The first sensation was air.
It moved across skin that had never been exposed to it before. Cool, uneven currents slid under fabric and along her thighs, around her waist, across her shoulders. The sensation carried no meaning, only insistence. Her body reacted before she had language for it.
Felicia inhaled too sharply and coughed.
Her lungs seized, then corrected. Reflex calibration caught up in a rush of data; oxygen exchange, diaphragm timing, pressure gradients. The systems came online in layers instead of all at once.
"Slow down," a voice said nearby. "Let it finish mapping."
She sat up and the room tilted.
That part surprised her. In Hades, orientation had been absolute. Here, balance depended on muscle tension, inner ear feedback, and a body that hadn't learned itself yet.
Felicia steadied herself with one hand against the table. The surface was warm from recent contact. She could feel the grain, the density, the resistance to pressure. Her fingers responded with a precision that felt excessive, like a new instrument tuned too finely.
She looked down.
The body was young. Not adolescent, fully grown, but early in its life. Muscle fibers were dense and responsive. Joints moved without hesitation. Skin carried no history. No scars, no accumulated microdamage, no calluses earned by repetition.
Custom-grown, then.
"Status?" Felicia asked.
"Embodiment successful," the voice replied. "Pattern integration within expected variance. Neuroplasticity remains elevated."
She nodded once, slowly. That explained the vertigo. The constant sense that her thoughts were arriving a fraction of a second before the body finished preparing for them.
She flexed her toes. The motion overshot, then corrected itself.
"Chrysalis lineage?" she asked.
"Yes," the voice said. "Accelerated adult maturation. Neural lattice preconditioned for imprint reception. Emotional buffering left disabled by design."
She swallowed.
That part landed harder than expected.
In Hades, she had shed the reflexive defenses that once dulled sensation—habits of distance, narrative padding, the small lies consciousness tells itself to stay functional. They had not been removed so much as rendered unnecessary.
Here, every sensation arrived intact.
Air temperature registered immediately. Fabric weight mattered. The faint vibration of the floor traveled cleanly through bone.
Her skin prickled.
"I feel exposed," she said.
"That response is normal," the voice replied. "You no longer have abstraction layers between stimulus and interpretation."
Felicia stood carefully. The body rose faster than she intended, then caught itself. Strength was present, but judgment lagged behind. The nervous system was still learning the edges of itself.
An interface flickered into view at the periphery of her vision. Sparse. Functional.
Baseline health: optimal
Regenerative capacity: moderate
Neural throughput: standard
Lace interface: active
Mesh frequency access: enabled
She focused on the last line.
"Mesh access was optional," she said.
"You selected it," the voice replied. "Onmyoji track requires perceptual overlap."
"And the cost?"
The voice paused, just long enough to be intentional.
"Noise," it said. "Emotional residue. Pattern bleed. You will experience systems that are unfinished."
She exhaled through her nose.
Her attention drifted without conscious intent. Not far. Just enough to brush against a pressure in the room that didn't belong to her.
It wasn't visual. It wasn't auditory. It felt like a misalignment in expectation—like standing where someone else was supposed to be.
Her heart rate spiked.
She pulled her focus back immediately.
"That's close," she said.
"Yes," the voice replied. "Family unit. Recent death. High coherence stress. Mesh bandwidth is too low to carry consciousness pattern. The son is gone and left behind a yokai."
She rolled her shoulders, letting the body recalibrate. Muscles slid smoothly under skin that had never learned to brace itself against discomfort.
"They don't know what's happening," she said.
"No."
"Good."
She took a step toward the door. The floor responded with solid resistance. No lag. No softness. Just mass meeting mass.
"One more thing," she said, pausing.
"Yes?"
"If I hesitate—"
"Then your perception is intact," the voice said. "You are here to help them grieve. Not to impose resolution."
She nodded once.
Outside the room, the air was warmer. Heavier. Saturated with human presence and unfinished emotion.
Something thin and unresolved tugged at the edges of her awareness, mistaking attention for invitation.
She felt it.
She did not engage.
———
Felicia introduced herself at the door with a practiced softness.
"Felicia. Community support liaison. The clinic asked me to stop by."
Rafael hesitated just long enough for politeness to win. "We're… managing," he said. "But—yes. Come in."
Marisol appeared behind him with a tight smile already in place. "We weren't expecting anyone."
"I won't stay long," Felicia said. "This isn't an appointment."
