Chapter 7: The Echo in the Blood

Chapter 7: The Echo in the Blood

The sickness was a thief. It didn't arrive with fever or chills, but with a profound, cellular exhaustion, a feeling of being meticulously unmade from the inside out. It was a cold, quiet ache deep in his bones, as if his very marrow was being vibrated at a frequency it was never meant to endure. The taste of static was a permanent film on his tongue, a chemical ghost that no amount of swallowing could dispel. This wasn't a virus; it was a system error. His body, a machine built on the old code, was failing to run the new software.

He needed medicine. The thought itself felt archaic, a desperate prayer to a dead god called chemistry. But his hands trembled, and a dizzying vertigo swept over him every time he stood up too fast. His body was failing, and the scientist within him, however battered, could only think of one kind of solution.

“Stay here,” he ordered Lily, his voice a hoarse whisper. She was sitting on the lab floor, her back perfectly straight, watching a dust mote dance in a stray beam of colorless light. She didn't seem to notice his deteriorating state, or if she did, she viewed it with the same serene detachment she viewed everything else.

He staggered out of the lab and into the breathing city. A few blocks away was a small, independent pharmacy, “Hale & Hearty.” He clung to the name, a relic of a time when such concepts had meaning.

The pharmacy’s glass door was intact but unlocked, swinging open with a faint jingle from a bell that sounded impossibly loud and cheerful. Inside, the new order had asserted itself. Bottles of pills were not on the shelves but arranged on the floor in a spiraling mosaic of amber, white, and blue. Aspirin, antibiotics, and antidepressants were all just colors in a grand, meaningless pattern. A long roll of medical gauze had been unspooled from its box and draped in a complex, cat’s-cradle-like web between the shelves, shimmering in the pulsating light from the windows. The place was a shrine to forgotten cures.

Ignoring the sacrilegious art, Elias stumbled down an aisle, his eyes scanning for anything recognizable: painkillers, stimulants, anything to quiet the revolt in his cells. His hand brushed against a shelf of vitamins, and a wave of nausea forced him to brace himself against the metal shelving.

That’s when he felt it.

It wasn't a kick or a flutter. It was a resonance. A deep, thrumming vibration that seemed to originate from the center of his chest cavity. It was not the frantic, simple beat of his heart, nor was it the parasitic counter-rhythm that had taken root there. This was something else. A third layer. A low, powerful hum, like a cello string being bowed in the hollow of his sternum. It felt like something was waking up inside him.

He clutched his chest, a strangled gasp escaping his lips. It was a resonance, an echo. The signal from the sky, the song Lily hummed, the pattern on the floor—it had found a way to play his own body like an instrument.

A desperate, panicked thought surged: remember who you are. He needed an anchor, a memory strong enough to hold him together. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to picture his parents’ faces. He could remember the idea of them—a mother who smelled of lavender, a father with calloused hands—but the actual images were like old photographs left in the sun, bleached and featureless. The emotional weight was gone, leaving only dry, factual data.

He tried another memory, a moment of pure triumph: the day he defended his doctoral thesis. He could recall the room, the scent of old books in the university hall. But he couldn't remember the feeling. The pride, the relief, the sheer joy of it—it was like reading a description of a color he’d never seen. The memories were becoming flimsy, irrelevant files in a system that was being formatted. The man who had lived them was becoming a stranger.

He opened his eyes, his breath coming in ragged bursts. He had to see himself. He had to prove he was still there. At the back of the pharmacy was the dispensary, and on its wall, a large, rectangular mirror, used by the pharmacists to watch the front of the store. It was filthy and cracked, a spiderweb of fractures distorting the glass. It was perfect.

He stumbled toward it, his reflection a broken, wavering ghost. He saw a man he barely recognized. Gaunt, with hollows under his eyes so deep they looked like bruises. His dark hair was matted with sweat, his skin pale and almost translucent. But it was him. The fear on the man’s face was his fear.

He raised his right hand, slowly.

In the mirror, the cracked, composite image of his reflection raised its right hand. But it was a fraction of a second too slow. A noticeable, gut-wrenching delay, like a bad satellite feed.

He dropped his hand. The reflection’s hand remained in the air for a beat before dropping. The echo. It wasn't just in his blood anymore. It was in time itself.

He stared, frozen, his heart pounding a chaotic, three-part rhythm against his ribs. He held perfectly still, trying to control his breathing, trying to will the world back into sync. His reflection stared back from its fractured prison, its expression as terrified as his own.

And then, his reflection smiled.

It wasn't his smile. It was a slow, serene, knowing smile that spread across the broken planes of the mirror. It was the blissful smile of the man walking in circles on the street. It was the ecstatic, pitying smile on Lily’s face. It was the smile of a being who had found peace. His own body stood rigid with terror, but the man in the mirror was calm. The stranger in the glass looked out at him, not with malice, but with a gentle, patient invitation. It’s alright. Let go. You’re almost home.

A scream of pure, animal denial tore from Elias’s throat. This was not him. This would not be him.

He lunged forward, his fist clenched. He didn't hit the wall. He hit the face. His knuckles met the cold glass with a sickening crunch of impact and shattering crystal. The mirror exploded inward, sharp fragments tinkling onto the tiled floor.

He stood panting, staring at the empty space on the wall, his knuckles bleeding freely, the pain a welcome, grounding sensation. The smiling stranger was gone. He had smashed it. He had won.

But as the adrenaline faded, a new, colder reality settled in. He hadn't won anything. The mirror was broken, but the feeling remained, stronger now than ever. The serene, smiling stranger wasn't gone. Elias hadn't banished him. He had just broken the window he was looking through.

He could feel him inside, a calm, silent passenger in the storm of his own panic. He was no longer just a man fighting for his life. He was a vessel, and something else was at the helm, patiently waiting for him to grow tired of fighting the tide. The echo in his blood had found its voice, and it was beginning to speak for him.