Ethan padded softly down the hallway, every step rehearsed to avoid the floorboards that creaked. The hotel suite his family called home for now was quiet—his father snoring faintly in the master bedroom, his mother a restless sleeper who stirred at the faintest noise. One slip, and questions would start.
The canister in his hands felt heavier than its size should allow. It wasn't just steel and reinforced caps—it was a pain to find one, but Felica's connection helped him acquire it. Blood drawn from something beyond human. Something more.
He slid his keycard into the suite's door, careful not to let the lock beep too loudly. The hinges groaned anyway, and Ethan winced, but the sound faded into the hush of night.
The kitchenette light over the stove glowed faintly, left on by his mom as a "night-light." It cast the whole place in a warm amber. Ethan crouched, pulled open the fridge, and exhaled when the cool air hit his face.
Inside were the usual groceries his parents had cobbled together: half-finished takeout cartons, milk past its prime, an unopened pack of eggs, and—perfect cover—a row of soy products his mom had optimistically bought during a health kick. Soy milk, soy yogurt, soy pudding. None of them ever touched.
Ethan eased the canister onto the back shelf, nudging it between the soy milk carton and a plastic tub of tofu. He shifted things until the silver cylinder looked like just another unloved food item.
He was just about to close the door when the lights snapped on.
"Ethan?"
He spun, pulse skipping. His mother stood in the doorway in her robe, hair mussed, eyes heavy with sleep. She blinked at him, rubbing one eye. "What are you doing up so late? It's a school night."
Ethan's mind fired through hundreds of excuses in milliseconds. He settled on one with a calm shrug. "Sorry to wake you, Mom. Couldn't sleep. Figured I'd make some tea." He forced a sheepish smile. "Do you want some?"
His mother yawned, padding toward the counter. "No, honey. Just… clean up after yourself, okay? And don't stay up too late. You'll be groggy tomorrow."
"Got it," Ethan said quickly, already pulling a mug down from the cupboard. He filled the kettle, dropped a teabag in, and busied himself with the motions of making tea he didn't want. The routine was enough to settle her suspicions.
His mom watched for a moment, then leaned against the counter. "Everything alright? You've seemed… tired lately."
"Just school stuff," Ethan said, blowing at the steam from the mug. "Projects, homework. You know."
She gave him a soft smile, though the worry in her eyes lingered. "Alright. Just don't burn yourself out. We're proud of you, you know."
Ethan kept his smile steady until she shuffled back to bed. Only when the door clicked shut did he allow himself to exhale. He dumped the tea down the sink, rinsed the cup, and padded back to his room.
The glow of his laptop filled the dark. Ethan typed fast, searching, filtering, ignoring the obvious dead ends. Every biology forum and DIY science board held pieces of what he needed.
Blood preservation, long-term storage, cryo methods…
The fridge would slow degradation, yes, but it wasn't enough. Asgardian or not, proteins denatured, nucleic acids broke down. If he wanted the blood to remain viable for real research, he needed to freeze it.
The best amateur option kept popping up: glycerol. Mixed at about ten to twenty percent with blood, it acted as a crude cryoprotectant. It stabilized proteins and prevented ice crystals from shredding cells during freezing. Primitive compared to what a proper lab could do—but effective enough.
Tomorrow, he could stop by a pharmacy after school and buy some under the guise of "chemistry experiments." Once he had the glycerol, he'd sterilize a container, mix the solution, and freeze the canister. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would preserve the Asgardian sample until he had a proper base.
Ethan leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his eyes. His mother's words replayed in his mind—'We're proud of you.' He glanced at the closed door with a smile, then at the fridge beyond it, hiding a secret that could shake the world.
'Would she be suspicious and wonder if I was hiding something? If she opened the fridge tomorrow and found not soy milk but the blood of a god sitting in the back?'
He shook the thought away. 'She wouldn't. They never touched the soy.' That was the advantage of knowing his parents' habits inside and out.
Still, the irony gnawed at him. His father thought he was just a quiet, studious kid. His mother worried about grades and colds. And here he was, plotting genetic preservation methods in the middle of the night, handling samples that men like Nick Fury would kill to get their hands on.
Ethan opened his notebook, scribbling down calculations: volume of blood, percentage of glycerol, freezing point curves. His handwriting was sharp, methodical.
'One step at a time. Preserve it. Freeze it. Move it when the base is ready.'
