CHAPTER 27: Echoes

CHAPTER 27: Echoes

Fénix's room at Enid Corp was a sanctuary of austere luxury: solid oak furniture, a stone fireplace crackling with real fire, and floor-to-ceiling windows showing Berlin like a map of distant lights. Fénix collapsed onto the leather sofa, exhausted. The silence was a balm after months of chaos.

Until she arrived.

It wasn't a sound, but a presence—cold like steel buried in frozen earth. It seeped into his mind like a vapor, forming words that resonated in his bones.

"Tranquility... such a fragile concept for someone like you."

Fénix jumped to his feet, senses on high alert.

"Who's there?" he growled, spinning around. "Show yourself!"

A laugh—soft, ancient, mocking—ran through his skull.

"Ah, you finally notice my presence. How slow you are... and to think they call you the great Uber Lycan."

Fénix clenched his fists. An oppressive weight settled in his chest, as if someone were sitting on his sternum.

"Get out of my head!" he demanded, pressing his temples.

"I am Adam. The first. The original. The true origin of everything you are... and everything you will never be."

"Adam?" Fénix let out an incredulous laugh. "As in... the Garden of Eden?"

"The story they told you is... sugarcoated. I was the first lycanthrope. Eve, the first vampire. A divine couple, until humans turned us into legends."

Fénix fell back onto the sofa, his mind racing.

"The serum..." he murmured. "It's made from your genes."

"Fragments of my essence, yes. Impure, unstable... and now, part of you. We are cellmates, Fénix."

"What do you want?" Fénix spat.

The pain came then—a drill in his right temple that made him groan.

"All those symptoms you ignored... the blood in your ear, the headaches, the cerebrospinal fluid... were my doing."

"What did you do to me?" Fénix gasped, sweating cold.

"A tumor. Not just any tumor... it's designed to grow fast and strong. Perfectly placed. Twelve days, Fénix. That's what you have left before your brain stops functioning."

Fénix laughed, a bitter, desperate laugh.

"You're lying. Enid would have detected it."

"Enid?" Adam's voice dripped with disdain. "She's smart, but not smart enough to recognize my hand in her toy. Twelve days. What will you do with them?"

Adam's laughter echoed, triumphant. Fénix staggered, the world spinning.

"It can't be..."

"Oh, but it is."

Suddenly, the laughter ceased. Adam's voice became serene, almost paternal.

"You could not die. I've been thinking... we could be partners. I offer you prolonged life. I would stop the tumor, even give you more power. In exchange... just one night a month."

Fénix straightened up, alert.

"What night?"

"Every full moon. Total control of the body. You rest, I... live. I'm not interested in your conflicts. I just want to walk among the living again."

Fénix spat on the floor.

"You think I'm an idiot? I won't be your body taxi."

"Think, Fénix. Twelve days of agony... or eternity. All for one simple night."

"I'd rather die," Fénix declared, with a calm that surprised even himself. "Now get out."

"Proud to the end," Adam whispered. "You have twelve days to change your mind. Although... I doubt you'll make it halfway."

The presence faded, leaving a silence that weighed more than iron.

Fénix collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling.

"Twelve days," he murmured. "Fucking Adam."

The pain returned then—a hammer blow to the skull that plunged him into darkness. The last thing he heard was Adam's laughter, an echo of a millennia-old curse.