Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It starts with an hallway.

It always starts with an hallway....

Long, empty... cold.
It stretches as far as the eye can see, swaying like a boat in a storm.

At the far end, there is always a door, with an eye carved into it.
It watches, as if inciting its victims to come closer.

A little closer... a little more

⸻

The boy woke with a jolt, realizing he’d dozed off leaning against the dusty window of the diner.
He looked around to see if the old man had come back, but all he could see was the deserted bar, with some old jazz crackling from a futuristic jukebox that had seen better days.
The other tables were empty.
Off to the side, a few pool tables stood abandoned, the balls and cues missing entirely, and the flickering of one of the ceiling lights was starting to get on his nerves.
To his right, he could hear the bartender whistling from the kitchen, probably washing dishes while waiting for the two stray customers that night to finish up so he could finally close down. He surely knew no one else would be showing up at that hour.

Mono sighed and let himself sink back into the padded booth, readjusting the paper bag on his head before picking up the fork and poking at the plate of pancakes in front of him.
Morrison had said he’d be back in half an hour.
Too bad the clock on the wall showed that two of them had passed, and there was still no sign of the man.
The boy stared down at the pancakes the old man had bought him before leaving.

Try to eat something. We’ve got a long road ahead.

And Mono probably would have done it, if it wasn’t for the fact that the longer he looked at the dish, the more it seemed like the ingredients were splitting apart before his eyes, leaving behind a mushy, lumpy mess that just made him feel sick.
The bartender must have done it on purpose. They were probably poisoned, too.
The man had seemed off from the first moment they’d walked in.
Mono had immediately noticed the broken glass on the emergency axe box mounted on the wall behind the counter.
But beyond that, the man looked too much like the adults he’d known before: big, grimy, and with that vaguely vacant stare.
Just like the people back home…
Mono looked at one of the blueberries perched on top of the pile, this time letting out a huff as he slowly split it in two.

⸻

Soldier: 76 let out a frustrated breath as he rummaged through the drawers of the safe house furniture.
He was taking too long. Wasting too much time.

Jack Morrison was a soldier.
Always has been, always will be.
And soldiers don’t have time to stop, to settle down or to indulge in the luxury of a home, a family, a normal life.
Duty calls, and the war… the war never ends.

And yet, months ago, he’d almost let himself consider an after.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t come back to this place.
Promised himself he wouldn’t set foot in half the hideouts he’d stashed all across the States.
So why the hell was he tearing the place apart at 1 a.m. like a common thief, searching for a beanie that belonged to a dead friend, while a kid with a paper bag over his head sat at a greasy bar down the street, waiting for him to come back?

It was stupid. So stupid. He shouldn’t care so much about an old beanie. And yet he was sure he’d left it here, years ago, and the thought of it being gone nagged at him.
Jack was tidy and had a memory that’d put an elephant to shame. He didn’t lose things. And if he couldn’t find it now, it sure as hell wasn’t his fault—

“There you are!” he muttered triumphantly, pulling out the black factory cap, hidden until now behind one of the nightstands.
He passed it between his hands, and for a second memories of the good old days came to his mind.
It was a bit faded with age and could definitely use a wash, but there was no time for that.
Dusting it off, the man crossed the room, grabbing the duffel bag he’d left by the door and shoving the beanie inside.
The bag was already loaded with a few med packs, some rations, ammo, and the rest of the gear he’d managed to scrounge from the safe house’s stashes.
He hoisted it onto his shoulder, along with a second case holding his pulse rifle, hidden away to avoid drawing too much attention, and closed the door behind him.
Now he could finally promise himself he’d never come back to this place again.

⸻

The streets of Eugene, Oregon, were dotted with puddles, the leftover memory of yesterday’s rain.
Jack pulled his jacket tighter around him, the bold 76 stamped across the back, feeling the damp chill of the night sink into his bones as he made his way toward the bar with determined steps.
He reached the neon sign and pushed through the diner’s glass doors.
Circling the empty tables, he stopped in front of where he’d left the boy, taking in the sight before him.
Mono looked bored out of his mind, playing with his food.
The boy, who couldn’t have been older than thirteen or fourteen, wore his usual olive coat, the sleeves cuffed at the ends, along with brown pants and a plain white shirt.
For once, he hadn’t taken off the boots Jack had found for him, a habit he’d picked up ever since the man had forced him to wear shoes at all.
He still had the paper bag over his head, the two eyeholes staring blankly down at the plate in front of him.

Soldier sighed, setting one of the bags down on the table.
“I told you to eat something.”

“I’m not hungry,” the boy said flatly, still squashing blueberries (if they could even be called that) into the pancakes.

“You will be.”

“Then you eat this crap.”
Morrison ran a hand through his white hair, glancing over his shoulder toward the kitchen doors. Then he sat down in front of the boy, who promptly held out the fork to him.

“Mono, we don’t have time for—” but the boy kept insisting, pushing the fork closer until Jack had no choice.

“Alright, alright.” To shut the boy up, he took a bite of the pancakes. He regretted it immediately. They tasted like cardboard. Jack had eaten military rations more palatable than that pile of mush.
He forced it down just to keep his pride, but he could see through the eyeholes in the kid’s mask the smug little look of satisfaction, thrilled that he’d been proven right.

Jack cleared his throat, changing the subject. “Here, I found you something,” he said, handing over the beanie. “It’ll draw less attention than that bag you keep on your head. And it’s gonna rain again, so—”

“No.”

Morrison froze mid-sentence.
“Kid, I’m not trying to start a fight. I’m just—” he gestured vaguely at Mono’s head. “You can’t keep that on forever.”

Mono crossed his arms, tilting his chin toward the man sitting across from him.
“You wear a mask.”

Morrison bit the inside of his cheek. “It’s a visor.”

“Same thing.”

“Not exactly…”

Mono grabbed the beanie, turning the fabric over in his hands but making no move to put it on. “Sooo… what’s the next stop?”

Jack opened his mouth to answer, when the windows shook.
Not rattled. Not vibrated.
Shook.
The lights flickered, dust rained down from the ceiling, and the clink of glassware echoed from the shelves.
Outside, cars started blaring their alarms in the dark street.
Both of them turned to look through the window.
A thick plume of smoke was rising over the buildings. Jack recognized immediately it was coming from the direction of the University of Oregon.
Without a second thought, he pulled the pulse rifle out of the second bag, slinging the first duffel over his shoulder.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered the boy, before pushing through the diner door.
Mono started to follow, then paused. He stepped back, turning his head to the left, eyes locked on the emergency axe in the broken case.
Behind the paper bag, his eyes slightly widened.