That seemed to matter.
The living room smelled faintly of citrus cleaner. Everything visible had been wiped recently. Too recently. Surfaces shone without warmth.
"Please," Marisol said, gesturing. "Sit."
Felicia let her gaze drift, unfocused, as she crossed the room. She did not sharpen her perception yet. She didn't need to.
Some absences announce themselves.
The chair by the window stood slightly apart from the rest of the furniture. Not centered. Not offered. It carried the faint structural tension of disuse carefully maintained.
No one looked at it.
Rafael motioned toward the couch. "You can take—"
Felicia turned and sat in the chair instead.
The room reacted before anyone spoke.
Marisol's breath caught. Just a hitch. Small enough to miss if you weren't watching for it. Lucas's sister stiffened, eyes flicking to the floor and away again. Rafael froze, hand still half-raised.
Felicia felt the mesh tighten.
She let her perception slide, just a degree. Not enough to intrude. Enough to confirm what the room already knew.
The pressure was there. Concentrated. Anchored by repetition and refusal. It pressed hardest where no one would let their eyes rest.
Felicia settled into the chair fully.
"I hope this is alright," she said. "It was closest."
Marisol's smile didn't change. "That's Lucas's chair."
"I see," Felicia replied.
Silence followed.
"He liked the light there," Marisol added, too quickly. "For reading."
Felicia nodded. "It's good light."
Marisol stared at her.
Rafael cleared his throat. "We can bring you something. Water?"
"I'm fine," Felicia said.
Marisol's hands clenched at her sides. "Could you… maybe choose another seat?"
Felicia waited a beat too long.
"I could," she said. "But I'm already here."
The pressure spiked. Sharp, immediate. Felicia felt it like static along her spine.
Marisol's voice broke. "Please."
Felicia leaned forward slightly. "Is it the chair," she asked, "or the fact that someone's sitting where he should be?"
The words landed wrong. Too soon. Too clean.
Marisol made a sound that wasn't speech and crossed the room in three fast steps. "Get up."
Felicia stood.
Marisol collapsed into the chair the instant it was free, hands gripping the arms as if it might vanish. Her shoulders shook. The sob tore out of her without warning, raw and uncontained.
"I told you we were fine," Marisol choked. "I told you we didn't need this."
Rafael moved toward her, then stopped, unsure where to put his hands.
Lucas's sister backed away toward the hallway, face pale.
Felicia stepped back toward the door.
"I'm sorry," she said. And meant it.
Marisol looked up, eyes red, fury flashing through the grief. "You don't get to come in here and sit in his place."
"You're right," Felicia said. "I don't."
"Leave," Marisol said. "Now."
Felicia nodded once.
As she reached for the door, she let her perception flicker one last time.
The pressure clung to Marisol now, tighter, louder. Fed by rupture. By anger finally unmasked.
Felicia disengaged and stepped outside.
Behind her, Marisol's sobbing filled the room, uncontained and undeniable.
The door closed.
The sound landed harder than it should have.
Marisol stayed where she was, standing now, one hand braced against the arm of the chair she'd just reclaimed. Her breathing came fast and uneven, as if she'd run somewhere without moving.
Rafael hovered near the middle of the room, caught between following Felicia out and staying put. He did neither. His hands opened and closed at his sides.
Inez stood near the hallway, her back against the wall, eyes fixed anywhere but the door.
"That was out of line," Rafael said. He meant it for Marisol. It came out thin.
Marisol let out a sound that might have been a laugh. "You let her sit there."
"She didn't know," he said.
"She knew enough," Marisol snapped. Then, quieter, "She knew exactly what she was doing."
Inez shifted her weight. "She shouldn't have said those things."
"What things?" Rafael asked.
Inez opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her gaze flicked toward the door and slid away, like her eyes had hit a slick spot.
Marisol noticed.
"Don't," she said sharply.
"Don't what?" Inez shot back, finally looking at her mother. "Don't look? Don't talk? Don't breathe too loud in case it reminds us?"
"That's not what this is," Marisol said.
"Then what is it?" Inez demanded. "Because it feels like we're all pretending that door didn't just open and close."
Rafael swallowed. "We don't need to make this worse."
Inez laughed, harsh and humorless. "We passed worse weeks ago."
Marisol rubbed at her face with both hands. "I can't deal with this right now."
"None of us can," Inez said. "That doesn't make it go away."
They fell quiet again.
