After returning home, Enzo still felt the throbbing headache that had accompanied him since the moment he collapsed in the scrapyard. His hands were sweaty as he held the chip he had found, now wrapped in an old piece of cloth. He couldn't explain why he had brought it with him, but something inside him said it was important. There was something inexplicable about the tiny object, something that seemed to call out to him in a way he didn't understand.
He climbed the stairs in silence, avoiding any encounter with his mother, who was likely in the kitchen preparing dinner. Their relationship was cordial but distant; he preferred to avoid questions about how he spent his weekends. Once he reached his bedroom, he quickly locked the door and sat at his desk.
Enzo's desk was a reflection of his mind: organised yet bursting with ideas. There were books on electronics, notebooks filled with sketches and circuit diagrams, and tools scattered here and there. He opened the deepest drawer, took out an old metal case, and placed the chip inside. Carefully, he closed the drawer and locked it.
"Better this way," he murmured to himself, exhaling deeply.
But that night, Enzo realised something was different.
The First Signs
It was around two in the morning when he woke up with a start. The room was steeped in darkness, but his eyes caught something strange. A faint blue light seemed to emanate from the drawer where he had stored the chip. He blinked, confused.
"It must be my imagination…" he thought, rubbing his eyes.
He turned onto his side, trying to go back to sleep, but as soon as he closed his eyes, a faint buzzing sound filled his mind. It wasn't external but internal, as if it were being generated inside his own head. He tried to ignore it, but the sound seemed to pulse in sync with his breathing. Then came the images.
They weren't dreams, at least not in the traditional sense. He saw flashes of codes, as if he were watching a screen filled with lines of programming. Images of circuits, complex schematics, and mathematical formulas flickered before his closed eyes. It was as though something was being implanted into his mind—something he didn't yet understand.
When he woke again, the clock read six in the morning. His body felt heavy, but the headache had completely disappeared. He got up and walked to the mirror in the corner of his room. Running his hands over his face, he frowned. There was something different about him. His eyes, once hidden behind the thick lenses of his glasses, were now sharp and clear. He blinked a few times and realised he could see perfectly—something that had never happened before.
He removed his glasses and looked around the room. Everything was incredibly vivid, each detail, each texture, as if his eyes had been calibrated to perceive more of the world.
"This… can't be real."
Bodily Changes
In the following days, Enzo began noticing other changes. His routine still seemed normal, but he knew something was happening inside him.
At school, where he used to sit quietly in the back of the classroom, avoiding eye contact with his peers, he now found himself confidently answering his teachers' questions. But it wasn't just that—he knew the answers before the questions were even finished. Complex formulas, physics concepts, even problems he'd never studied before seemed obvious.
"Enzo, when did you start participating so much?" his maths teacher remarked, surprised to see him solve an advanced equation without a calculator.
His classmates observed him with curiosity. To them, Enzo had always been almost invisible. Now, there was something about him that seemed… different.
But it wasn't just his mind that was changing. At home, one afternoon, he decided to test his strength. Starting with something simple, he picked up the iron bar he used as a bookend on his desk. To his surprise, when he applied force, the bar bent as if it were made of plastic. His eyes widened.
"This doesn't make sense."
He ran to the old bathroom scale. Stepping onto it, he expected to see the same 52 kilograms as always. The number now read 62. Ten kilograms gained in less than a week, but his body didn't look larger—just more defined, more solid.
His reflexes were also different. During dinner, he dropped a spoon, but before it hit the ground, his hand had already caught it mid-air, almost instinctively. His mother, sitting across the table, gave him a puzzled look.
"Are you alright, Enzo?"
He only nodded, trying not to draw any more attention.
A Body in Revolution
By the weekend, locked in his room, he decided to conduct more intense experiments. He pushed his bed aside, creating space for some physical tests. He attempted push-ups, something he could never do more than ten of without his arms trembling. Now, he surpassed fifty without even breaking a sweat. He could jump higher than before, move with more agility and precision.
The most intriguing thing was the constant energy he felt. Where he used to tire easily, now his body seemed tireless. His nights of sleep were getting shorter, yet he woke up feeling invigorated, as though he'd rested for hours.
At the same time, his mind operated on a level he had never imagined possible. He found himself thinking about advanced engineering concepts and ideas for creating machines that didn't yet exist. Sketches of designs emerged fully formed in his mind, detailed and intricate, as though he had decades of experience.
"This is because of the chip," he thought, opening the drawer where he had stored it.
The blue light continued to pulse, albeit weaker. He knew it was the catalyst for everything that was happening.
A New Perception of the World
What scared Enzo the most wasn't his strength or intelligence. It was how he was beginning to perceive the world differently. When he looked at Amanda, who insisted on visiting him to figure out what was happening, he noticed details invisible to anyone else. He could see the tension in her muscles when she spoke, the quickened pulse in her wrist whenever the scrapyard robot was mentioned.
"You're not telling me everything, are you?" Amanda asked, leaning against his desk.
"I don't know what's happening," Enzo replied, avoiding her gaze.
But he knew he was lying. He couldn't explain it, but something inside him told him he shouldn't reveal everything.
That night, after Amanda had left, the buzzing returned to his mind. This time, he didn't try to ignore it. Sitting on his bed, he closed his eyes and let the images flood in. It was like watching a movie, but this one wasn't about machines or science—it was about him.
Images of his own body appeared: muscles being strengthened, neurons firing at incredible speeds, his bones becoming denser. It was as if the chip was rewriting who he was, adjusting him into something new, something… superior.
A New Purpose
The next morning, Enzo was no longer the same. He felt as if the world around him had slowed down, while he moved at a speed no one could match. At breakfast, his mother remarked:
"You seem… different. More confident."
He only shrugged, but he knew she was right. Inside, a new confidence was emerging.
However, this confidence also brought unease. What did the chip want from him? Why was it altering his life so drastically?
When he returned to the scrapyard that Saturday, Enzo knew he needed answers. He had to uncover more about the robot from which the chip had come. What he would find there, however, would further alter his understanding of who he was becoming.
And deep down, he knew these changes were just the beginning.