Meanwhile, in the distance, more explosions followed the first, while heavy clouds overhead began to gather, rumbling with thunder, promising another stormy night.

⸻

Chapter Text

The sky rumbled over the buildings of Eugene.
The rain was back, Morrison could already catch a glimpse of a lone drop trickling down his visor glass as he sprinted through Eugene's alleys.
He had voluntarily avoided the main street, already hearing some civilians panicking and climbing into their hovercars to get away from the area.
No, better the rear: one had to be as stealthy as possible.

By now, they couldn’t be more than a few blocks away from the University of Oregon.
Soldier 76 moved to turn the corner...

An omnic sentry was standing still in the middle of the street.
His single purple optic jerked as he patrolled the area, tall and alert, paying attention to the slightest move.
Jack barely ducked behind a dumpster, narrowly avoiding detection.
Null Sector he thought, peering over the edge. What the hell are they doing here?

A soft scrape of wet soles made him turn.
Mono crouched next to him, quiet as a cat, tilting his head to the side in a gesture Morrison had learned to read as a “What now?”

“You took your time.” Jack whispered.

Mono stared at him, the two holes of the paper bag black in the shadows.
“You’re the one who started running.” he whispered back.

Morrison ignored him, activating his visor and throwing another glance over his shoulder. “There’s a Null Sector sentry, but I doubt it’s the only one.”
He sighed, eyeing the other forks in the road.
“The whole neighborhood is probably being patrolled. For now, it’s better not to engage directly, at least not until we figure out what’s going on at the univ—The hell is that?”

Jack froze as he turned back to the boy.
Mono turned too, trying to see if the man had spotted something behind him.
But Jack wasn’t looking at anything except the crouched boy, or more specifically, the big axe resting horizontally across the boy’s knees.
It took Mono a second to realize what Morrison was referring to.

“Ah,” the boy replied, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “An axe.”

"I can see that. Where'd you get it?"

“The bar.” Mono pointed behind him with his thumb.

“You stole it?” Jack replied in an accusatory tone.

“They weren't using it, I can bring it back later.”

“Mono those axes are for emergencies!” Soldier pinched the bridge of his nose.

“And this looks like an emergency to me.” Mono nodded to his left, where beyond the dumpster the Null Sector sentry was moving away.
“Besides, I've been asking you for a weapon for weeks. You have a rifle and all those trinkets, I have nothing!"

Jack shook his head, leaning out again.
"You don't need an axe. You can very well defend yourself with those powers of yours!"

“They drain me,” hissed the boy, “I could at best take care of one sentinel, maybe two before ... well you've seen it!”

Morrison shushed him with a sharp ssh and motioned for him to follow. The two continued down the alley at a rapid pace.
As they walked Soldier turned one last time toward the kid.

“What are you going to do with an axe? It's more than half your size, you wouldn't even know how to swing it.”

Mono did not respond, but the comment seemed to have offended him as he began to quicken his pace to surpass Soldier.
“Look, it's not—”

BAM!
A noise of chipped glass and bent metal rang in the alley.

Soldier stood there staring at the boy in front of him, who had just smashed a poor Null Sector drone in two against the wall. The thing had simply had the bad luck of turning the corner at the wrong moment.
Mono had been quick. He’d swung the axe like someone who was used to doing it and Jack could recognize that.
Now the kid was staring back at Morrison in silence, the axe resting on the ground next to the wreckage.

Well, I’d be damned, the man thought.
Morrison cleared his throat.

“Alright, but once this is over, you and I need to have a talk.”
He stepped past the boy, catching that faintly satisfied air in Mono’s posture again.
“Now, let’s focus on getting to the blast site.”

Mono rolled his eyes behind the paper bag, before following the man.
“Yes, sir.”

Morrison sighed, glancing back to make sure the boy was keeping up.
Mono moved lightly, almost without a sound. With that cautiousness that seemed instinctive to him.
It was like he’d been born to move in the shadows.
And Morrison couldn’t take any credit for that.
No, Mono had already been that way from the very first moment he’d seen him.
Several months ago.

⸻

The first time Jack Morrison saw him, he didn’t think too much of it… at least not at first.

After leaving Illari at Runasepi, back in December, he’d kept moving, following yet another one of Sombra’s shady leads.

“Well, well, if it isn’t my favorite little toy soldier,” a voice crackled in his comms, annoyingly cheerful.
Morrison’s expression soured the second he heard Sombra’s voice.

“What do you want?” he shot back, voice hard.

“Relájate, viejito. I just wanted to give you a heads-up, a little birdie told me something I think you’ll want to hear.”
Morrison raised an eyebrow at that.
The hacker’s voice went on. “Something about… Zurich?”

Morrison stopped in his tracks but didn’t answer.

“Ah, I see I’ve got your attention now!
Okay, here’s the deal, same as always: you do me a favor, I do you one.”

Morrison bit the inside of his cheek.
Trusting Sombra was always a bad idea.
But he’d just done it with Illari.
What was one last mission?
Maybe afterwards he’d finally figure out how to change course. Figure out what came next.

“Let’s hear it.”

“Así se hace, viejito! Ok, so. There’s a construction site, outskirts of Boston.
All I can tell you is Talon was testing something there.
And, well… let’s just say it didn’t end well.
If you can catch a flight, you could be on site by tomorrow night.”

Morrison thought about it for a second, then scoffed under his breath.
“I’m surprised you can’t handle it yourself.”

He could practically hear Sombra’s exaggerated sigh.
“Can you believe this guy used to be a commander?
If I show up there in person, Talon’ll start sniffing something’s up, genius!
I need the data from the main console.
Trust me, if I could, I’d do it myself. But something in that area keeps frying electronics!
Which means remote access is out.”

Soldier sighed, already piecing together why she’d called him in the first place.
“Send me the coordinates.”

Sombra let out an excited chuckle.
“I knew you’d come around.
I’m sending you everything. And remember… I need the data from the console. No data, no info. Clear?”

“Just send the coordinates!”

“I’ll be in touch, viejito.”

Morrison put his visor back on, immediately noticing the new coordinates.
He stretched his neck, casting one last glance at the splendor of Runasepi, bathed in sunlight.
Maybe someday he’d like to visit it more peacefully.
Then he turned and started walking again.
He needed to find a flight to Boston.

⸻

The site was an industrial plant on the outskirts of Boston, just like Sombra had told him.
From the outside, the lights were off, but Soldier knew better than to doubt the absence of guards around.
He climbed over the fences with little difficulty, then sneaked inside by forcing open a side door.

