STARLIGHT UNBOUND by Deus Ex Machina - HTML preview

STARLIGHT UNBOUND

used to be. What is this? What’s happening to me?

The water began to cool, jolting him back to the present. Lucien shut off the faucet with a shaky hand and stepped out, wrapping a towel around his waist.

His reflection stared back at him through the fogged mirror, distorted and uncertain. He wiped a hand across the glass, clearing a streak. The man staring back wasn’t the same one who had first entered the safehouse. His eyes were darker, more hollow, as if some part of him had already stepped into the unknown while the rest struggled to catch up.

This is only the beginning.

Lucien stiffened. The voice wasn ’t his, but it echoed inside him like it belonged there. He leaned in closer, searching his reflection for answers, but the glass gave him nothing.

***

Lucien stood in the doorway of the small room he’d chosen, staring into the dim space. The walls were cracked, worn by time, and a mattress lay on the floor—barely inviting, but enough. It suited him.

He steadied himself in the doorway, the residual heat from the shower still clinging to his skin, making him feel feverish. As though the water had drawn something out of him that refused to reorganize.

Shutting the door behind him, he leaned against it, exhaling slowly. His limbs felt leaden, exhaustion creeping into every muscle, but his mind wouldn’t slow down. Flashes of the data drive flickered behind his eyes—erased charts, cold voices, the room where lives disappeared. It ’s real. All of it. And now, there’s no going back.

Lucien dropped the damp towel into the corner, crossing the small room in a few steps. The floor was cool under his bare feet, grounding him for a fleeting second before he sank onto the mattress. The worn fabric scratched against his skin as he pulled the rough blanket over himself. It smelled of dust and age, but he didn’t care.

He lay there, staring at the cracked ceiling. His skin still burned, heat radiating outward like his veins pulsed with something unfamiliar. Something... foreign.

Closing his eyes, Lucien expected darkness, but instead, something else awaited him. A light, pulsing softly in the void behind his eyelids, like an ember refusing to die. It was subtle at first —shifting shapes, spirals and circles weaving through the blackness—but soon, the colors bled in. Turquoise. Gold.

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