Rain. Heavy rain. The alley. Narrow, dark, filled with refuse and blood.

  The image was corrupted—glitching, fragmenting, like a video file eaten by malware. Colors bled wrong. Edges dissolved into static. The timestamp in the corner flickered:

  03:17 / 04 JUNE 2083 / ERROR / ERROR / ERROR

  But he could see enough.

  Bodies.

  Four—no, five—crumpled on the wet concrete. Dark pools spreading beneath them, mixing with the rain, running in rivulets toward the gutter. One man's face was... wrong. Caved in. Pulped. His skull a shattered ruin.

  Arthur's stomach lurched.

  The image flickered, jumped forward. Frames missing. Seconds lost to corruption.

  A figure standing over them. Tall. Hooded. His hand was raised, and it was—

  The image corrupted completely, dissolving into prismatic static, a kaleidoscope of shattered data.

  Then: a face. Close. Too close.

  His face.

  Maybe.

  The features were blurred, distorted by the corrupted data, edges dissolving into noise.

  The image flickered again, and for a single, frozen frame, the corruption cleared.

  Arthur's heart stopped.

  The image was crystal clear. Sharp. Horrifyingly detailed.

  His face. face. Not blurred. Not distorted.

  And a bullet was tearing through his forehead.

  The frame was frozen at the moment of impact—the entry point just above his right eye, the skin peeling back like torn paper, the skull beneath fragmenting into a spider-web of cracks. Blood and bone sprayed backward in a frozen mist, caught mid-flight. Brain matter—grey and pink and wet—erupted from the exit wound.

  His expression—his own expression—was blank. Surprised. His silver eyes were still open, still glowing, reflecting the muzzle flash.

  Still .

  Then the frame glitched, dissolved back into static.

  But Arthur had seen enough.

  He'd watched himself die.

  The corrupted footage continued, jumping erratically. He saw his own hand reaching toward the camera—toward her—fingers elongated into something sharp, something wrong, dripping with—

  Static.

  The memory dissolved into white noise.

  The phone screen went black.

  * * *

  Arthur stared at the phone, his reflection ghostly in the dark glass. His face was pale, his eyes wide and uncomprehending. The silence in the apartment was deafening, filled only by the distant buzz of the city outside and the building's ventilation systems.

  He could even hear Stella's soft, artificial breaths.

  He blinked hard as he felt something warm and soft landing on his trembling hand. His gaze drifted down and saw that she had placed her hand over his. She was watching him with those same luminous eyes.

  "That was you," she said quietly.

  Arthur shook his head, denial rising like bile. "No. That—that can't be me. Those people were dead. Their faces were—" He couldn't finish. The image of the pulped skull flashed behind his eyes, and he gagged.

  "The data became corrupted, caused by an unknown factor," Stella continued, her tone flat, factual. "But the system logs indicate that it was caused by an abnormal energy spike. Which caused a cascade of failures. My primary systems failed. The neuromap was damaged. I lost most of my operational memory. And my clothes were burned."

  Arthur looked down at his hands. Ordinary. Human. Harmless.

  But in the corrupted memory, they'd been something else. Sharp. Dripping.

  And his powers. Draining energy. The burning plastic. He... he had almost killed her. Stella.

  "I killed them," he whispered. The words felt like glass in his throat.

  "You were unconscious, caused by a fatal wound," Stella said. "The logs indicated massive hemorrhage and severe structural damage to the brain. But you were alive. I scanned your residential access card that you kept in your clothes, located your residence, and brought you here. The caretaker directive became active during the transport. I waited for you to wake. My systems needed time to reboot."

  Arthur wanted to argue. Wanted to scream that it couldn't be true, that he wasn't a killer, that—

  But the power was real. The energy drain. The impossible hardening of his skin. The flash of light in Kira's diagnostic chair.

  His gaze fell to the floor. To the crumpled jacket lying by the couch. Black. Leather.

  His jacket—the one he'd been wearing when... when...

  He stumbled toward it, dropping to his knees. His hands were shaking as he lifted it, the material heavy and stiff in places.