Inside, the area was deserted.
It was a large covered construction site, spacious, with just some metal structures along the perimeter to facilitate movement from the testing area to the control room.
Morrison looked towards the center, where he assumed the failed test had taken place. It was immediately clear why.

There was a trench left behind, the earth beneath black and dusty, as if an explosion had occurred.
Some wreckage and support structures had collapsed around it, creating small hills of rubble.
Jack grimaced.
It was almost ironic that lately he’d only been visiting sites of tragedies.
He activated his visor. Strangely, it took a moment longer than usual to focus, glitching briefly before working normally again.
It highlighted three heat signatures: Talon guards.
He crouched and listened carefully, ready to strike at any moment.

“I saw him, I swear he’s still around here,” one of them muttered.

For a second, Soldier feared they’d spotted him.

“Yeah, sure you did, but we haven’t found him since yesterday. I think you’re just wasting our time!
The boss wants this place cleared out soon!”

The other turned to him, pointing a finger accusingly. Meanwhile, the third was tinkering with the main console, which miraculously still seemed intact.

“Hey, I’m not the one who let him slip the first time. We had him! If it weren’t for you, by now he’d be—”
“It wasn’t my fault! You saw—”

“Can you shut up?” thundered the third guard, the one at the console.
“Let’s get this over with quickly. If you don’t find him, we start dismantling, as planned. I’ll handle the data.”

The other two guards fell silent immediately, casting one last glare at each other before resuming their patrol.
Morrison moved in the shadows, creeping closer to one of them, ready to make his move, when he saw him…

On the other side of the area, hidden and balanced on the metal beams, there was the figure of a boy.
Morrison could just make out the edges of an olive-colored jacket, one hand gripping the beam for balance, and when the boy slightly leaned his head forward… was that a paper bag?

But the boy held something else in his right hand. He extended it over the edge, and Jack immediately understood what he was about to do.
Below, the second Talon guard was approaching, unaware he was exactly in the boy’s line of fire.
The boy let it fall.
The brick shattered with a sharp crack on the unfortunate guard’s head.

Morrison sprang into action, catching the first guard by surprise and striking her hard at the temple.
The force was enough to crack her helmet and send her collapsing unconscious to the ground.
Meanwhile, the second guard was already getting up, dazed but still in the fight.
Jack took care of her too, sprinting forward and slamming her against a supporting column behind her.

Then he looked up, but the boy seemed to have disappeared.

The commotion had alerted the last guard, who leaned out from the stairs and, spotting Soldier, opened fire.
Jack took cover behind a column, then looked up, glimpsing the railings of the floor where the control room was located.
He retreated and, using a pile of rubble and then the column, launched himself up to grab the railing and pull himself up.

The Talon guard leaned out, noticing the man was now only a few meters from the main console.
The two locked eyes for a moment, then the guard noticed the console.
Jack understood immediately. He aimed his rifle, shouting:
“NO!”

But he was a second too slow.
A burst of gunfire rained down on the console, metal punctured and displays shattered.
Morrison opened fire, hitting the guard square in the chest, who fell backward.

Soldier moved up to the console, checking if anything, anything at all, had survived. But there was nothing.
It was useless.

“Goddamn it!” he cursed, pounding his fist against the metal.
He could kiss those extra intel on Zurich goodbye.
He started pacing back and forth to calm himself down.
Then he remembered the kid.

He went down the stairs, returning to the spot from before.
There was no sign of the boy.
Then the sound of small rubble rolling near a pile made him turn around.
Behind it, with the paper bag peeking out from behind the debris, was the boy himself.
Cautious and clearly suspicious of the man standing in front of him.
Soldier let out a relieved sigh, surprising even himself.

“Well, you’re not hurt,” he said, but the boy didn’t respond.
Looking closer, Jack could see two circular holes cut into the bag, probably so the boy could see something with that thing on his head.
What a strange kid.
“Go home. This isn’t a place for kids.”

Then he turned and climbed back up the stairs. For a second, he worried… what if the kid didn’t leave?
But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw him turn and disappear behind the rubble.
Thinking it over, he started noticing other odd things.
Wait, was he barefoot? Morrison shook his head.
Better not to worry about it, he had bigger problems.

Or so he thought.

⸻

In the days that followed, he made sure to put as much distance as possible between himself and the site.
He knew Talon would swarm the place sooner or later. Better not to be anywhere nearby.

But the more days passed, the harder it was for him to stop thinking about it.
About that strange boy. He couldn’t make sense of it.
He thought about him so often that at some point he figured he must be hallucinating the mysterious figure. He could’ve sworn he’d caught a glimpse of him around a corner, slipping out of sight as Jack was heading back into one of the cheap motels he’d found along the way.
You’re getting old, Jack the thought brought a bitter smile to his face, he could almost hear Ana’s voice saying it.

But the hallucinations didn’t stop. If anything, they got worse.
No matter how many cities he passed through, every now and then he’d catch a sudden glimpse of the boy.
And eventually, he had to stop telling himself they were just hallucinations and face the second, and only, other option: the boy was following him.
How or why, he had no idea.
By now, he’d crossed through several states, yet the kid kept trailing him. Relentless and determined.
He didn’t seem to mean any harm.
He just… watched him. Always half-hidden, like a ghost that had picked its victim to haunt.
It must have been almost a month since that mission at the construction site when, finally, Morrison had had enough.

He was fueling up at a gas station.
He’d just come back from picking up some snacks for the road, dressed in civilian clothes, when he spotted him again.
The kid was losing his touch.
This time he was hiding right behind the hovertruck Jack had managed to scrape together.
An almost childish idea popped into the man’s head.
He walked around the hovertruck, catching the boy curled up behind the rear wheel.

“You know…” he started to say.
The kid flinched to the side like an animal caught in a trap, staring at him through those two dark holes in the paper bag.
Morrison noticed he really was barefoot.

“If you’re going to follow me, you might as well just sit in the truck.”

The boy didn’t answer, glancing over his shoulder as if weighing whether to bolt.
Morrison sighed and held out a bag of chips. That seemed to calm him down.
He took it, turning it over in his hands, then looked at Jack.
A ghost of a smile flickered across the man’s face. He turned and opened the truck’s door, catching the kid clambering up behind him.

That had been four months ago.

Since then, he’d learned a few things about the boy, or Mono, as he’d introduced himself one night, making Morrison realize the kid wasn’t mute after all.