Without speaking, all three of them adjusted their focus—subtly, instinctively—so that none of them faced the door directly. Rafael angled his body toward the window. Marisol stared past the kitchen counter. Inez fixed her eyes on a spot on the carpet that had never mattered before.
The avoidance took effort. It always did.
The air near the door felt wrong. Like a thought that refused to finish forming.
In that narrow strip of space, just beyond the edge of their vision, something held shape.
It clustered where attention kept glancing and retreating. A loose, incomplete outline, threaded with too many points of focus. Eyes, if anyone had let themselves see them. Not arranged like a face. Not attached to anything that could be named. Just watching because watching was all it knew how to do.
None of them turned.
Marisol's voice shook. "I'm so angry," she said suddenly. "And I hate myself for it."
Rafael closed his eyes. "You're allowed to be."
She shook her head. "Not at him. Not at—" She stopped, breath hitching. "Not at what happened."
Inez hugged herself tighter. "I'm angry at everything," she said. "At her. At you. At him. At that woman. And I don't want to stop."
The pull near the door sharpened for a heartbeat, then wavered.
Rafael sank onto the couch and pressed his palms into his eyes. "She came in here and pushed us."
"Yes," Marisol said. Her voice was raw, but steadier now. "And I wanted to throw her out."
"You did," Inez said.
Marisol nodded. "And part of me is glad."
The admission hung between them, ugly and honest.
Inez let out a shaky breath. "Me too."
The pressure thinned, unevenly. Not gone. Just less demanding. Their attention fractured again—anger pulling one way, grief another, relief threading through both.
Marisol slid down into the chair, exhaustion finally catching up to her. Rafael leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Inez sank to the floor and rested her head against the couch.
No one looked at the door.
They didn't need to.
The room felt a little less crowded now, not because anything had left, but because they had stopped working so hard to keep the noise polite.
The house didn't settle after that.
It stayed quiet in the way places do when everyone is listening for something else to start.
Marisol was the first to move. She stood from the chair abruptly, as if she'd remembered an appointment she couldn't miss. "I need water," she said, though no one had asked.
She crossed into the kitchen and turned on the tap too hard. The sound filled the space, sharp and steady. She braced herself against the counter, sobbing, and stared at the sink until her hands stopped shaking.
Rafael stayed where he was. He kept his eyes on the floor, on the scuffed patch near the couch where Lucas used to kick off his shoes. He noticed the card before he realized he was looking at it.
It lay half-hidden between the seat cushion and the arm of the chair. Thin. Matte. Cheap enough to feel disposable.
He picked it up.
No logo. No flourish. Just a name and a title that didn't quite explain itself.
Felicia
Support Liaison
Neighborhood Health Cooperative
A local number. No extension. No promise.
He turned it over. Blank.
Rafael felt a flare of irritation. She planned that, he thought. Then, just as quickly, Or maybe she didn't.
He closed his fingers around the card and stood.
Marisol came back into the room, wiping her hands on a towel, pretending her eyes weren't a puffy red mess. "What's that?"
Rafael held it out. "She left this."
Marisol stared at it. Her mouth tightened. "She has some nerve."
Inez looked up from the floor. "She didn't say to call."
"No," Rafael said. "She didn't."
Marisol took the card anyway. She held it between her fingers like it might stain them. "I don't want her back here."
"I know," Rafael said.
Inez hesitated. "But… she didn't say we were wrong."
Marisol's grip tightened. "That's not the same as helping."
"No," Inez said. "But it's not nothing."
Marisol slid the card into the pocket of her jeans with a sharp, decisive motion. "We're not calling tonight."
Rafael nodded. "Okay."
Inez watched her mother's pocket as if trying to memorize where the card was.
The chair sat empty again.
No one said anything about it.
Later, when the house finally slept, Marisol lay awake staring at the ceiling. The arguments replayed themselves, not as words, but as heat—anger without a target, grief without edges.
Her hand drifted to her nightstand.
She didn't take the card.
She didn't need to.
She already knew the number.
———
Rafael didn't sleep.
He lay in bed listening to the house breathe around him, every sound too loud, every pause too long. When morning came it didn't feel like relief. It felt like something finally giving up.
He went to work anyway.
The shop smelled like oil and hot metal and bodies packed too close together. Normally that helped. Normally it gave his hands something to do that didn't require thinking.
Today it just felt crowded.