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  Holes. Dozens of small, ragged holes. Some burned at the edges, the leather scorched and melted. Others were clean punctures—entry wounds.

  Bullet holes.

  His finger slipped through one, then another. He counted them. Seven. Nine.

  Twelve bullets.

  He should be dead.

  And somewhere, in an alley he couldn't remember, five men lay dead.

  Because of him.

  "How?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper. "How did I...?"

  "Unknown," Stella said. "The data is too corrupted. But the energy signature was..." She paused, searching for the word. "...extreme."

  Arthur pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, the pressure grounding him. The headache was back, pulsing behind his skull like a second heartbeat.

  "I don't remember any of it," he said, his voice raw. "The alley. You. Anything before two days ago."

  "Memory loss is consistent with severe neural trauma. Or deliberate memory suppression."

  "Suppression?" Arthur looked up at her. "You think someone erased my memory?"

  "Possible," she said. "But I cannot confirm. My own data is too damaged."

  Arthur let his hands drop, staring at the floor. The comic books were still scattered there, bright and colorful and absurd. Heroes with impossible powers, saving the day.

  He wasn't a hero.

  He was a monster.

  "What am I?" he whispered.

  Stella knelt down slowly, her movements precise, and looked at him with those luminous, unblinking eyes.

  "I don't know," she said quietly. "But if you want, I will help you find out. That is my directive."

  Arthur looked at her. At the strange, beautiful, inhuman face. At the eyes that glowed like twin stars in the darkness.

  She didn't know who she was. He didn't know who he was.

  They were both broken. Both lost.

  But before he could respond, Stella spoke again.

  "There is more."

  Arthur's blood ran cold. He turned slowly. "More?"

  She was still holding the phone, her expression unreadable. "After I brought you here. While my systems were rebooting. I recorded you."

  His stomach dropped. "Recorded...?"

  "An anomalous energy event," she said, her voice still flat, clinical. "Followed by... metamorphosis."

  The word hung in the air between them.

  Arthur's mouth went dry. "Show me," he whispered.

  * * *

  Stella's fingers moved across the phone screen. Then she turned it toward him.

  TIMESTAMP: 04 JUNE 2083 / 04:33

  The video quality was better this time—stable, clear, no corruption. The camera angle showed the couch from across the room, pointed down at a figure lying motionless on the worn grey cushions.

  Him.

  Arthur's breath caught.

  The figure on the couch— body—was barely recognizable. His clothes were soaked through with rain and blood, dark stains spreading across the fabric. His face was turned toward the camera, and even in the dim light, Arthur could see the damage.

  The right side of his forehead was... wrong. Caved in. A dark, ragged wound where the bullet had entered, surrounded by a corona of dried blood that matted his hair and streaked down his temple.

  His chest rose and fell, but the movements were shallow, labored. Dying.

  Arthur's hand trembled, holding the phone.

  On screen, nothing happened for several seconds. Just the dying man on the couch, breathing his last.

  Then—

  A faint glow.

  At first, Arthur thought it was a trick of the light. But no. It was coming from him. From the body on the couch.

  The white strand of hair above his right eye began to glow, softly at first, then brighter. The same prismatic light he'd seen when he'd drained the battery. Emerald bleeding into magenta, into cyan, into colors his eyes couldn't name.

  Then the veins beneath his skin lit up.

  They started at his hands—thin, intricate lines of shifting light spreading up his forearms like a circuit board coming online. The light crawled up his arms, across his shoulders, down his torso, painting his body in a beautiful, hypnotic aurora.

  But it didn't stop there.

  From his skin, thin filaments began to emerge.

  Arthur's breath stopped.

  The filaments were delicate, thread-thin, glowing with the same prismatic light. They looked like fiber-optic cables—translucent, refracting light into rainbows. They pushed through his skin without tearing it, growing like living things, and they began to weave.

  Over his hands first. Wrapping around his fingers, his palms, his wrists, layering over themselves in complex, beautiful patterns. Then his arms, his chest, his legs.

  The filaments moved with purpose, intelligence, weaving themselves into a cocoon.

  Within minutes, his entire body was encased. The cocoon was translucent, like frosted glass, and through it Arthur could see his own silhouette—motionless, suspended, wrapped in threads of living light.

  The timestamp in the corner began to speed up.

  05:00... 08:00... 12:00...

  For hours, nothing changed. The cocoon just... pulsed. Gently. Rhythmically. Like a heartbeat. The light inside ebbed and flowed, sometimes bright, sometimes dim, but always there.

  18:00... 24:00... 30:00...

  Thirty hours. Thirty-six hours. A day and a half of stillness, the cocoon glowing softly in the darkness of the apartment.

  Then, suddenly—

  TIMESTAMP: 05 JUNE 2083 / 16:33

  The light inside the cocoon flared. Brilliant. Blinding. The filaments began to retract, pulling back into his skin, dissolving like sugar in water. The cocoon unraveled, thread by thread, the light fading as it was reabsorbed.

  Within seconds, it was gone.

  And on the couch lay Arthur.

  Whole.

  Unmarked.

  His forehead—where the bullet wound had been—was smooth, flawless, as if it had never been damaged. His breathing was deep and even. Peaceful. He looked like he was sleeping.

  The video ended.

  * * *

  Arthur's hands were shaking so badly he almost dropped the phone.

  "Thirty-six hours," he whispered. "I was... I was in that thing for thirty-six hours?"

  Stella nodded. "Your vitals remained stable throughout. The energy readings were..." She paused, searching for a word. "...unprecedented."

  Arthur looked down at his hands. Turned them over. Ordinary hands. Human hands.

  But they'd been wrapped in a cocoon of light. His body had rewritten itself.

  "The headache," he said slowly, the pieces falling into place. "The memory loss. My brain was—"

  "Damaged," Stella confirmed. "Severe structural trauma from the gunshot. But the metamorphosis repaired it." She tilted her head. "Imperfectly. Some neural pathways were rebuilt incorrectly. Some data was... lost."

  His entire life. His memories. His identity. His past.

  Burned away to fuel his survival.

  Arthur sank back onto the couch, the same couch where his body had been wrapped in light, where he'd been unmade and remade. He stared at the floor, at the scattered comic books, at the absurdity of it all.

  He'd died. Actually died. Shot through the head. Twelve bullets in his jacket. And something inside him—something he didn't understand, didn't control—had refused to accept it. Had wrapped him in light and rebuilt him from the inside out.

  The cost? Everything he'd been. Everyone he'd known. Every memory that made him him.

  Gone. Burned as fuel for his transformation.

  Stella knelt in front of him, her luminous eyes level with his.

  "You survived," she said softly. "You adapted."

  Arthur let out a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. He couldn't tell anymore.

  "What am I?" he whispered.

  "I don't know," Stella said quietly. "But if you want, I will help you find out. That is my directive."

  Arthur thought about Kira. About the diagnostic chair. About the way she'd looked at him when his powers had flared—concern mixed with something harder. Something wary.

  He looked at Stella. At the strange, beautiful, inhuman face. At the eyes that glowed with the same light as his own.

  She was right. They were both remade. Both navigating existence without a map.

  But they weren't just their missing pasts.

  "Yeah," he said finally, his voice barely a whisper. "Together."

  Stella nodded once, slow and deliberate. "Together," she repeated, testing the word.

  * * *

  Arthur leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes. Exhaustion pulled at him like an undertow. Tomorrow, there would be questions. Tomorrow, there would be plans. Tomorrow, he'd have to figure out what the hell he was and why five men had died in an alley he couldn't remember.

  He'd have to decide what to tell Kira. How much to reveal. Whether she'd still see him as Arthur, or as something else entirely.

  But tonight, he just needed to not think.

  Beside him, Stella remained kneeling for a moment longer. Then, with that same fluid, unnatural grace, she rose and moved to sit on the floor near the window. Her back against the wall. Her luminous eyes reflecting the faint neon glow from outside.

  She didn't need to sleep. Didn't need to rest.

  But she stayed.

  Watching. Waiting. Protecting.

  A silent sentinel in the darkness.

  End of Chapter Four