1943, New York City. The once-great Nikola Tesla lay on a old bed in Room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel. The room was dimly lit by a weak, flicking bulb, casting shadows over the walls. Outside city buzzed with life, oblivious to the slow fading of one of history's greatest minds.
His body has become frail, reduced to skin and bones by many years of neglect, malnutrition. Also due to the pursuit of ideas that no longer found a place in the world. The brilliance that once illuminated the future, had been overshadowed by the greed of men who profited from his genius, while he lies in obscurity.
His hands, once steady, now tremble as he clutches an old, crumpled letter—his final letter to his mother, Djuka, written years ago:
"My dear mother, I am so terribly sorry that I am not at your side at this moment. I know you are fighting for breath, and that your kind and gentle soul is ready to depart. If there were any justice in this world, I would be there with you, holding your hand, whispering all the things I never had the courage to say. But fate, cruel as ever, has bound me to my work, and I can only pray that these words will reach you before it is too late. I love you beyond words, and I shall love you until my last breath. Your Nikola."
A shuddering sigh escaped his lips, the letter trembling between his fingers. His vision blurred, not just from the weakness overtaking his body, but from the memories clawing at his mind.
He saw his childhood home in Smiljan, the green fields, the house he had been born. He saw his father, Milutin Tesla, standing in his priestly robes, his voice as he recited poetry and philosophy. His mother, Djuka, who wove intricate patterns with thread and whose mind was as sharp as any scholar's. She had never learned to read or write, but she had taught him so much— about creation.
He saw Dane, his older brother, his brightest star—until that fateful day. Dane, laughing, running through the fields, the perfect son.
Then the accident, fall from the horse.
Tesla had seen it, he had screamed his brother's name, had felt something inside him die when Dane never got up again.
Guilt had lived in him ever since, though no one had ever blamed him.
He saw his sisters, Angelina, Milka, Marica—flashes of their kindness, their teasing, the warmth of their voices. How long had it been since he had spoken their names aloud? Since he had last heard their laughter?
He saw school, the long nights under candlelight, equations scrawled across his notebooks. The feeling of numbers falling into place, of understanding things no one else could see. The moment he had first envisioned alternating current, the rush of knowing he had touched something divine.
Then, a different kind of memory. A soft voice, a pair of warm eyes. A girl whose name he had not spoken in years. She had been the only one who ever truly looked at him, not as an inventor, not as a dreamer, but as Nikola.
She had asked him once if he would ever settle down, build a family, and he had laughed, said there was no time for such things. But he had thought about it.
He had imagined it—a small house, quiet evenings, love that was steady and sure. But science had always called louder. And so he had let her go.
"What a fool I was," he whispered. "What a blind, arrogant fool."
His eyes flitted to the shadows at the corners of the room. The figures stood there again, watching. Faint and flickering like candle flames. Edison was among them, grinning that infuriating, shark-like grin. Morgan loomed behind, a faceless specter of wealth and control. They had stolen from him. They had left him to rot.
"You're not real," he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut. "No more real than the voices in the walls."
But were they truly hallucinations? Or had he become so entangled in his own despair that reality itself had grown thin and fragile around him? The lines had blurred long ago.
His only true companion in those final years had been a pigeon. A beautiful white creature with gray-tipped wings, who visited him every day, as if sensing the loneliness that wrapped around him like a shroud. He had once told a confidant that he loved that pigeon, that she was the only being who truly understood him. And now, even she was gone.
The door creaked open briefly. Nurse Katherine peeked inside but hesitated. The frail old man on the bed barely stirred, his breath shallow, his mind lost in the depths of his own despair. After a moment, she sighed and quietly shut the door, leaving him to his solitude.
And so, Tesla was alone once more.
"Humanity," he muttered, his voice rasping in the dim room. "Foul, ungrateful wretches. I gave them the stars, and they handed me darkness. I gave them light, and they cast me into the shadows."
His bony fingers clenched the bedsheet. "I was a fool. I believed in their progress. Their so-called visionaries. But I was nothing more than a tool to be used and discarded." He let out a bitter chuckle. "They stole from me, lied to me, left me to rot. And I, like a naive dreamer, thought they would recognize true genius."
His breathing grew ragged, his heartbeat slowing, but his mind burned with fury. "If I had my time again… oh, if fate were so kind... I would not serve. I would not kneel. I would carve my name into history with fire and thunder, and they would worship me or be crushed beneath my heel."
A sharp pain tore through his chest, and darkness swallowed him whole.
But then, something impossible happened. A violent surge of energy, electric and all-consuming, pulled him back. The void trembled. Reality fractured. And Nikola Tesla was no longer in Room 3327.