Someone said his name wrong. Not even wrong—casual. Familiar in a way that assumed continuity.
"You good, man?"
Rafael didn't answer.
He focused on the machine in front of him, on the vibration through his palms, on the numbers scrolling past where they were supposed to. His jaw ached from clenching. His shoulders stayed high, ready, like his body was bracing for a hit that never came.
Behind him, someone laughed.
It wasn't about him. That almost made it worse.
"Hey," a voice said, closer now. "You're drifting. You want me to take that—"
Rafael turned.
He didn't remember deciding to move. He remembered the man's mouth still forming the end of the sentence. He remembered the sound—wet and dull—when his fist connected.
The man staggered back into a table. Tools clattered to the floor.
Someone shouted. Someone else swore.
Rafael stood there, chest heaving, hand already throbbing. The shock on the man's face registered distantly, like something happening through glass.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" the man yelled.
Rafael laughed.
It ripped out of him, loud and ugly. "You don't get to ask me that."
Hands grabbed his arms. He shrugged them off hard enough to send one person stumbling.
"Back off," he snapped. "Don't touch me."
The room had gone quiet in the way rooms do when they decide someone is no longer predictable.
Rafael felt it then—the clarity. The clean, sharp edge of knowing exactly how much damage he could do if someone gave him an excuse.
He pulled his cryo-jacket from the hook and walked out, shoving one of the labor bots to the floor on the way out.
No explanation. No apology.
Outside, the air hit him like a slap. Heat, exhaust, noise. The city didn't care what had happened to him. It kept moving.
Good.
He walked without direction at first, then with intention he didn't admit to himself. The streets changed gradually. Shops shuttered. People watched him longer. Marked him.
His chest burned. His thoughts narrowed.
If they do it, he thought. If someone makes me do it.
He pictured the spot where Lucas had died. The curb. The streak on the pavement no one else noticed anymore.
His hands curled into fists again.
He saw a group ahead—young, alert, claiming space the way only people with nothing to lose did. One of them glanced at him, assessing.
Rafael met his gaze and didn't look away.
He took a step closer.
Another.
His heart pounded hard enough to hurt. Not fear. Something hotter. Cleaner.
Do it, he thought, not to them, but to the world. Do it and be done.
The image hit him then, uninvited and vicious—Marisol standing in the doorway, Inez on the floor, the house quiet again but emptier this time.
He stopped.
The anger didn't vanish. It recoiled, furious at being interrupted.
Rafael bent forward, hands on his knees, breathing hard. Sweat ran down his spine. His vision blurred at the edges.
"This isn't him," he muttered. He didn't know who he was talking to.
He straightened slowly and turned away from the group. His legs felt heavy, uncooperative, like they'd already committed to something else.
He walked until the neighborhood thinned again. Until the noise dulled.
Only then did he reach into his pocket.
The card was creased now. Warm from his body.
Felicia
Support Liaison
Neighborhood Health Cooperative
Rafael stared at it for a long moment.
"I don't want help," he said aloud. His voice cracked. "I want it to stop."
He took out his phone.
His thumb hovered over the call icon, shaking harder than it had when he'd thrown the punch.
Then he pressed it.
The phone rang twice.
"Felicia," a woman's voice said. No greeting. No pitch. Just her name, offered like an anchor.
Rafael swallowed. "You left a card."
"Yes."
There was no follow-up question. No apology.
Rafael stared at the sidewalk, at the heat shimmer rising off the pavement. "You pissed my wife off."
"I expected that," Felicia said.
"She threw you out."
"Yes."
Rafael clenched his jaw. "You sat where you weren't supposed to."
"I sat where no one would look."
Silence stretched. Rafael felt his pulse in his ears.
"I almost did something stupid," he said finally.
Felicia didn't interrupt.
"I wanted someone to stop me," he added. "Or not."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"Are you with your family right now?" Felicia asked.
"No."
"Good," she said. "Then go home. I'll come by later. Only if your wife agrees."
Rafael laughed bitterly. "She won't."
"Then I'll sit on the curb," Felicia replied. "The work doesn't require being invited inside."
Rafael exhaled. "Come by after sunset."
"I will."
The call ended without ceremony.
———
Marisol didn't argue when Rafael told her. She didn't agree either. She just nodded once, exhausted beyond the point of protest.
Felicia arrived quietly.
She didn't sit down this time.
Inez hovered near the kitchen, pretending to clean something that was already clean. She watched Felicia from the corner of her eye, jaw tight.
