Max looked at the old man as if he had just suggested Max try to box a kangaroo.
"Okay, hold on," Max said, holding up his hands. "Let's say I believe you. Let's say there are shadow monsters and a secret svengers club. That still leaves one massive problem: I'm seventeen. My only 'superpower' is procrastinating until 3:00 AM and eating ungodly amounts of spicy chips without getting heartburn. How exactly am I supposed to fight a 'Guut'?"
The old man's smile widened, revealing a glint of excitement. "An excellent question. You are correct. A human, in their base state, is nothing more than food for a Guut. To fight a monster, one must become... something more."
He turned back to the black stone table and pressed a hidden indentation on its surface. With a hiss of escaping air, the center of the table retracted, and a circular rack rose from the depths.
Sitting in the rack were fifteen glass vials. They didn't look like high-tech serum containers; they looked like ancient chemistry beakers. Inside each one was a thick, viscous substance. They were distinct colors—some neon green, others deep violent, some swirling with metallic gold—but they all shared one trait: they looked incredibly gross.
"The asteroid brought the poison," the old man said, gesturing to the vials, "but it also brought the antidote. We scraped these substances from the core of the impact site. We call them the Power Fluids."
Max wrinkled his nose. "Power Fluids? That sounds like a cheap energy drink."
"Do not mock them," the old man warned, his voice stern. "These are concentrated essence of the cosmos. When consumed, they rewrite the consumer's DNA. They grant abilities that defy the laws of physics."
Max leaned in closer, intrigued despite the slime factor. "So... superpowers. Like flying? Laser eyes? Super strength?" He looked at the old man. "Wait, do I get to pick? Because if there's one that lets me stop time, I'm taking that one. It would really help with exams."
"It does not work that way," the old man said, shaking his head slowly. "You do not choose the power, Maxwell. The power chooses you."
"What does that mean?"
"We have identified fifteen distinct strains," the old man explained, walking slowly around the rack. "But I cannot tell you what they do. Not yet. That information is classified for inducted members only. However, knowing what they do wouldn't help you anyway."
He stopped and pointed a long, bony finger at a vial filled with a tar-like black sludge.
"Each human physiology is unique. Your genetic makeup resonates with only one specific fluid. If you were to walk around this table, the fluid that is compatible with you would begin to glow—a reaction to your specific bio-rhythm."
"Okay," Max said, eyeing the fluids. "And what happens if I just pick the one that looks the coolest? Like that gold one?"
The old man's expression turned grave. The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
"If you consume a Power Fluid that rejects you," the old man whispered, leaning in close, "your body will survive, but your mind will not. The energy will boil your consciousness. You won't die immediately. You will die of craziness. You will lose your humanity, becoming a gibbering, broken shell, trapped in a nightmare of your own making until your heart finally gives out."
Max swallowed hard. The gold fluid suddenly looked a lot less appealing.
"So," Max squeaked. "High stakes. Got it."
The old man pressed the button again, and the rack of slimy vials descended back into the table, sealing shut with a hiss.
"You have been given a glimpse of the truth, Maxwell," the old man said, his tone shifting to business-like efficiency. "But this is not a decision to be made lightly. The life of an HPF agent is dangerous. It requires sacrifice."
He walked Max back toward the iron door. "Go home. Sleep on it—if you can. You have until tomorrow morning to decide. If you want to join, return to the shop at 9:00 AM sharp."
As Max reached for the door handle, the old man's hand clamped onto his shoulder. The grip was surprisingly strong, like a steel claw. Max froze.
The kindly grandfather act was gone. The old man's eyes were cold behind his spectacles.
"And Maxwell?" he said softly. "This conversation never happened. The shop, the basement, the Guuts—it is all a secret. If you utter a single word of this to your mother, your friends, or anyone else... we will know."
The old man leaned closer, his voice a razor-sharp whisper.
"And the HPF cleans up its loose ends. If you talk, we will kill you before you can finish the sentence. Do we understand each other?"
Max nodded frantically, unable to speak.
"Good lad." The old man released him and smiled warmly, as if he hadn't just threatened a teenager with execution. "Mind the step on your way out."
