dissolved around them.
In its place stood something cinematic, something mythical.
They were no longer assistants or friends, they were witnesses to a transformation that belonged to another reality altogether.
Rosa turned her head, slowly, towards Melati. Her eyes, wide and glassy, held the quiet question suspended between them, "Are we dreaming this?"
Melati gave a small nod, her gaze still fixed on Felzein, now cloaked in the quiet majesty of one who had returned from the edge, a man stitched back together by secrets and light.
This was no longer the world as they knew it. This was the turning of a page. The prologue had ended.
And in its place, the tale of Felzein, enigmatic, changed, perhaps no longer wholly human, had begun in earnest.
"Huff… Finally," murmured Felzein, exhaling as if he were releasing something more than mere breath as though shedding the weight of some vast, invisible burden.
With deliberate calm, he lifted his hand and pressed a small, near-invisible button tucked beneath the edge of his metallic mask.
CLICK!
A hush fell over the space, a breathless stillness broken only by the gentle sigh of retreating power.
The light that otherworldly cerulean glow began to dim, drawing back into the seams and crevices of his armour like a tide receding from a blackened shore.
There followed a quiet, harmonious series of mechanical whispers, the sound of plates shifting, of hidden hinges folding inwards, of a marvel of design reversing its metamorphosis.
Piece by piece, the sleek armour began to dissolve.
Not crumbling, not falling, but vanishing as if evaporated by some unseen force. The cobalt shell faded into nothing, leaving no ash, no residue.
Only his clothes remained. Soft, civilian, absurdly ordinary in their return.
Even the mask followed suit.
The once-rigid metal softened at the edges, the glowing lines tracing its surface extinguishing themselves one by one like stars at dawn.
In moments, the mask was nothing more than a simple black cloth, resting gently on his face. Familiar, modest, and now utterly enigmatic.
Rosa and Melati said nothing. Words, at this moment, would have only diminished what they had seen.
Their wide eyes followed the transformation with silent awe, their minds still suspended somewhere between wonder and disbelief.
Before them stood Felzein.
But he was no longer merely the man they had known.
He wore his old face, his old clothes, his old smile, weary, wry, and faintly amused, and yet nothing about him felt quite the same.
He had crossed some unseen threshold, and they had followed, unwitting and breathless.
"Let's leave this lab," he said, almost casually, as if he had not just peeled back the veil between science and myth.
Then, without hesitation, he turned and reached out, taking Rosa and Melati gently by the hand, one on each side.
The gesture was warm, almost protective. Human.
"Felzein…" Melati's voice emerged as a murmur, thick with unasked questions and half-formed fears. "What was all of that…?"
He paused. A beat passed.
Then came the faintest smile, tinged with gravity and quiet resignation.
"I'll explain later," he said softly. "For now… just don't tell anyone about this."
The request was simple in phrasing, but laden with weight. It was not a plea. It was a pact.
No further words were spoken.
Yet in the firm grip of their hands, in the way Rosa and Melati walked beside him, step for step, silent yet steadfast, Felzein knew.
They understood.
And more importantly, they had chosen, without question, to walk forward into the unknown with him.