Felicia noticed. She always did.
"You're the older one," Felicia said casually, not looking at her. "Right?"
Inez stiffened. "By two years."
Felicia nodded. "That's the worst gap."
Marisol glanced up sharply. "Excuse me?"
Felicia met her gaze. "Big enough to feel responsible. Small enough to be wrong most of the time."
Inez flushed. "You don't know anything about us."
Felicia turned to her fully now. "Then tell me where I'm wrong."
Inez opened her mouth. Closed it.
"He never listened," she said finally. "Ever."
Felicia tilted her head. "Ever?"
Inez's voice rose. "No. He just did whatever he wanted. And then—" She stopped herself, breathing hard. "And then everyone acts like he was some mystery."
Felicia nodded slowly. "What did you know better about?"
Inez blinked. "What?"
"You said you knew better," Felicia said. "About what?"
Inez looked at the floor. "About everything."
The words came out flat. Stripped of heat.
Marisol shifted uncomfortably.
Felicia waited.
"I told him who to avoid," Inez continued. "Where not to go. What not to say. Like I knew how any of it worked."
Her throat tightened. "I never asked him why he did any of it."
Felicia spoke gently now. "Because you already knew the answer?"
Inez nodded. Tears welled up, furious and unwanted. "I thought if I pushed hard enough, he'd just… be safer."
"And when he wasn't?" Felicia asked.
Inez's hands curled into fists. "I got louder."
The room went still.
Rafael stared at his daughter like he was seeing her clearly for the first time in days.
Felicia didn't soften it. "Did he ever listen to you?"
Inez shook her head, sobbing now. "No. Because I never listened to him."
The words cracked something open.
Marisol covered her mouth. Rafael closed his eyes.
Felicia let the silence do its work.
"This isn't blame," she said quietly. "It's anger that never got to be honest."
Inez dragged her sleeve across her face, furious at the tears. "I don't get to be angry. He's dead and it's my fault."
Felicia looked at her steadily. "You're angry because he's dead. And because he lived a life you never saw."
Inez squeezed her eyes shut.
For a brief moment—just a flicker—the pull in the room sharpened. Drawn tight around the things they refused to look at together.
Felicia felt it.
She didn't point it out.
She stayed with Inez.
"Say it," Felicia said. "The part you're afraid makes you awful."
Inez's voice shook. "I hate that he didn't listen."
Felicia nodded. "Good."
"I hate that I was right about some of it."
"Good."
"I hate that I never let him tell me when I was wrong."
The words came out in a rush now, ugly and real.
Felicia stayed exactly where she was.
———
Felicia didn't turn to Rafael right away.
She let the room settle around Inez's breathing, the aftershock of words finally said out loud. Marisol sat rigid, hands clasped together so tightly her knuckles had gone pale. No one moved to fix anything. That was good.
Felicia shifted her weight slightly. Just enough to bring Rafael into her line of sight.
"You haven't said anything yet," she said.
Rafael snorted. "That's probably for the best."
Felicia didn't smile. "No. That's usually where the rot starts."
Marisol looked up sharply. "Don't."
Felicia raised a hand, palm out. Not at Marisol. At the space between them. "Let him answer first."
Rafael stared at the floor. His jaw worked side to side. When he spoke, his voice was flat. Controlled in the way people get right before they lose it.
"What do you want me to say?"
"The things you're not allowed to," Felicia replied. "The ones you correct in your head before they reach your mouth."
Rafael laughed once, harsh and ugly. "That's a bad idea."
"Yes," Felicia said. "It is."
Marisol shook her head. "This isn't—"
Felicia cut her off without raising her voice. "This isn't about comfort."
Rafael's hands clenched. "If I start talking, I won't stop."
Felicia met his gaze. "Good."
The word landed hard.
Inez looked between them, uneasy. "Dad—"
Rafael finally looked up.
"Do you have any idea," he said, and his voice cracked immediately, "how many times I told you to keep your head down?"
The room went very still.
Marisol's breath caught. "Rafael."
He didn't look at her.
"How many times I said, 'Just get home. Just don't give them a reason.'" His voice rose with each word. "And you'd look at me like I was stupid. Like I didn't know anything."
Inez stiffened. "That's not fair."
Rafael snapped his head toward her. "No. It isn't."
Felicia stayed silent.