Max stumbled out of the door, scrambled up a surprisingly normal flight of stairs that he hadn't noticed before, and burst out of the back of the shop into the blinding afternoon sun. He didn't stop running until he was three blocks away.That night, the screech returned with a vengeance. The silhouette in the fire didn't just watch Max; it seemed to reach for him, its fingers lengthening into shadowy claws that scraped against his mind. Max woke up at 5:00 AM, gasping, shivering, and absolutely certain of one thing: he couldn't live like this anymore.
He didn't bother trying to go back to sleep. He paced his room until the sun came up, watching the clock tick. At 8:30 AM, he told his mother he was going to the library to "get a head start on the school year"—a lie so blatant she felt his forehead for a fever—and left the house.
At 9:00 AM sharp, Max pushed open the door to Shop No. 5.
The old man was standing exactly where he had been the day before, dusting a grandfather clock. He didn't look up.
"I didn't think you'd come," the old man said softly.
"The dream," Max said, his voice raspy from lack of sleep. "It's getting worse. I want it to stop."
The old man stopped dusting. He turned, his eyes serious behind the thick spectacles. "Then let us begin."
They took the normal stairs this time—Max was grateful not to be dropped through the floor again—and returned to the Chamber of Echoes. The room hummed with that same low, unsettling vibration. The old man pressed the hidden button on the black stone table, and with a hiss, the rack of fifteen vials rose from the center.
The fluids bubbled and swirled. The neon green one fizzed; the golden one shimmered. And there, on the far side, sat the vial of black sludge. It looked dead, motionless, like a piece of the night sky trapped in glass.
"You know the rules," the old man said, his voice echoing slightly. "Walk slowly. Keep your mind clear. If a fluid glows, stop immediately."
Max took a deep breath. Here goes nothing.
He started walking clockwise.
He passed the neon green fluid. Nothing.
He passed a swirling red fluid that looked like liquid magma. It remained dull.
He passed the golden fluid. Max held his breath, remembering the warning about dying of craziness. The gold fluid didn't react.
He was halfway around the table. Still nothing. A cold knot formed in his stomach. What if none of them glow? What if I'm just a normal kid with nightmares and I have to go back to doing algebra?
He kept walking. He passed a blue fluid, a purple one, a silver one. Nothing.
Then, he approached the black vial.
As he took a step closer, the air in the room suddenly felt heavy, like the pressure drop before a thunderstorm. The humming sound of the room spiked in pitch.
Voooooom.
The black sludge didn't just glow; it erupted.
A pulse of dark, violet-black light shot out from the vial, so intense it seemed to suck the illumination from the rest of the room. The glass vibrated violently against the metal rack. The black liquid inside began to boil and thrash, swirling as if it were alive and trying to break the glass to get to Max.
Max jumped back, startled. "Whoa!"
"Stop!" the old man shouted.
Max froze. He looked at the old man. The color had drained completely from the old man's face. His mouth was hanging slightly open, his eyes wide with genuine shock. He looked from Max to the violent, trashing black fluid, and back to Max.
"This... this is impossible," the old man stammered. He walked around the table, keeping a safe distance from the glowing black vial. "In five thousand years... since the founding of the HPF... never. Not once."
"What?" Max asked, his heart hammering. "What does it mean? Is it bad? It looks bad."
"The Void Fluid," the old man whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of fear and awe. "It is the most potent, the most volatile of all the extracts. We have had warriors bond with the fire, the storm, the steel... but never the Void. We thought it was a dud. A dead sample."
He looked at Max with a new intensity. "You are the first, Maxwell. The first in history."
Max looked at the angry black sludge. "Great. I get the historic sludge. Lucky me."
The old man carefully reached out. His hand was shaking as he pinched the neck of the vial. As soon as he touched it, the violet light dimmed slightly, but the liquid continued to swirl aggressively. He pulled it from the rack and held it out to Max.
"Drink," the old man commanded, though his voice lacked its usual authority. He looked terrified of what might happen next. "If it chose you, it should not kill you. But... be prepared."
Max took the vial. It was ice cold to the touch, freezing his fingertips. It smelled like ozone and burnt matches.
