Sixteen candles sat unlit on a cake that cost more than it should have, Rell stared at the frosting with its generic design his mom probably grabbed on her way home from work and tried to figure out why she still bothered with this when the empty chair across from him had been empty for years.
"Honey, should I get the lighter?"
"Yeah, sure."
She fumbled through the kitchen drawer with that forced cheerfulness she always put on for birthdays and watching her try so hard made something in his chest tighten, he knew she was doing her best which almost made it worse.
His father was working on something important for as long as Rell could remember, sixteen years of birthday cards left on the kitchen counter with stiff handwriting, sixteen years of Christmas presents that showed up still in the shipping box.
Once when he was seven his dad actually sat down for dinner with them and spent the whole meal checking his phone, Rell stopped expecting anything different a long time ago or at least that's what he told himself.
His mom came back with the lighter clicking it over and over while her hands trembled slightly not from the cold, when she finally got a flame she started lighting the candles one by one with the warm glow doing nothing to reach her eyes, "Make a wish, sweetheart."
He looked at the candles then at the basement door across the hall closed like always with light bleeding out from under it like always, his father down there right now working on whatever the hell he worked on and couldn't even be bothered to come up for twenty minutes.
Something ugly twisted in his stomach, "Actually," he pushed back from the table, "I'm gonna go get him."
His mom's expression cycled through a few things before settling on tired resignation, "You know how he gets when he's interrupted."
"Yeah."
"Rell..."
"It'll take two minutes."
She didn't try to stop him, didn't even really argue, that told him everything he needed to know about how many times she'd already lost this fight.
He walked toward the basement door with footsteps too loud in the quiet house, each step felt heavier than the last, by the time he reached it his hand was already hesitating over the doorknob, 'Talking big and then chickening out. Classic.'
He took a breath and grabbed the handle.
The world exploded.
The shockwave threw him backward and he slammed into the staircase railing hard enough to splinter the wood, everything went white and loud and hot before the cold came sudden and sharp, somewhere an alarm screamed while his ears rang and smoke filled his lungs.
He got to his feet without thinking about it with his body moving on autopilot, stumbled past fire and frost spreading across the walls from some emergency system he didn't know existed, down the ruined stairs into the basement where he found what was left of his father.
He stood over the charred body with smoke still curling off the clothes and waited to feel something, grief or shock or anything, but there was just this empty space where those feelings were supposed to be like trying to mourn someone he'd never really known.
'That's my father. I should feel something.'
He didn't.
Footsteps behind him, his mom appeared at the top of the stairs and took one look at the floor and made a sound that cut through the ringing in his ears raw and broken in a way that finally made him feel something, not for his father but for her.
He caught her before she could fall and guided her back up the stairs, found himself saying things he didn't really hear because shock was useful like that making everything feel like it was happening to someone else, "Stay here, Mom. I'll call someone."
She couldn't respond, just shook.
He called 911 and gave the address, answered their questions in a voice that sounded way too calm, when they asked how he was related to the victim he said father like it was just a word, hung up and went back downstairs because there was something near the body.
The lab was destroyed with equipment melted and walls scorched but some things survived better than others, machines that looked nothing like anything he'd ever seen, screens with symbols he couldn't read, all of it way too advanced to be legal.
'What the hell was he doing down here?'
Something pulsed near the body glowing and he stepped closer covering his nose against the smell, saw it sitting in the ashes, a bracelet thick and heavy with circuit patterns that shifted through every color completely untouched by the fire.
'This is what you were so obsessed with. This is what was more important than your family.'
The bracelet clamped onto his wrist before he could finish the thought.
Metal sank into his skin not painful exactly but wrong like his body was absorbing it, he grabbed at it but there was nothing to grab because the bracelet was merging with him with circuit lines spreading up his forearm, then the pain hit.
Everything burned and his stomach turned inside out, he vomited blood across the floor and the last thing he saw before passing out was a message floating in his vision.
[User registered. DNA match confirmed. Beginning transformation.]
---
He woke up staring at his bedroom ceiling with his head pounding, night fell visible through the window which meant he was out for hours.
Everything hurt and moving seemed like a terrible idea but he dragged himself upright anyway, 'The bracelet. What happened with the bracelet?'
He looked at his right arm and the bracelet was gone, or not gone exactly because he could feel it somehow just under his skin, part of him now.
Voices from downstairs, his mom and someone else, a man, "I don't know what to do. This is all so sudden," that was her sounding exhausted.
"You don't need to worry, ma'am. We'll take good care of him."
The other voice was calm and professional, doctor-like, 'What doctor shows up in the middle of the night?'
He pushed himself out of bed using the wall for support with every step sending fresh nausea through him, kept moving because something felt off, made it to the stairs and looked down.
His mom sat on the couch looking pale and wrecked, across from her was a man in a suit with a clean-cut forgettable face, the kind you stopped noticing the second you looked away, "Well, if you think you can help..." his mom was saying.
The man's eyes snapped to the staircase.
"Honey?" His mom turned with relief flooding her face despite everything, hurried over and started checking his temperature touching his face like she was afraid he'd break, "Are you feeling okay?"
"Yeah. Just, I think I inhaled too much smoke," the lie came out easy, "Sorry for passing out."
"Thank god," she hugged him and over her shoulder he watched the man watching his arm, specifically the spot where the bracelet was, "I was so worried when I found you down there."
"About that," he pulled back slightly, "sorry for the mess."
"What mess?"
"The blood. When I threw up."
She looked confused, "Honey, there wasn't any blood. Just you passed out next to your father," her voice cracked, "The doctor said there was something wrong with your blood and they wanted to take you to a specialist."
'What specialist? What doctor?' He looked at the man again and something about that smile was wrong, too practiced, "Appreciate you coming by," he said keeping his voice casual, "but I'm feeling fine now. Don't think I need any specialists."
"I see," the man nodded still looking at his arm, "Are you certain? These conditions can return without proper monitoring."
'Why does he keep staring at my wrist?'
[Warning. Hostile entity detected. Entity is targeting this device.]
[Recommendation: Do not reveal device integration. Evasion advised.]
His vision shifted with colors bleeding at the edges and suddenly he was seeing through the man's skin, past the suit, past the flesh, to something underneath with too many joints and scales where skin should be.
The thing wearing a human face smiled at him and behind those fake eyes something hungry flickered.
'What the hell is that thing?'