First:
He wasn’t a normal kid.
He was agile, cautious, and had more guts than Morrison had seen in plenty of grown adults.
He was incredibly good at climbing, like gravity barely applied to him.
Even his eyes were strange. At first glance they seemed normal, black, with a slightly almond shape that made Jack wonder if the kid had some Asian heritage. But if you looked closer, they had this dark film over them that made the whites of his eyes look just a bit dimmer.
Other than that, he knew English, but he struggled to read it, and even more so to write it.
In fact, he didn’t seem to know anything about the world.
It was like he came from another dimension!
He didn’t know what basketball or football were.
Or what an omnic was, let alone the Omnic War.
Overwatch meant nothing to him…
And Jack never told him. Maybe he should have, but he didn’t have the heart.

Second:
He definitely had something to do with Talon.
He’d recognized Moira’s name when Jack had let it slip, though he didn’t seem to connect it to the scientist Jack described.
At the same time, he seemed to hate them just as much as Jack did, which ruled him out as one of their agents.
He insisted on helping Soldier with his mission to weaken them and tear their plans apart.
Eventually, Jack stopped telling him no and decided to just bring him along instead of risking the kid following him anyway.

Third:
He wasn’t at all a normal kid.
In ways Jack couldn’t even begin to explain.
Things Soldier did, the violence towards their enemies, didn’t seem to shock or scare him.
For him, it all felt far too normal.
And then… there were those strange abilities of his.
At first, even Mono had been hesitant. But during one clash with some Talon agents, when Jack put himself in a dangerous position, he saw it…
The attacker froze in place, like he was being held back by some invisible force, just long enough for Jack to react and land the finishing blow.
But then, when Morrison turned back toward Mono, the kid was staring at him with those eyes.
Only they were glowing like two old TV screens flickering in the dark.

At first, neither of them really knew how to react.
Mono, it was clear, was ready to run the moment Jack showed the slightest sign of fear or… anything.
But that never happened.
Soldier stayed calm and gave the boy a chance to explain.
And that night, they talked.
Mono didn’t share everything, he never did, but he said enough.
And Jack decided to trust him.
Sure, he was strange and unusual, but there was no denying the kid had saved his life.
That had to mean something, right?

⸻

After four months, they’d fallen into a strange rhythm.
Jack talked, Mono listened.
Jack investigated, Mono observed.
Jack gave orders, Mono ignored them.
Just like he was doing right now.

“I told you to go right!”
Morrison fired at one of the sentries, covering the boy who was still trying to pull the axe out of the head of a fallen Null Sector omnic.

“I keep forgetting which is which!” Mono replied apologetically, finally managing to free the axe.

Then he caught up with Morrison, who was shooting at the left leg of one of the larger robots. Mono swung the axe, delivering a sharp blow to the joint of the robot’s right leg.
The enemy collapsed forward, its digital eye flickering for a moment before going dark.

They looked around. They had finally emerged into the university’s inhabited area.
A little further ahead, one of the campus buildings was half-destroyed; the roof had caved in, and the area was flooded with Null Sector sentries, some entering, others leaving, carrying something.

“They’re stealing from the university!”
Morrison reloaded his rifle and started running toward the buildings, Mono right behind him, when a tremor shook the ground.

They froze.
From behind one of the apartment complex behind them, a massive robot appeared, much bigger than the sentries they had faced so far.
It moved on four sharp, insect-like legs. Behind it, a metal tentacle waved threateningly, ending in a sharp claw.
The titan positioned itself behind them, each step making the asphalt vibrate under their feet.
Suddenly, they were blinded by a red flash: the omnic was scanning the entire street.
Then, as if selecting its next victim, it fixed its single horrifying purple eye directly on Mono.

Chapter Text

As soon as Jack saw the omnic’s eye lock onto Mono, he acted.
The omnic moved its tentacle, opening and closing its metal claw like an impatient crab ready to snatch its prey. Then, with a sudden lunge, it struck at them both.
Jack barely had time to grab Mono by the collar and yank him down, shouting,
“GET DOWN!”

The claw grazed the boy’s head by a hair, but Morrison wasn’t so lucky.
He felt the sharp metal wrap around him, crushing his chest in a vice and knocking the air from his lungs.
The omnic swung him through the air before slamming him like a ragdoll against one of the houses lining the street.

CRASH!

“JACK!” Mono screamed when he saw Morrison hurled like a bullet through what was probably several layers of brick wall.
His wide eyes stayed fixed on the hole where the man’s shape had vanished.
But from the gaping wound in the building, there was no sign of movement.

Mono knew how tough Morrison was.
He’d seen him dent a moving hovercar just to stop it.
He’d seen him leap from rooftops at heights that would shatter any other person’s bones.
Bruises faded in a few days like they were nothing. Bullets practically bounced off him and the ones that didn’t, he dug out himself, clenching a rag between his teeth and a pair of heavy pliers in his hands, brushing off Mono’s offer to help.

So yes, Mono knew just how hard Jack Morrison was to kill.

But the longer he stared at that hole, waiting to see the flash of blue from Jack’s jacket, the harder his heart pounded when he didn’t reappear.
What if this time it was serious?

He didn’t have time to worry.
With one enemy out of the way, the omnic’s attention swung back to him.
Mono was nearly blinded by the bright glare of the machine’s cybernetic eye, scanning him from head to toe.
It’s… scanning me? he thought, shielding his eyes.
He shook his head and gripped the axe handle tighter.
Didn’t matter if he was alone now, he had to find a way to stop it.
Maybe if he could just concentrate, if the robot didn’t attack again too soon… maybe he could…

Mono darted sideways, narrowly avoiding the beast’s claw.
There was a deafening crack of asphalt and a screech of metal. The mechanical arm had slammed so hard into the ground it got wedged in the underground pipes and rubble.
The robot let out a metallic roar, rattling its tentacle to break free.
Mono almost cracked a smile, took a deep breath, and used the distraction to focus.

He could feel the signals around him, the hum of the street lamps, the buzz of the neighborhood’s networks.
It should have been enough. And yet, he quickly realized he was taking too long to connect.
Back in his world, it had come so easily.
He remembered how natural it felt using this same trick against the Thin Man, pushing everything away with a force so strong it made whole buildings sway…

So why did it feel like he was starting from scratch here?

When he’d frozen that man to stop him from attacking Soldier, it had been instinctive, but even then, it had drained him too much.
And now, he felt it again: the heat rising in his head, the pressure building.
The streetlights flickered, but though he was aiming for the robot’s head, it didn’t even seem to notice, too busy freeing its arm.
And it did, before Mono could finish. The robot ripped free and swung its claw back at him.