"Bottoms up," Max muttered.
He tilted his head back and downed the fluid in one gulp.
It was thick, sliding down his throat like cold oil. For a second, nothing happened. Max blinked. "It tastes like licor—"
CRACK.
The pain hit him like a sledgehammer to the brain.
Max dropped the empty vial. It shattered on the floor. He fell to his knees, clutching his head. It didn't feel like a headache; it felt like his skull was being pried open from the inside.
"ARGHHH!"
He screamed, curling into a ball. His vision went white, then red, then pitch black. He felt like he was expanding, like his body was dissolving into mist. He could hear the screeching from his dream, but it was a thousand times louder, deafening him. He felt every vein in his body burning, turning to ice, then burning again.
I'm dying, he thought, panic overwhelming him. The old man was wrong. I'm dying of craziness. My brain is melting.
"Maxwell! Breathe!" The old man's voice sounded miles away, distorted and slow.
Max opened his mouth to scream again, but no sound came out. The pressure built to an impossible peak. He felt a final, sickening snap behind his eyes.
And then... silence.
Absolute, perfect silence.
Max gasped, his eyes snapping open. He was on his hands and knees on the cold floor, panting heavily. Sweat dripped from his nose.
He waited for the pain to return. He waited for the madness.
But there was nothing. In fact, he felt... good.
Better than good.
The headache he'd had all morning was gone. The heaviness in his limbs was gone. His vision was razor-sharp—he could see the individual specks of dust floating in the air, could see the microscopic scratches on the metal table legs. The room felt lighter.
Max slowly stood up. He flexed his fingers. They felt strong, charged with a strange, humming energy.
"I'm..." Max touched his face, checking if it was still there. "I'm alive."
The old man let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for a minute. He slumped against the table, wiping sweat from his own forehead.
"Remarkable," the old man breathed, staring at Max. "You survived."
"I feel weird," Max said, looking at his hands. "But... a good weird."
"You have assimilated the Void," the old man said, regaining his composure. "Now, the real work begins. Welcome to the HPF, Agent Maxwell.
"Miles away from the safety of the antique shop, in a place that existed in the forgotten crevices of the city's underbelly, there was a room where the light dared not enter.
The air here was stagnant, smelling of rust and old blood. There were no windows, only walls of damp, crumbling concrete that seemed to sweat in the stifling heat. In the center of the room, shadows pooled and writhed like snakes in a pit, darker than the surrounding gloom.
A figure sat in the corner, shrouded in a heavy cloak that seemed to merge with the darkness behind it. One hand, pale and unnaturally long, tapped rhythmically against the armrest of a decrepit wooden chair.
"Report," a voice rasped. It sounded like two stones grinding together deep underground.
From the pool of shifting shadows on the floor, a shape began to rise. It looked like a man, but the edges of his form were blurry, flickering in and out of existence like a bad television signal. He knelt before the seated figure, his head bowed low.
"We watched him, My Lord," the kneeling shadow hissed. "He entered the shop. He went below."
The seated figure stopped tapping. The silence in the room stretched, heavy and suffocating.
"And?" the figure demanded. "Did he take the bait? Did he join HPF?"
The kneeling shadow trembled slightly. "Yes. He joined HPF."
A low, guttural sound echoed through the room—a laugh that carried no humor, only malice. The seated figure leaned forward, and for a fleeting second, a pair of burning red eyes flashed in the dark.
"Good," the figure whispered. "The Progenitor was worried the boy might be too cowardly. But he has spirit. He has... potential."
"But My Lord," the shadow hesitated. "He consumed the Void. The Black Vial. We felt the shockwave. It... it accepted him."
The red eyes narrowed. "The Void? Interesting. Very interesting. We expected him to take the Fire or the Storm. But the Void..."
The figure stood up, looming over the subordinate. The shadows in the room seemed to rise with him, reacting to his mood.
"Let him play hero for now. Let the old man train him. Let him think he has found a family, a purpose. The Void is a hungry power, and he is but a vessel."
The figure turned away, disappearing back into the deepest corner of the room.
"Keep watching him. When the time is right, we will not just break him... we will consume him."