By 2 a.m., Ethan—Helios in the privacy of his own mind—he had the blood, but he still needed the knowledge to unlock it.
He dove deeper than casual forums this time. Academic abstracts, leaked PDFs from research journals, archived university lectures—anything that whispered about DNA sequencing, proteomics, or genetic alteration. He skimmed articles on CRISPR-Cas9, polymerase chain reactions, the stability of exotic nucleic acids. Even fringe experiments on hybridization went into his notes.
Every page added to the storm in his head. Asgardian cells would be tougher, denser, possibly layered with unknown proteins. Ordinary sequencing tools might shred them or miss hidden codes. He'd need equipment most labs guarded like treasure.
So he made a list.
PCR machine – for amplifying DNA fragments.
Next-gen sequencer – impossibly expensive, but maybe he could build a crude version with components from the black market.
Centrifuge – for isolating plasma, separating layers of blood.
Spectrophotometer – to measure purity, proteins, light absorption curves.
Sterile hood – or a hacked-together clean box, to keep contamination low.
Cryogenic storage vials – for splitting the sample into redundant backups.
Ethan leaned back, pinching the bridge of his nose. He couldn't get them all now. Not yet. But he would. Piece by piece. Every secret liar began with a list, every empire with a plan.
The notebook on his desk was heavy with scribbles—equations, sketches, equipment lists. The Asgardian blood was safe in the fridge. The roadmap to its future was safe in his head.
By the time he closed his laptop, the first hints of dawn brushed the curtains. The city outside was beginning to stir. Ethan set the notebook on his nightstand, leaned back, and stared at the ceiling.
'Time for school. God, I can't wait till I can no longer have to go to school.'
The ceiling above him blurred. He could feel the familiar tightening in his chest, that cold, creeping pressure that always arrived when the world grew too quiet. The same pressure that whispered something bad is coming, even though the hotel suite was still, safe, boring.
He hated that part of himself—how easily silence could bend into memory.
His pulse climbed. His breath shortened.
'No. Not tonight.'
He let his head fall back against the pillow and focused on one thing in the room—the hum of the fridge through the wall. A soft, steady vibration. Predictable.
Anchor point established.
He inhaled slowly, eyes half-lidded.
A sound, a pattern, a rhythm: 1—2—3—hold—exhale.
His heart obeyed the cadence like a command line.
He shifted his focus lower. To the weight of the blanket on his chest. Light but present. Not a body collapsing. Not blood soaking through fabric. Just cotton. Cool. Ordinary.
His fingers curled into it, feeling the weave. That was grounding enough—the tactile reminder that the past didn't have texture anymore. Only the present did.
His breathing steadied.
Good.
Next problem: the images. They always came in flickers—his mother falling, his father's face twisted in rage, the echo of the gunshot he'd heard a thousand times too many. Ghosts flashing across his mind like corrupted files.
He didn't push them away.
He slowed them down.
Frame by frame, like breaking apart a bad recording. His brain excelled at that—perfect memory meant perfect dissection. Strip the color. Dampen the sound. Force the image to shrink, shrink, shrink, until it was the size of a thumbnail floating in the dark.
He imagined closing a window on a computer screen.
Click.
Gone.
His shoulders dropped a fraction.
Then came the worst part—the instinctive spike of panic that hit whenever he thought about his parents asleep in the next room. The certainty that if he relaxed, they'd vanish. That staying near them was like walking through a minefield: one wrong step, one wrong breath, and everything would detonate.
It was a ridiculous fear.
His logic knew that.
But trauma didn't listen to logic—it listened to repetition.
So he created a new repetition.
He turned his head toward the bedroom door. The thin strip of hallway light glowed beneath it, faint and warm. He let himself listen—not for danger, but for signs of life.
His father snoring.
His mother shifting in her sleep.
Normal sounds. Human sounds.
Safe sounds.
His lungs loosened a little more.
He let those sounds overwrite the familiar phantom ones—shouting, shattering glass, the dull thud of fists.
'Overwrite. Overwrite. Overwrite.'
His body believed them eventually. The tension uncoiled a notch at a time, enough for his mind to stop bracing for violence that wasn't coming.
Finally, as the last remnants of panic receded, he exhaled long and slow.
Staying didn't feel like a death sentence in that moment.
It felt possible.
He shifted under the blankets, the exhaustion catching up now that his pulse had settled. His eyelids drooped.
Just breathing.
Just there.
Just alive, in a room where no one was going to die for being near him.