—When the past pulses in your grip, the future trembles
Shawn's room was dim, the desk lamp's faint glow barely reaching the corners.
Outside, the night pressed against the windows—thick, silent.
He sat on the edge of his bed, fingers wrapped around the jade seal pendant. Smooth, cool.
The emerald-green swirl inside it shifted faintly, as if something were moving beneath the surface.
It hadn't vanished.
It was real.
The XR projection of that conference room—the tension, the voices, the sheer weight of their words—still clung to him like smoke that wouldn't wash off.
He glanced at the clock. Past midnight. Too late to call anyone.
But there was one person he had to see.
Grandpa.
Quietly, he slipped out of bed and into the hallway, careful not to disturb the household.
The outside air chilled his skin as he stepped into the night.
A light glowed from the study window. No surprise. Grandpa often stayed up late, buried in his books on traditional culture and obscure histories.
He knocked. Once. Then again.
The door creaked open.
Shawn stepped inside, the floorboards groaning faintly beneath his shoes.
His grandfather sat hunched at the desk, lamplight pooling over the aged wood. A thick, cracked-spine book lay open in front of him.
As the pages shifted, Shawn caught the title:Meta I Ching Research, its faded gold letters barely legible.
His chest tightened.
"Meta I Ching…" he murmured, stepping closer. "Is it related to the Meta-Origin Sect?"
The old man's fingers froze. The page stilled.
A long pause.
"Yes," he said at last, voice low. "But that name—Meta-Origin Sect—must never be spoken outside this room."
Shawn frowned. "Why not?"
His grandfather sighed, closing the book with a soft thud.
"Because some truths aren't just dangerous—they're forgotten for a reason."
Shawn reached into his pocket and placed the pendant on the desk.
It rested there between them, glinting faintly in the lamplight.
His grandfather's gaze fell to it. His eyes did not move.
"You've stepped into something far older—and deeper—than you realize."
Shawn's breath hitched. "So it wasn't a dream."
"No."
The air thickened. Shadows at the edge of the room seemed to draw closer, leaning in.
Shawn hesitated. "What was that place?"
The old man reached out, his fingers brushing the pendant with quiet reverence, as if confirming its weight in the world.
"You were called," he said. "And calls like that don't come without purpose."
Shawn leaned forward, voice low. "What purpose?"
A flicker crossed the old man's face—grief, perhaps, or memory.
He didn't answer.
"Why won't you tell me?" Shawn pressed. "If something's happening… I deserve to know."
His grandfather looked at him, gaze steady but distant.
"Some answers don't arrive until you're ready to hear them."
Frustration built in Shawn's chest, but he pushed it down. Changed tactics.
"Then at least tell me this," he said. "The paper—the one with the Thunder Core symbol. Where did it come from?"
His grandfather's expression shifted. His hand moved slightly, resting on the edge of the aged parchment tucked beneath the book. The motion was small, but protective.
"It was entrusted to me," he said slowly. "By someone I once trusted with my life."
Shawn narrowed his eyes. "Who?"
Silence.
The old man's fingers grazed the parchment again, this time slower, more deliberate.
The symbol of the Thunder Core shimmered faintly through the paper's worn surface — angular, ancient, almost alive.
"Grandpa," Shawn asked, "are you… part of the Meta-Origin Sect?"
A pause.
"No," he said. "But she was."
Shawn blinked. "She?"
His grandfather's gaze drifted to something far away.
His voice dropped.
"Eighteen years ago… she gave me the pendant. The paper. And the warning."
Shawn's voice tightened. "Who was she?"
No answer.
The old man looked down, running a thumb along the paper's edge with something close to reverence.
"She said the Thunder Core wasn't just a symbol. It was a key. A memory locked in time, waiting to awaken."
Shawn swallowed. "A key to what?"
His grandfather finally met his eyes.
"To what was lost. And what's coming."
The words sank like stone.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Only the hum of the lamp, the slow ticking of a clock.
Shawn opened his mouth to ask more—but something in the old man's face made him stop.
It wasn't just secrecy.
It was mourning.
This part of the story wasn't ready to be told.
The room felt smaller. Heavier.
The pendant seemed to pulse faintly in the silence, like a heart waiting.
Shawn closed his fingers around it.
"I can't ignore it," he whispered. "Even if I wanted to."
His grandfather gave a slow, knowing nod.
"Then you must be ready to carry what comes with it,"he said, almost to himself.
The silence that followed was no longer heavy with secrecy, but with expectation.
A thread had been pulled—and something ancient was beginning to stir.
Shawn felt it. Not just in the pendant's quiet pulse, but in the air itself.
As if unseen doors had begun to shift.
And somewhere, in the dark corners of the world, the other Elemental Cores waited.
Waiting to be found.
Or awakened.
And this time, they wouldn't stay quiet.
And in that quiet room, the first spark of a storm long forgotten was reborn.