The house fell quiet the moment Eli stepped back inside.Not dramatically. Not ominously. Just… quietly. The quiet settled into the walls becoming one with the house. The evening light slipped through the windows in a dim, golden haze — the sun already low enough that shadows stretched long across the floors.He didn’t pause at the entryway. He didn’t think about anything except the fact that the air inside felt different, like the house had shifted its weight after being left alone.He crossed the foyer, and the door sealed itself behind him with a soft, ancient-toned hum — no locks, no metal sliding into place. The system registered his arrival, recalibrating the house’s atmosphere around his presence.Eli didn’t look back.He walked straight to the kitchen, the smell of fried eggs still lingering in the air, he dropped his keys on the counter with more force than necessary, and braced his hands against the cool stone surface. His breath came a little tighter than it should have. He

Eli woke before the alarm.Not because he was well-rested — far from it. His body felt heavy, like he’d been dragged through the night instead of sleeping in it — but his instincts told him that fatigue wasn't going to get him anywhere that day.The room was dim, washed in faint bluish light leaking through the balcony curtains. Early dawn. The hour where the city hadn’t quite decided whether it wanted to exist or not.Carlos was a motionless lump under his blanket, half his face buried in the pillow, one arm dangling off the bed like he’d given up halfway through an argument.Eli swung his legs out of bed.The floor was cool. The air colder.He grabbed his shirt from the chair, slipped it on quietly, then moved to the balcony and cracked the door open.A rush of crisp air hit him.Zurich at dawn was quiet, the lake still and pale like glass holding its breath. A handful of joggers dotted the walkway along the water. The city’s skyline was a soft silhouette against the slowly brighten

Eli stepped across the threshold before he could have second thoughts, not that it was a privilege he could afford.The air inside the entrance was warmer—like he stepped out of winter and into late spring. It carried a subtle metallic tang, almost like the scent before a storm, except the storm here wasn’t weather. It was history. And electricity. And something else he couldn’t name.Carlos hovered behind him, one hand braced on the doorframe. “Uhm… this is not OSHA certified. Just saying.”Albrecht ignored him, moving forward with the confident stride of a man who knew a thousand-year-old secret city could make.“Stay close,” he said. “The pathways shift when unaccompanied.”Carlos gaped. “The what?, does what?”But Albrecht was already walking, and Eli followed without hesitation.The corridor spiraled downward, walls made of ancient stone embedded with strips of glowing metal that pulsed every few seconds. The floor vibrated faintly with a hum Eli couldn’t identify—part generator,

The white light swallowed the corridor.Carlos threw his arms over his face with a noise that didn’t belong to any mammal on Earth. Eli blinked fast, vision burning, but the brightness wasn’t just light. It carried a certain kind of pressure that threatened to crush his skull. Information crashing into his senses as if something older than language had just opened its eyes and decided to look back at him.When the glare thinned, Eli realized the light wasn’t coming from the ceiling or the walls—it was coming from the synthetic construct that had just spoken to them. Him.It pulsed.Once.Twice.Then the entire chamber lit in concentric rings, as if the machine were remembering it had a heartbeat.Carlos whimpered. “No. Nope. Machines that weren’t glowing five seconds ago should NOT glow. That’s a universal rule.”Eli didn’t answer.Because a voice, different from what had spoken earlier—thin, metallic, layered and broken like it had aged a thousand years —echoed through the chamber.“

The silence in the room clung to Eli the moment he turned away from the fading machine. A thick humming sort that carried aftershocks, Not the quiet kind that usually came with peace and calm. The chamber behind him still pulsed faintly, as if the walls remembered what the machine had said even when it no longer had the strength to speak.Carlos stayed close, hands hovering around Eli’s shoulders as if he wasn’t sure whether to steady him or grab him and run.“Okay,” Carlos muttered, glancing back repeatedly, “I know I said this earlier, but I really, really think we should leave before the walls start giving out life advice.”Eli didn’t answer.He wasn’t sure if he even heard him. His head felt too full—like the machine’s voice was still ricocheting inside his skull.Coexistence… or succession.Victor. V1. Engineered. Diverged.Backup son.He wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or sit on the floor and refuse to move until the city gave him the real answers instead of riddles wrapped in crypt