Nathan barely slept that night. His head is pounding with the sheer amount of concepts from Fragments, ancient mysteries and secret societies. When the curtain of dawn light fell across his window, he experienced an uncanny tranquility that settled upon him, a quiet moment of respite before the inevitable ordeal. He had so many questions—too many—but none of them had clear answers. What he knew for sure was that by touching the Fragment his life had been changed forever.
He rubbed his eyes and sat up in bed, looking at the peculiar stone, now lay aside on his desk. It seemed like a normal object, smooth and unassuming, but he knew better now. Its power pulsed faintly in the air around him. He experienced this as an unusual push of the body when he held it in the bookstore and then in Jenkins' study as he discovered more about what it became. The Fragment was more than just an object—it was alive with some ancient force, and it was calling to him.
He got out of bed and went to the desk. The stone called to him, and the moment he ran his fingers along the cold stone the same draw came over him. This time it was stronger, as if a magnetic pull of his darkest essence.
For a moment, nothing happened. Instead of the usual jolt of energy that would cascade through his mind he received/this time. There was a deep, gnawing pressure, like the weight of something unseen pressing in from all sides. The room seemed to distort, and for a fleeting second, he could have sworn he saw shadows moving in the corners of his vision.
Then, with a sudden, explosive force, a rush of energy surged through his body.
Nathan gasped, stumbling backward. His heart pounded in the wake of the rush of power through him, a heady, almost inky feeling. He felt invincible, as if the very air around him had become an extension of himself. His body was a conduit, and the Fragment had unlocked something deep within him—a power he didn't understand.
Before he could fully grasp the suffocating emotion, the fray started.
A loud crash echoed from downstairs. Nathan's reflexes took over, and instinctively, he ran out of his room, on the way down the stairs. When he arrived at the living room he just in time saw the shadow of a stranger in the doorway, a figure shrouded in the darkness. His dark gaze locked on to Nathan's and the room shrunk to constricting, suffocating darkness.
"What the hell are you doing in my house? Nathan requested, doing his best to hold his voice steady as his hands shook with the power within him.
The man didn't answer. Instead, he stepped forward, his movements slow and deliberate, as if he was measuring Nathan. Here for the Fragment", the /man said, his /voice colder than the most arctic/ glacier/s/. "You don't understand what you're dealing with."
Nathan's breath caught in his throat. His mere presence made the hairs on his body stand out, and his gaze never moved away from the stone lying on the desk. He could feel the man's gaze burning through him, the air thick with some unseen force.
I'm not sharing it with you," Nathan replied, harsher now, as a doubt crept in. He did not know what to do against such a person.
It was a smile from the mouth but it was not friendly, it will bring a discomforting goosebumps moment. "You don't have a choice," he said. "You've already activated it. You've already begun to tap into its power. And now, you belong to it. To all of it."
In Nathan's chest, the heart beat at a wild pace while the man came closer, but his fear was quickly overtaken by an even more strange, more existential, feeling. The Fragment inside him hummed, as if in response to danger. The air in front of him began to sizzle, and the walls of the room throbbed.
The man approached the stone and put his hand out and moved it quietly up to it. As soon as his fingers came into contact with the Fragment, Nathan instincts yelled at him to touch it. Without thinking, he raised his hand toward the intruder.
From Nathan's palm spread a force, a blinding flash of light that propelled the human backwards. He struck the wall, and in doing so, flung a bookcase to the ground as he lay on the floor in a heap. Nathan stared with open mouth at his hand, his entire self shaken by the shockwave of energy.
The room fell silent. For a moment, everything seemed frozen in time.
The guy then groaned, pulling himself up from the floor, his stare narrowed with fury. "You're going to regret that, he snarled, his voice thick with fury. "You have no idea what you've just unleashed."
Nathan didn't know what to say. He didn't know what had just happened or how he had done it. Just that it was on the last bit of his body that the power was still emanating, and the man standing before him much more powerful than anything he had ever faced before.
The man straightened up, his anger barely contained. "You're not ready for this. Yet, "you will be, he mumbled, sub vocally, his words as if a pact. "Mark my words, Nathan. You'll never escape what you've just become."
Nathan didn't wait to hear more. He bolted at the door and slammed it shut before him while the man's voice in his head reverberated. He needed answers, and he needed them now.
However, as he stepped out onto the street the inward pressure subsided, and the effects of the interaction already pressed down on him. He knew nothing about what the stranger wanted, but it was a fact that now, his life was a lot riskier to anything.