This time, Mono was a second too slow.
The claw caught his shoulder, tearing through his coat.
Mono rolled to the side, feeling his arm go numb as he dropped the axe. He clutched his shoulder, gritting his teeth against the sting of raw flesh.
He looked at his hand, blood dripped between his fingers, thick and dark red.
A little too dark.

Shit, he hissed, forcing himself to ignore the pain.
The robot loomed over him, its single violet eye locked on.
Mono forced himself upright. The claw rotated with a mechanical shriek, ready to strike again.

Then a small cling of metal.
A pebble bounced off the titan’s armor, landing by its foot.
The robot turned, almost offended.
Standing in the middle of the street was a girl with curly brown hair, wearing pajamas and nothing but two black rubber boots. In her hand she clutched another rock, eyes fierce with determination.

For a second Mono appreciated the gesture, then he could practically hear Morrison’s voice yelling in his head: She’ll get herself killed!

Sure enough, the omnic’s tentacle twitched toward the girl.
Mono raised his hand and the claw froze mid-air.
The air vibrated. Lights flickered. Mono’s eyes lit up, glowing with static like two old TVs with no signal. Black static particles danced between his fingers, glitching like cracks in a screen.
The metal beast groaned and creaked under the pressure, denting inward. Its eye flickered and jerked, desperately searching for escape.

But Mono had it in his grasp.
Grinning under the paper bag, he clenched his fist.
In an instant, the metal around its head folded in on itself, the optic glass cracked and the light finally died.
The machine’s hulking body collapsed lifeless on the torn-up street.

Mono’s eyes dimmed.
He sucked in a ragged breath, then let out a small cough. He could feel a trickle of warm wetness run from his nose, a thin stream of blood.
He lifted his eyes. The girl stood frozen in the street, staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed. The rock slipped from her hand, landing with a wet plop.

Mono gave a tired, sarcastic huff. “You’re welcome…”

⸻

When Morrison came to, he immediately wished he hadn’t.
Pain slammed through him like a freight train. His whole body felt wrecked.
I need a vacation…
He grunted, trying to make sense of his limbs, checking if anything was broken.

He realized he was half-embedded in a hallway wall. His visor was gone, his rifle lay on the floor.
Then he remembered. Mono!

The kid was still out there.

He took a deep breath and pulled himself free of the wall, ignoring the flakes of paint and plaster that fell with him.
He touched his temple, flinching as he felt the raw sting. And there was worse.
A deep ache pulsed in his ribs no matter how he moved. A crack somewhere, probably. Maybe a fractured rib.
He’d deal with it later. He had to find the kid.

He scooped up his rifle, spotting his visor nearby.
He stepped forward to grab it and froze.

Down the corridor, just meters away, stood two civilians. Two middle-aged men.
One had long hair tied back in a low ponytail.
The other… Jack would have recognized that face anywhere, no matter how many years had passed.

“Jack?” the second man whispered, disbelief thick in his voice.

Vincent looked at him like he’d seen a ghost and for him, that was probably true.
Jack had never told him he’d survived Zurich.
He’d never had a reason to.

The man had aged since London. His black hair was streaked with gray, his temples nearly white. Square glasses perched on his nose.
But what struck Jack most was the protective arm he’d thrown in front of the other man behind him.
His husband, Jack thought.
He’d known Vincent had moved on long ago.

For a moment Soldier didn’t know what to say. He could only curse his luck.
The two of them were clearly dressed for bed, probably had come out into the corridor that linked the apartments after hearing the noise, only to find an old ghost slammed into the wall in front of them.

Metallic creaks and mechanical groans drifted in from outside, snapping him back to reality.
Vincent opened his mouth to speak again, but Jack cut him off, hating every second.
God, how he wished he could explain everything and at the same time run a thousand miles away.

“Not the time.”
He grabbed his visor, snapped it back on, rifle at the ready. He glanced at Vincent and the other man one last time.
“Stay safe. Find shelter.”

Then he bolted back the way he’d come, straight into the fray.

⸻

Outside, he immediately saw what was happening in the street.
Mono was using his powers to hold the beast at bay.
And as much as Jack had seen what the kid could do, he couldn’t help but watch, almost awed.

The titan’s head crumpled inward with a screech of metal. The Null Sector giant dropped to the ground, finished.
Jack didn’t know whether to be disturbed by how easily Mono had crushed that machine like an empty can or proud of how well the kid had handled it alone.

He hurried to the boy, seeing him cough, then spotting more Null Sector sentries flooding the street after the titan’s fall.
Jack opened fire, covering Mono and driving the machines back.
Mono looked exhausted, and he was probably hiding how bad it really was.
Now that he thought about it… was that a smear of blood on the boy’s coat?

“Are you alright?!” he shouted over the gunfire.

“Do I look like—” Mono didn’t finish. Jack yanked him behind him just in time to block a barrage of shots.

Jack knew this was unsustainable.
He had to cut the problem off at the source, push the fight back to the university, where the sentries were swarming out.
But Mono wasn’t in shape to keep going and Jack wouldn’t risk the kid any further.

“Mono, I need you to start evacuating the remaining civilians in these buildings.” Another round found its mark in a sentry’s chest.
Jack advanced, firing again.
“I’ll push them out of the street and pull them back toward the university.
Once you get the civilians out, find cover. Do not come back looking for me. Got it?”

The boy looked up. Jack didn’t turn to see if he’d understood, he just saw him break away, darting for the building he’d just come from.

Free to focus on the Null Sector troops, Jack bared his teeth and charged with everything he had left.
Soon, the machines began to retreat, clearing him a path to the university.

⸻

Mono had lost sight of the girl in pajamas.

He could have blamed Jack for distracting him, but he couldn’t deny he was honestly relieved to see him back on his feet.
And as much as he wanted to argue about Morrison’s orders, he could feel the exhaustion creeping up his legs, the drain from his little trick earlier.
So, for once, he bit his tongue and did as he was told.

He made his way to the entrance of the building Jack had been thrown through, already spotting people trickling down the stairs inside.
Most were still in their sleep clothes, barely enough time to throw on a jacket and shoes. Scared and confused, they were clearly trying to figure out what the hell was happening.
Pointing toward the other end of the street, Mono raised his voice to make sure they heard him.

“You need to get out of here, move as far from the university as you can! That way’s clear of Null Sector troops!”