"I was scared," Rafael continued, the words spilling faster now. "Every time you walked out that door. And you'd grin at me like that meant something. Like it fixed it."
His hands trembled openly now. "You thought you were untouchable."
Marisol stood abruptly. "Stop it!"
Rafael rounded on her, eyes blazing. "No. I won't."
The words shocked even him.
"You were reckless," he said, voice raw. "You thought consequences were for other people. And I loved you so much it made me stupid about it."
Inez stared at her father like she'd been slapped. "How can you say that?"
Rafael laughed again, broken. "Because it's true. And because now I don't get to say anything else."
Marisol's face crumpled. "You're blaming him."
Felicia spoke then, calm and firm. "No. He's mourning the son he couldn't reach."
Marisol turned on her. "That's not the same thing."
Felicia didn't back down. "It is right now."
Rafael's voice dropped, hoarse. "I should have yelled more. I should have dragged you back inside. I should have been worse."
The accusation in the room thickened. Inez's eyes filled with tears again, this time sharp with anger.
"You don't get to rewrite him," she snapped. "You don't get to make him the problem."
Rafael flinched like she'd struck him.
Felicia stepped in, finally. Not physically. Just enough that her presence cut through the spiral.
"This is not a courtroom," she said. "There is no verdict coming."
She looked at Marisol. "This is not betrayal."
Then at Inez. "This is not erasure."
Then back to Rafael. "This is love with the filters ripped off."
Rafael sagged forward, elbows on his knees, hands pressed into his face. "I'm so angry at him," he choked. "And I hate myself for that."
Felicia's voice softened, but didn't sweeten. "Good. Because that means you loved him enough to want him alive."
The room felt tight again. Focused. Drawn.
Felicia felt the pull sharpen briefly at the edges of her awareness, attention trying to converge on what none of them wanted to look at.
She let it happen.
Just for a breath.
Then she spoke again, steady and grounded. "This isn't the time for judgment. Not of him. Not of yourselves."
Rafael looked up, eyes red and wild. "Then what is it?"
Felicia held his gaze. "It's the time to stop pretending you're only allowed to feel the parts of grief that look respectable."
No one argued.
They couldn't.
Rafael bowed his head again, shoulders shaking. This time, no one tried to stop him.
Rafael didn't lift his head.
He stayed folded forward, elbows locked to his knees, breath tearing in and out of his chest like it had lost coordination with the rest of him.
"I told you," he said into his hands. His voice was muffled, stripped of any care for how it sounded. "I told you not to be stupid. Not brave. Not fast. Just alive."
Marisol froze.
The words hit her first as sound. Then as meaning. Then as recognition.
Rafael dragged his hands down his face and looked up.
"I needed you to listen," he shouted, the restraint finally gone. "Not because I was right. Because I was scared. Because I didn't know how to protect you any other way."
Inez flinched, then squared her shoulders. "You don't get to yell at him like he's still here."
Rafael's mouth twisted. "Don't I?"
The question cracked something open.
He stood so fast the chair scraped loudly against the floor. His hands were shaking now, not from grief alone, but from the effort of not tearing the room apart with it.
"I'm angry at you," he yelled at the empty space ahead of him. Not the chair. Not the door. Somewhere just beyond both. "I'm angry that you made me imagine your body on the pavement. That you made me identify you by what was left."
Marisol sucked in a sharp breath.
Rafael's voice rose, ragged and merciless. "I'm angry that you didn't care enough to be afraid with me."
The room tightened.
Not metaphorically. Practically.
Attention snapped into alignment, not by agreement, but by force of emotion. Marisol's gaze followed Rafael's without deciding to. Inez's eyes tracked the line of his fury even as she tried to look away.
All three of them were staring now.
At the same place.
The space near the door where no one ever looked long enough.
The air there fractured.
Not visually at first. As pressure. As wrongness. As the sensation of too many lines of sight crossing where none should exist.
Then it resolved.
Not cleanly.
A loose knot of focus hung there, anchored by their attention. Shapes failed to agree with one another. Edges refused to settle. Too many points gleamed where there should have been none, catching the light at slightly different angles.
Eyes.
Not arranged. Not watching with intent. Simply present. Reflective. Multiplying as their gaze held.
Inez gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth.
Marisol staggered back a step, heart pounding so hard she could hear it.
Rafael stopped mid-sentence.
"What the fuck is that?" he whispered.
The thing did not move.
It did not advance. It did not retreat.
It existed where their avoidance had been.
Where their attention now landed without filter.
Felicia said nothing.
She watched their eyes widen together. Watched the moment stretch just long enough for certainty to form.
Then Rafael screamed again.
Not at it.
At the memory.
"Look at what you left us with," he roared. "Look at this mess. Look at what we have to live with now."
The knot of eyes sharpened. Clarified. Bound tighter by the coherence of shared focus.
Marisol sobbed openly now, no longer hiding it. "Rafael, stop."
"No," he yelled. "I won't. I won't be quiet about this anymore."
The pressure spiked.
Felicia felt it crest.
She stepped forward.
"Enough," she said, not loud, but absolute.
Rafael's breath hitched. His attention wavered.
The thing thinned instantly. Not gone. Just less defined. Less held.
Inez squeezed her eyes shut and turned away, sobbing. Marisol dropped into the chair, hands shaking.
Rafael stood there, chest heaving, staring at empty air.
"What did we just see?" he asked hoarsely.
Felicia did not answer yet.
She watched the room loosen as their focus fractured again.
This was not the moment for explanation.
This was the moment before it.
Felicia let the silence stretch just long enough for panic to start looking for somewhere to go.
"It isn't him," she said.
The words landed like a slap.
Marisol looked at her, eyes wild. "You don't know that."
"Yes," Felicia replied evenly. "I do."
Rafael's hands were still clenched at his sides. "You saw it too."
"I saw something," Felicia said. "Not your son."
Inez shook her head hard. "Then what was it?"
Felicia didn't answer immediately. She watched them do what people always did next.
Marisol took a step forward, voice trembling. "Lucas?" she whispered toward the empty space. "If that's you—"
Felicia moved between her and the door without touching her. Just presence. Just interruption.
"Don't," she said.
Marisol recoiled like she'd been burned. "You don't get to tell me not to talk to my son."
"I do," Felicia said quietly, "because whatever you speak to there will answer back in the only way it knows how."
Rafael swallowed. "Maybe he's stuck. Maybe he's trying to tell us something."
Inez nodded eagerly, desperate. "People talk about ghosts all the time. Unfinished business. Warnings."
Felicia let them say it. Bargaining always came dressed as curiosity.
"Can it hear us?" Inez asked. "If we all talk at once—"
"No," Felicia said firmly. "Stop."
Her tone cut through the spiral.
"That thing doesn't listen," she continued. "It reflects. It amplifies. It feeds on shared attention and unresolved emotion. The more you try to reach it as him, the more it will look like him to you."
Marisol's face crumpled. "Then what are we supposed to do? Pretend we didn't see it?"
Felicia shook her head. "No. You're supposed to stop lying about what you want."
Rafael stared at her. "What we want is our son back."
Felicia held his gaze. "And that is the one thing that will never happen."
The words were brutal. Deliberately so.
Inez screamed. Not loud. Just sharp and broken. "You don't know that!"
Felicia nodded once. "You're right. I don't know everything. But I know this."
She took a breath.
"You are not being haunted by a person."
Marisol sank into the chair as if her legs had given out.
"This isn't an afterlife," Felicia continued. "It isn't a soul waiting to be heard. And it is not a sign that he's still here."
Rafael's voice was hoarse. "Then why did we all see it?"
Felicia glanced at the door. At the place where it had sharpened under their attention.
"Because you're connected," she said. "And you didn't know it."
Inez wiped her face angrily. "We don't have implants."
Felicia shook her head. "You have something cheaper."
Recognition flickered across Marisol's face. Slow. Horrified.
"The patch," she whispered.
"Yes," Felicia said. "The Mesh."
Rafael's jaw tightened. "That's just medication."
"That's what it's sold as," Felicia replied. "You all refused the Lace because you thought it was mind control. Surveillance. Someone else steering the wheel."
Marisol nodded numbly. "We didn't want that in our heads."
Felicia's voice stayed steady. "So you accepted something that didn't announce itself as anything more than relief."
Inez's breathing went shallow. "You're saying we did this."
Felicia shook her head again. "I'm saying someone sold you a counterfeit."
The room felt colder now, not from fear, but from understanding arriving too fast.
"The Lace," Felicia continued, "is high bandwidth. Structured. Error-checked. It can carry a person without tearing them apart."
Rafael stared at the floor. "And this?"
"The Mesh barely carries feelings," Felicia said. "It links you just enough to synchronize stress. Fear. Grief. It cannot hold a mind."
Marisol's voice was barely audible. "So what did we see?"
Felicia met her eyes.
"A shadow," she said. "Made of what couldn't go anywhere else."
Inez hugged herself tightly. "If we keep talking to it…"
Felicia nodded. "You will teach it how to stay."
Silence fell again.
This time it wasn't braced.
It was afraid.
Rafael finally spoke. "Then what do we do?"
Felicia didn't answer right away.
Because this was the point where people usually begged.
Instead, she said, "First, you stop pretending this is hope."
They all looked at her.
"This stage," Felicia continued, "feels productive. You want to negotiate. To listen harder. To believe you can fix what happened."
Her gaze was unwavering. "That is how this becomes permanent."
Marisol pressed her hands into her eyes. "So we're just supposed to let him go?"
Felicia's voice softened, but didn't bend. "No. You're supposed to grieve him without keeping a door open for something else to move in."
The words sat heavy in the room.
Outside, the city hummed on, indifferent.
Inside, the family stared at one another, shaken but finally aligned around a truth that hurt too much to romanticize.
The shadow near the door did not sharpen.
It waited.
Nothing followed the explanation.
No relief. No release. Just the slow, heavy collapse that came when bargaining ran out of places to hide.
Marisol sat very still. Her hands rested in her lap as if she'd forgotten what they were for. The fight had gone out of her posture entirely. Not replaced with peace. Just absence.
"So that's it," she said finally. Her voice was flat, almost curious. "We just… live with it."
Felicia nodded. "Yes."
Inez stared at the floor. Her shoulders slumped inward, folding protectively around her chest. "And when we die?"
Felicia didn't answer right away.
Rafael noticed. His jaw tightened. "Say it."
Felicia met his gaze. She didn't soften the words. She didn't rush them either.
"The Mesh binds to the nervous system," she said. "It integrates too deeply. There's no clean separation. No upgrade path."
Marisol swallowed. "So we can't—"
"No," Felicia said. "You won't enter Hades."
The room absorbed that quietly.
Rafael leaned back against the wall, staring at nothing. "Then what happens to us?"
Felicia shook her head once. "I don't know."
Inez's voice was small now. "You don't know?"
"There are other outcomes," Felicia said. "Other states. Some degrade. Some disperse. Some persist as fragments. Some become… things like what you saw."
Marisol closed her eyes. "So we end up like him."
Felicia chose her words carefully. "You will end. Just not yet."
That landed harder than anger ever had.
No one cried this time.
The silence that followed wasn't braced or tense. It sagged. Heavy. Exhausted. Like a room after a long illness where everyone finally understands the prognosis.
Rafael rubbed his face slowly. "So what's the point of any of this?"
Felicia didn't answer with philosophy.
"The danger," she said instead, "is not the shadow."
Inez looked up sharply. "It isn't?"
"No," Felicia replied. "It can't hurt you. It can't grow unless you teach it how."
Marisol opened her eyes. "By hoping."
"Yes."
Felicia's voice stayed even. "By trying to keep him here. By treating what you saw as a sign, or a message, or proof that something was spared."
Rafael's laugh was hollow. "So we're not even allowed that."
"You're allowed to miss him," Felicia said. "You're allowed to love him. You're allowed to be angry at the unfairness of it."
She looked at each of them in turn.
"You're not allowed to turn that into a reason to stop living forward."
Inez wiped her eyes angrily. "That sounds like comfort dressed up as rules."
Felicia shook her head. "It isn't comfort. It's containment."
Marisol stared past her, toward the door. "If we don't look… it fades."
"Yes," Felicia said. "Attention is the only thing it uses."
"And if we do?" Rafael asked.
Felicia didn't flinch. "Then it will wait exactly as long as you need it to."
The room felt empty now. Truly empty. Not crowded. Not tense. Just stripped.
Depression settled in the way gravity does when nothing pushes back.
Marisol nodded once, slow and resigned. "Okay."
The word didn't mean acceptance.
It meant exhaustion.
Felicia stood. "I'll check in again."
"When?" Inez asked dully.
Felicia paused at the door. "When you're bored of missing him," she said. "Or when you're tempted to build a shrine."
She left without ceremony.
The family stayed where they were.
No one looked at the door.
The shadow did not sharpen.
It waited—not because it wanted to, but because waiting was all it knew how to do.
And that, more than anything else, made it unbearable.