Late Summer 1997 | After the Coffee Shop
It had been months since he'd seen Aron Kincaid in that alley. The look in Aron's eyes — fear and pity blended together — had cut deeper than any blow.
Jaxen Reyes told himself he'd meant what he said that night. That he was sorry. That he wanted peace.
But as the weeks passed, peace began to rot.
He'd catch his reflection and almost see it — the flicker of black behind his pupils, the shape that used to move beneath his skin. It wasn't real. It couldn't be. The Rift Entity was gone.
Still, he felt it. It slept beneath his skin, a living secret he'd buried since HelixDyne Industries. Forced silent. Locked down. But lately, its dreams were seeping into his own.
A late-night news report barely registered until the anchor mentioned an "unclassified organism, code-name 00-V."
His hand tightened around the remote. The sound through the speakers — that faint, wet hiss — wasn't feedback.
It was memory.
Something inside him woke that should've stayed asleep.
Rain began again, drumming on the window. Each drop hit the glass like a heartbeat.
thump.
thump.
thump.
Then came the whisper, smooth and guttural, inside his head.
Jaxen…
He froze. "No," he rasped. "Not now."
The window shuddered. Glass flexed inward as black veins crawled across the sill — not appearing from nowhere, but leaking out of him, responding to his pulse. A tendril coiled around his wrist like a familiar hand.
Jaxen gasped as it wrapped across his chest, merging bone to muscle. His scream folded into a growl.
We waited, the voice purred. We're hungry.
When Jaxen opened his eyes, they were jet-black rimmed in white.
"We're whole again."
⸻
The transformation left the apartment quiet except for the rain — softer now, almost reverent. Jaxen stood by the window, his reflection no longer human. Black veins rippled beneath his skin, muscles flexing to a rhythm that wasn't his. Every breath came out as steam.
He touched the glass. The reflection grinned with jagged teeth. A slash of lightning lit the skyline behind him.
"I'm back," he whispered.
We're back.
The room felt too small for him now, too fragile — as though the walls knew something enormous had returned. He could smell everything: the mildew in the carpet, the dust on the blinds, the neighbor's burnt toast three floors down. The world had shifted, reshaped itself around this reunion.
And Jaxen felt the shift deep in his ribs, like his bones recognized an old home.
Memories surged — church bells, fire, the fights, the separation. Pain hit like a wave and receded into something almost peaceful. The Rift filled every crack in him. Not like corruption — like belonging.
The armor retracted from his face, sliding down his neck and arms until he stood bare-chested, sweating. Human again — or close enough. But his senses weren't. He could hear streetlamps buzzing and hearts beating two buildings away.
"I missed this."
We never left, it purred. They broke us. But we rise.
Jaxen stiffened. "No vengeance. No Aron. I'm in control this time."
Of course, Jaxen. The chuckle was unmistakable. You're always in control.
He grimaced. That tone — that knowing, velvet edge — felt like fingers tapping on the back of his mind. The Rift always found the cracks, always found the places where guilt softened judgment. This time, Jaxen told himself, he wouldn't let it. This time, he'd keep the reins tight. Whether he believed that or not didn't matter. He needed to.
He ignored the sarcasm and walked to the bathroom. Under the flickering light, his eyes were half-black, half-brown, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
"You saved me once," he murmured. "Then you ruined me."
We made you better. They feared us.
"They feared a monster." His jaw set. "And maybe monsters are what they deserve."
He grabbed a duffel from beneath the sink — old Ravenstrike Asylum papers, a broken watch, a torn photo of him and Aron. He tucked the photo into his jacket. "No promises."
Something inside him recoiled at that — the last human instinct still trying to steer him away from the edge. But the Rift warmed against his spine, pleased. Hungry. Ready.
The city outside pulsed like a beacon calling him home.
Outside, Queens slept under bruised neon. Jaxen walked through it like a shadow, the Rift humming beneath his skin. His footsteps echoed double.
He wandered past the church of their last separation, past the waterfront where he'd once buried pieces of himself. Everything smelled sharper — gasoline, cigarettes, sugar, and beneath it all, the faint hum of the city's pulse.
We could protect them, it murmured. Or destroy them. Both feel the same in the dark.
Jaxen's breath fogged. "We protect. That's the deal."
A pause — then a soft purr:
A deal… for now.
The agreement felt fragile, a thin thread stretched between them. The Rift pressed against his ribs like a heartbeat behind a mirror — watching, waiting, testing. Jaxen knew it remembered everything he tried not to. Every betrayal. Every fight.
Especially Aron.
The name flickered between them like a spark they both pretended not to see.
⸻
Somewhere across town, HelixDyne's clean-up crew swept the damaged lab. Their boots splashed through black puddles that hissed on contact with light. A young technician knelt by a drainage grate.
"Sir… there's something moving in here."
Her supervisor didn't look up. "Residue. Seal it."
But when she shone the light again, the liquid under the grate curled like it had been listening. Then went still.
They sealed the site and left before dawn. No one noticed the faint smear on a worker's boot — small as a tear, quivering with life.
By morning, it was gone.
⸻
Jaxen woke hours later, still by the window. The world felt sharpened, cruel and clean. He could sense every heartbeat in the building. The Rift hummed in satisfaction.
"We'll do better this time," he said — layered, human and not.
We always do.
He stepped into the street. Dawn cut a thin line across the sky. Jaxen slid into the crowd like a ghost. For the first time in years, he didn't feel alone.
He felt complete.
And beneath the pavement, beneath the gutters and pipes and concrete bones of the city, something else crawled steadily toward its own future — a future that wouldn't reveal itself for years.
But when it did, its pulse would sound familiar.
A cousin heartbeat.
A lineage born in this night.
⸻
Far beneath the city, the escaped drop of Rift slipped through the drainage system, unseen.
It would be catalogued weeks later, sealed in cryo-storage, and forgotten.
Until another lifetime.
Until Averyn Kincaid.
And when that lifetime came, the city would remember the sound — a heartbeat in the rain, echoing from 1997.