A murmur of confusion rippled through the crowd, but some obeyed immediately, shuffling down the road in a hurry.
Mono noticed two men lingering near the stairs, caught in an anxious argument. One had short, salt-and-pepper hair and glasses; the other, long hair tied back.
They weren’t moving.

“Excuse me, sirs, but there’s no time, you need to evacuate now!” Mono said firmly, stepping closer to break up their tense conversation.

They looked at him, eyes torn between worry and surprise and Mono couldn’t blame them.
The situation was strange enough without being told to evacuate by a kid with a paper bag on his head.

The long-haired man cast a worried glance down the street.
“Our daughter, Wendy, she ran out of the house when she heard the noise! Our two older boys are out with friends,” he explained, trying to keep his voice steady.

“We can’t leave without them!” the man with the glasses added, his tone edging on panic.

Mono immediately pictured the curly-haired girl from before.
He lifted his hands in a calming gesture.
“I’ll find them, but you need to get out of here. You’re not going to help them if you get crushed by one of those things.”

He didn’t give them a chance to argue. He turned and sprinted back down the street, heading the opposite way from Jack, straight toward where he’d last seen the girl in the pajamas.

He slipped off the main street, rounding a corner to the left. The further he got from this neighborhood and closer to the next, the louder the metallic screeches grew. A row of bent streetlights down the block told him exactly what was waiting ahead.
More Null Sector sentries.

He emerged onto a new street.
There. A small figure stood frozen in front of a sentry. Without a second thought, Mono flung out his hand. The omnic’s attack arm froze mid-swing.
Its head crumpled inward, faster, easier than the titan before.
But Mono could already feel the toll.

The curly-haired girl turned to him, wide-eyed.
Mono felt the fatigue dragging him down, but forced himself forward, quickly closing the gap between them.
“Are you Wendy?” he asked, catching his breath.

The girl nodded, still stunned.
Mono wanted to ask more, but another sentry spotted them.
This time, he didn’t have the strength for another direct fight.
He grabbed Wendy’s arm and pulled her along, breaking into a run down a side street.
After a few blocks, they spilled out onto a road lined with shop fronts.
Mono glanced around, then caught sight of people up ahead.

A few older teens were moving under the watch of what looked like guards. Their uniforms were pristine, polished armor visible beneath thick cloaks and patches that read Humanitarian Response.

But something felt off.
Looking closer, they were guiding people into an area far too close to the university, the most dangerous place crawling with Null Sector bots. Why?
Then he spotted the heavy rifles strapped across the guards’ backs and recognized the make.

Talon, he thought bitterly.

But Mono wasn’t the only one who recognized someone. Wendy beside him waved her arm and shouted, “Ben! Benj—!”
Mono slapped his hand over her mouth, dragging her into the ruined shell of a shop.
They crouched behind the toppled shelves, Mono releasing her only once they were hidden.
Wendy immediately slapped his hand away.

“What is your problem?!” she hissed.
“That was my brother! He was with the people helping—”

“They’re not here to help!” Mono shot back.
“They’re with Null Sector. I don’t know what they’re doing, but you can’t trust them!”

He peeked through a crack in the wall, scanning the street for any sign they’d been spotted.
Wendy crept closer, curiosity written all over her face.
“Are you… like, a superhero?”

Mono turned to her, baffled.
“What—? No.” He leaned closer to the gap, staying vigilant.

“Then… how did you do that?”
She didn’t stop.
“That was awesome! You folded that thing up like a piece of paper!”
“Is it magic? Or some mutant power?”
“Do your eyes always do that?”
“Are you with Overw—”

“Shh! You’re going to get us caught!” Mono hissed, panic rising in his chest. He could hear footsteps getting closer outside.
“Please, please just don’t talk for three seconds.”

They fell silent. The footsteps crept nearer… lingered…
And finally moved away.
They waited in total silence for another minute. Once Mono was sure it was clear, he turned back to Wendy.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked in a small voice.

Mono sighed, wiping his nose with his sleeve, it had been bleeding again for a while now.
“I have to find Morrison. Tell him what Talon’s doing, and—”

“Wait, did you say Morrison?”
Mono froze, staring at her blankly.

“Yeah. Why?”
“You mean Jack Morrison? Strike Commander Jack Morrison? Of Overwatch?!”
With each question, she leaned closer, eyes wide with disbelief and excitement.
It made Mono deeply uncomfortable.

“Overwatch?” he repeated. He’d heard that name before, but knew nothing and Jack hadn’t been exactly eager to explain. As usual.

The girl looked almost offended by his blank stare.
“The organization! He used to lead it. He’s, like, famous all over the world, there are documentaries and everything!”
She paused, searching his face for any sign of recognition.
“We study him at school!”

Mono shushed her again, reminding her to keep her voice down.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he muttered.
The girl deflated, sighing in defeat.
Mono pushed himself to his feet.

“Look, I need to go warn him. This is bad. So please, stay hidden and don’t trust anyone. Got it?”

The girl nodded.
Mono was about to slip back into the street when he paused, hesitating.

“Could you do me a favor?” he asked awkwardly, turning back. The girl raised an eyebrow.
“Why?”

“Just… the things you saw me do, can you promise not to tell anyone about it?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, nerves prickling under his skin.

She looked at him for a beat, then nodded.
“Yeah. Sure. Don’t worry.”

Mono exhaled, relief washing over him.
“Thanks. Stay safe.”
He ducked out of the shop, breaking into a run — ignoring Morrison’s orders entirely and heading straight for the university, slipping through side alleys and shadows.

⸻

The farther he ran, the worse his throat burned from the cold air. But he couldn’t stop now.
His eyes flicked to the crowded areas he passed through, the “aid” squads had started to herd survivors into collection zones.
Mono recognized the pattern: too organized, too selective.
They’re not helping. They’re gathering.

He reached the main road in front of the university. The garden that split the campus sprawled before him.
He leaned against a wall, panting, his head pounding.
Then he saw him, Morrison, surrounded by guards and Null Sector sentries near one of the buildings.

Mono stepped forward, ready to break into a sprint.

“Jack!” he shouted.

A sound to his left, too close.
Footsteps.
He turned just in time to catch the blur of a rifle butt swinging at his temple.

The world flipped upside down.
Pain exploded in his skull.
And everything went black.

⸻

Chapter Text

Mono was dreaming.
Or at least, that was the only way he could make sense of what he was witnessing.
He was in a dark, damp place…
The walls, swollen with pipes, groaned with deafening metallic screeches.
It felt like being inside the belly of some unknown sleeping beast.

Then the soft sound of footsteps. Mono saw a small white, pointed hat appear before him, as if it had passed right through.
A tiny creature with a white body.
Mono recognized it instantly, he’d seen them around before.
They hid in the tiniest cracks, where not even the smallest children could squeeze through. They weren’t bad, they often helped out.
In fact, one of them had even given him a hat like theirs once.
Or at least that’s how Mono had interpreted it.

The little Nome stopped just one step away from him and turned around, as if waiting for someone. But even though it was facing Mono, it didn’t seem to see him, but rather something behind him. Mono tried to turn, but realized with worry that he couldn’t.

At that point, another figure passed right through him, one far more familiar.
His blood froze at the unmistakable shape of a yellow raincoat.
The girl wearing it now had her back to him and was holding a small lighter in her hand, the only source of light in such a dark place.
Had he not already been unable to move, Mono would have frozen right there.

The girl walked up to the Nome and hugged it.
Mono stayed where he was, watching, hoping she would turn around and at the same time dreading the moment she actually would.

As if she could hear his thoughts, the girl suddenly tensed up.
In the distance, between the metal walls, another deep growl echoed.
Then another, and another still.
Then slowly, the girl began to turn…

⸻

Mono woke up, feeling another growl in his stomach.
He pushed himself up on one elbow, looking around: he was in the safehouse Jack had found for him for the night, in a sleeping bag on the floor. His paper bag lay folded beside him.
Another growl.
It was still a strange feeling, this thing called hunger.
That emptiness in his belly that, if it went on for too long, turned into real painful cramps.
Mono didn’t remember ever feeling that way back in the Nowhere.
He had felt worse things, of course: headaches, biting cold…
But never something so annoying and recurring.

The boy rubbed his eyes and tried to ignore the hollowness and rumbling in his stomach, thinking of something else.
But soon his mind drifted back to the dream he’d just had—if it could even be called a dream—and Mono found the complaints of his stomach far more tolerable than thinking about the girl in the yellow apron.
He could already feel his throat tighten.
At this rate, there was no chance of falling back asleep.

After a few seconds, he got up.
From the next room, he could hear murmuring, probably Jack.
Is he still awake?
He started tiptoeing down the hallway.
I’m wondering what’s he doing…

⸻

The light in the next room was still on.
A soft buzz of electrical communication could be heard. Mono could barely make out the message being projected, a woman’s voice, with a strong accent.

“…can’t take Tal…” he couldn’t catch the rest “ …urself, Jack…”

Mono peeked through the door, barely sticking out his head.
Jack was sitting on one of the chairs at the table in the small kitchen. His back was turned.

“… Recall… sure, why not. Then we’ll all sit in a circle singing kumbaya in the great ‘we don’t give a shit about Petras’…” he sighed. “Ana, if only you knew how rotten everything’s is…”

He was wearing a simple tight black shirt and was leaning forward, one leg resting on the other while something was propped on his lap. From the sleeves hanging down at his sides, Mono realized it was the jacket with the 76.
From the movements Jack made, it looked like he was sewing up a tear in the garment.
Mono stood in silence, watching.

“I couldn’t save it back then, I’m not saving it now. The world doesn’t want us and made it fucking clear.
I’ve already given enough, thanks.”
He muttered something else inaudible and continued with what he was doing, unaware of the presence behind him.

The man looked tense, more than usual at least.
It was typical for Jack to be a little gruff, but Mono had only seen him like this during missions against Talon. Whatever he’d heard in that message had put him in a real bad mood.
Mono almost reconsidered interrupting, maybe he wasn’t that hungry after all.

Then Jack went to pull the thread with the needle, but it slipped from his fingers for a second, pricking him and making him shake his hand in the air.
“Goddammit!”
That made him lift his head just enough to notice the shadow at the door. He turned, and Mono almost saw him flinch again with a stifled grunt, this time from fright.

“Holy—! Jesus, kid, you trying to give me a damn heart attack?” he set the jacket aside, resting an elbow on the chair’s backrest.
“You should be sleeping, we’re moving early. How long have you been standing there?”

Mono didn’t answer, biting the inside of his cheek and glancing off to the side toward the fridge, not sure what to say.
He hadn’t meant to stay and listen, but he had to admit it was kind of funny that the man could hear a Talon guard two hallways away and still struggled to notice Mono’s footsteps.

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing at the boy’s silence.
“Look, if you were eavesdropp—”
“I…” Mono began, and Jack stopped immediately to let him speak.

“It’s just that…” Mono continued, but the more he delayed, the more he felt pressured by the man’s stare. God… it sounded stupid now, saying it out loud.
He would have much rather said “nah, it’s nothing, goodnight” and gone back to sleep, but it was a bit too late for that.

Jack was still watching him.
Mono didn’t know if that look meant “get it over with”, but it sure seemed like it.

“I’m hungry,” he blurted out at last, flatly.

Morrison looked at him for another second.
Then sighed.

“Of course you are.” He stood, starting to rummage through the shelves.
Mono started tugging at his fingers while he waited, letting his eyes wander.

Eventually, the man pulled out a couple of paper cylinders, giving the shelves one last glance to see if there really wasn’t anything else, clearly unsatisfied with what he’d found.
Then, rubbing a hand across his neck, he turned around holding up what looked like a cup with flashy writing and bright red coloring.

“Ever had instant noodles?”

⸻

The first thing Mono felt upon waking was the cold and metal on his back.

He blinked. His vision wavered.

The ceiling above him was bare and dusty, with some damp stains that made it look like they’d ended up in some grandma’s abandoned basement. Every now and then, there was an iron beam and some cables connected to some unknown system.
There was a poignant smell of humidity and at the same time of antiseptic.
And the half-working industrial white lights weren’t helping the boy’s headache.

He tried to sit up, but his limbs felt heavy. Too tired, drained.
He winced and turned his head.

To his right, he noticed a familiar figure moving from one makeshift cot to another, providing medical service. A man with long hair tied in a low ponytail. The same one he had seen with the other guy wearing glasses when they evacuated the building.
And the other was there too, following the first and handing out some bottles of water.

Behind the two, who followed them like lost puppies, there were two other boys, teens, both with blond hair and freckles. And finally, right between the two…

You’ve got to be kidding me… Mono thought to himself when he saw Wendy in the same facility where he had been captured.

He let his head fall back with a sigh. Then he turned it sideways, noticing the absence of someone.

Wait… where’s Jack? But there was no sign of the man. Only confused and injured civilians.

“Hey, you’re awake!” said an adult voice to his right. Mono turned around. Ah, it was the man with the ponytail, now kneeling next to him.
The rest of his family behind him was watching, and Wendy was waving a little hand in a somewhat embarrassed greeting.

Mono frowned.
“You got caught? Seriously?”

Wendy crossed her arms, making a face.
“Well, technically you got caught too.”

Mono decided not to answer, especially since the man with the ponytail interrupted to speak to the boy.
“I need to check your pupils for a second. You took a bad hit, you might have a concussion. Uh… well, could you…”
He gestured toward Mono’s head.

Mono’s hand came up, brushing against the paper bag that had been clinging to his head by sheer willpower. It was soaked, creased, and barely holding together anymore.
A sigh escaped him, and with slow fingers, he peeled it away.

The man continued.
“I’m Ethan by the way, this is my husband Vincent and my kids Benjamin and Logan. I think you already met my daughter Wendy…”

The little girl waved again.
“Hi.”

Mono nodded back. Then he realized he was the only one missing from the introductions.
“Oh, I’m Mono.” The group seemed a bit surprised by the name but didn’t pay much attention.

Then Ethan took out a small flashlight and pointed it at him.
“Okay, let’s see…” After a few seconds, the man frowned.
“Ah, that’s weird. Did you happen to have conjunctivitis
in your eye before you came here?”
Mono tried to close his eye, already feeling it dry.
“Had what now?”
“Conjunctivitis, an eye infection.” He paused, moving on to the other eye. “You have this strange blackish film. And on both eyes too!”

“Ah, that! Nah, don’t worry, it’s normal.”

Ethan raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Are you sure?”

Mono nodded. “They’re just like that.”

Ethan shrugged.
“Alright then, in any case…” and pocketed the flashlight. “You have a concussion, so you simply need some rest and fluids. You’ll survive,” he said the last sentence, giving him a pat on the shoulder while Vincent handed him a bottle of water.

Mono looked at the bottle.
“But I can’t just rest now! I don’t even know where we are, why we’re here and especially where…”

The doors at the end on his left burst open violently.
Three Talon guards entered, walking with military precision.
They were dragging a body between them.
Then they dropped it harshly, like they were throwing out the trash.
The body hit the floor with a sickening thud.

Soldier 76.

His iconic jacket, blue and red with a large 76 clearly marked on it, was soaked in blood and dirt. The left shoulder had been torn open, fabric shredded.
The man’s breathing was labored and wet.
The glass of his visor was clearly broken and the rest of his face was bruised and full of cuts, with a split lip.

Mono’s heart jumped in his throat.

“Jack!” He tried to get up from the stretcher, fatigue suddenly forgotten.

“Whoa, wait, easy—” Ethan warned him, but the boy was already standing.
His boots stumbled on the ground, the pain in his head hit hard and sharp, but Mono kept moving quickly, having understood he wasn’t in condition to run.
The boy knelt next to the man’s body. He didn’t touch him, just hovered, as if not knowing what to do.
Ignoring the looks exchanged by the family members behind him.

One in particular was fixed on their figures.
Vincent was looking at the unconscious body of Soldier and the small boy next to him with a mix of confusion and worry.

That was Jack Morrison.

Vincent had always been skeptical about the truthfulness of Overwatch’s Strike Commander’s death in the Zurich explosion.
But as years passed, the stagnation of the international situation and the lack of even the smallest signs led him to reconsider his doubts. And to approach acceptance of Morrison’s death.

And yet here he was.

Alive.

Injured.

Older.

But without doubt, him. And with a boy tagging along…

What the hell was going on?

⸻

Four days passed.

Four endless days in that room, while time seemed to slow down, measured only by the ticking of the clock on Ethan’s wrist and the droplets of moisture, caused by some leak in the ceiling, that fell nonstop into a puddle on the floor.

Mono was already at his limit. The place reminded him too much of several apartments in Pale City.

Jack Morrison still hadn’t woken up.

Mono barely left his side.

He had helped Ethan clean his wounds, change the bandages, and apply the little antiseptic taken from the medkits the guards had provided.

The man had been kind enough to offer to treat Morrison other than sew up the cut on the boy’s shoulder.
In the end, Mono had given him a timid thanks, to which Ethan had simply smiled and said not to worry.

“I was an emergency doctor, but now I decided to take care of the kids since hospital shifts were becoming brutal.”

And if before that Mono had no problems with Ethan, hearing the name of that damned place gave him a slight doubt whether he had been too quick to judge the man positively.
Maybe it was time to be more careful around him.

Vincent seemed to be hiding something too.
Sometimes the guards would come in and take one of the adults away for hours.
Eventually, this also happened to Vincent.
The man came back paler than before. Shaken.
He sat down heavily next to Ethan and wouldn’t speak for nearly twenty minutes.

“They’re asking about Venture,” he said finally. “Sloan Cameron. One of my old students.”

Ethan frowned. “Why him?”

“I don’t know… something about an artifact. A minor one. It’s not even valuable, just part of a debris set from the Ilios site.”
Vincent ran a hand through his hair. “It doesn’t make sense.”

For the rest, Mono kept to himself, detached at the stretcher where Jack was lying.
Like a guard dog.
Stiffening every time a Talon guard passed too close during their patrol.
The others could clearly see the dirty looks he was throwing.

At night, when the concrete prison fell into total silence, Mono stayed in his little corner.
The first night, after successfully moving Jack’s stretcher away from the main door, out of the guards’ sight, he touched his jacket.
Checking his pockets, he remembered he had the beanie Morrison had given him the night before, the black one, definitely too big for him.
But in the end, it was better than nothing, and in the absence of his paper bag (which was practically decomposing somewhere on the wet floor) he would make do with what he had.

Another thing he was surprised to find was that little tin box he’d been carrying since he appeared in that strange world.
Her music box.
Sometimes he forgot he had it, considering how small it had become.
In the Nowhere it had been half his size. Here he could almost close his fist around it.
He was surprised it hadn’t broken yet.

So, with nothing else to do, at night while everyone else slept, Mono would turn the crank, letting the mechanical notes resonate in his small space.
Bitter as it was for the boy, the melody was better than the unbearable dripping from the ceiling.
Who knows… maybe it would miraculously wake Jack from his sleep.
It would be the first time it was useful for something.

On the third night, a voice interrupted the melody.

“That song is weird.”

Mono’s hand froze, still gripping the crank.
Looking up, he saw Wendy looking down at him with those big green eyes and her usual small smile on her face.

“It’s not weird in a bad way. Just…” she sat next to him, “sad.”

“A little, yeah.” the boy agreed.

“Is it yours? It’s nice,” