The fluorescent lights hummed. They always hummed. Aris had stopped noticing them years ago.
He stood at his workbench, laser cutter in hand, staring at the sample under the magnifier. A thin wafer of something new—gallium arsenide layered with graphene, the post-doc had called it. Promising. Potentially revolutionary. Right now it just looked like a piece of metal smaller than his thumbnail.
The lab was empty. It was always empty at 2 AM. The way he liked it.
He set down the cutter and rubbed his eyes. Thirty-six hours since he'd last slept. His back ached. His neck ached. Everything ached. But the data was almost ready. Another hour, maybe two, and he'd have the measurements he needed for the paper.
*Quantum tunneling effects in layered semiconductor structures at cryogenic temperatures.*
Even the title was boring. But the implications weren't. If his calculations held, this could change how they thought about energy transfer at the atomic level. Maybe lead to new battery tech. Maybe lead to nothing. That was the thing about physics—you never knew until you knew.
He reached for his coffee. Cold. Of course.
The kettle was on the other side of the lab. He looked at it. He looked at his sample. He stayed where he was.
*Priorities.*
His phone buzzed. He ignored it. It buzzed again. He picked it up without looking.
"What."
"Still alive?" Sarah's voice. One of the few post-docs who still bothered checking on him.
"Unfortunately."
"Go home, Aris. It's two in the morning."
"I know what time it is. I invented clocks."
"You invented sarcasm, maybe. Go home. The paper can wait."
"Can it?"
Silence. She knew he wasn't asking about the paper.
"Go home anyway."
He hung up. Set the phone down. Stared at his sample.
The truth was, he had nowhere to go. His apartment was four walls and a bed he never slept in. No family. No friends who weren't colleagues. No life outside these four humming walls.
*Thirty years old in three months. What do I have to show for it?*
He shook his head. Self-pity was useless. The work mattered. The work was all that mattered.
He turned back to his bench. The sample was ready. The cryo chamber was prepped. He just needed to run the final test, confirm the measurements, and—
The lights flickered.
He looked up. The fluorescent tubes buzzed louder, then quieter, then louder again. That was new. The building's power grid was solid. Should be solid. He'd checked the specs himself when they installed the new equipment.
Another flicker. This one longer. The hum deepened.
*Transformer failure? Brownout?*
He reached for his phone to call maintenance. The screen was black. Dead. He pressed the power button. Nothing.
The lights went out completely.
Darkness. Total. The kind that pressed against your eyes.
Aris stood still, breathing slow. No panic. Panic was useless. Emergency generators would kick in any second. They always did.
One second. Two. Three.
Nothing.
Then—light. Not the fluorescents. Something else. A glow from across the lab. From his equipment. From the cryo chamber where his sample waited.
Blue. Bright. Growing.
He took a step toward it. Stupid. He knew it was stupid even as he did it. But the physicist in him needed to see. Needed to understand.
The blue light pulsed. Once. Twice. On the third pulse, it *expanded*.
Aris threw up his arms. Too late. The light hit him like a wave, like a wall, like something that wasn't light at all but *force*. Pure. Raw. Fundamental.
His last thought, clear as crystal, sharp as broken glass:
*I didn't finish the paper.*
Then nothing.
---
He opened his eyes.
Wooden ceiling. Dark beams. Something soft beneath him—a mattress, straw-stuffed, lumpy.
He lay still. Counted his breaths. One. Two. Three. Four.
*Not my lab. Not my apartment. Not my body.*
The thought arrived calm and whole, like it had been waiting for him. He catalogued the evidence systematically. The ceiling was wrong—hand-hewn beams, no drywall. The smell was wrong—old wood, smoke, something green and living. The sounds were wrong—birds outside, distant voices, no hum of machines.
And the body. This body was small. Light. Weak. He could feel it in the way his joints sat, the way his lungs expanded, the way his skin prickled against the rough blanket.
He raised a hand in front of his face. Small. Child-small. Pale. Unmarked.
*Not mine.*
He should panic. He knew he should panic. But panic was useless, and Aris Thorne had never been good at useless things.
He sat up slowly. The room spun, then settled. A chamber. Simple. A bed, a chest, a window with shutters half-open. Morning light filtering through. Birdsong louder now.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His feet touched cold stone. He stood. The body obeyed, clumsy but willing. He walked to the window. Pushed the shutters open.
And stopped breathing.
Trees. Not like any trees he'd ever seen. Massive. Ancient. Their trunks wider than buildings, their roots rising from the earth like frozen waves. Between them, buildings—wood and stone, nestled among the roots, connected by walkways and bridges. Glowing moss clung to everything, casting soft green light.
People moved below. Not many. A woman carrying baskets. Two men in leather armor, bows on their backs. A girl with dark hair hurrying past with linens.
None of them looked up.
*Where. What. How.*
The questions came faster now, pushing past the calm. He gripped the window frame. The wood was rough, splintery. Real. This was real.
*I died. The lab. The light. I died.*
He said it aloud, testing the words. His voice came out wrong—higher, younger, with an accent he didn't recognize.
"I died."
The words hung in the air. The birds kept singing. The moss kept glowing. The world didn't care.
He closed his eyes. Forced his breathing steady. *One thing at a time. Assess. Analyze. Adapt.*
He opened his eyes and looked down at his small hands.
*I am in a child's body. In a world that isn't mine. In a place that shouldn't exist.*
He should have felt terror. He should have felt grief. Instead, beneath the calm, something else stirred.
Curiosity.
*What are the rules here? What are the physics? What can I learn?*
A knock at the door.
He turned. The door opened before he could speak. A girl stood there—fifteen maybe, dark hair pulled back, carrying a tray. Porridge. Bread. A cup of something steaming.
She saw him standing at the window and stopped. Her eyes flickered. Just for a moment. Surprise? Recognition? Something else?
"You're awake." Her voice was quiet. Careful. "You missed dinner last night. Meg sent me to check on you."
He stared at her. She stared back.
*She knows something.*
The thought came from nowhere. He had no evidence. Just a feeling—the same feeling he got when an experiment was about to go wrong. A prickle at the back of his neck.
"I was hungry," he said. The words felt strange in his mouth, like a borrowed coat. "I ate already."
The girl's eyes flickered again. She didn't believe him. He could see it.
She set the tray on the chest. "Mira," she said. "My name's Mira. If you need anything."
Then she was gone, the door closing softly behind her.
He stood at the window, watching the strange trees, the glowing moss, the people who moved like they'd lived here their whole lives. Like this was normal.
*I need information.*
He turned from the window. The tray waited. Porridge, bread, something that might be tea. He ate mechanically, tasting nothing, mind already spinning.
*First: observe. Second: learn the rules. Third: survive.*
He took another bite of porridge. It was good. Hearty. Someone had put honey in it.
*Fourth: figure out who that girl was and why she looked at me like that.*
The door opened again. A different woman this time—older, round, flour dusted on her apron. She carried more food.
"The useless one's awake, then." Her voice was rough, warm. She set down the bread she was carrying. "Eat up. You missed supper, Mira said. Can't have you wasting away."
He stared at her. She stared back. Her eyes were too bright. Too knowing.
"I'm not hungry," he said.
She laughed. A real laugh, unexpected. "Boy, I've been feeding this house for forty years. I know hungry when I see it. Eat."
He ate. She watched.
When he finished, she gathered the dishes. At the door, she paused.
"You'll get other people killed, boy. The question is whether they'll thank you for it."
She left before he could ask what she meant.
He sat alone in the small chamber, the words echoing. Outside, the moss glowed. The birds sang. The world went on like it had always been here.
*What have I gotten myself into?*
But deep down, beneath the confusion and the fear he refused to feel, something else whispered.
*What can I discover?*
Downstairs, in the kitchens, Old Meg scrubbed a pot and hummed to herself.
The boy was different. She'd known it the moment she saw him three months ago, when he'd woken from whatever fever had taken him. The same face. The same body. But the eyes—the eyes were someone else entirely.
She'd watched him since. Watched him watch everything. Watched him calculate.
Today, standing at the window, he'd looked at her like she was a problem to solve.
*Interesting.*
She scrubbed harder. The pot gleamed.
*Very interesting.*
And in the deep forest, where no human had walked in living memory, something vast and ancient stirred. Turned its attention toward Gloomhollow. Toward the small chamber where a boy sat alone.
And waited.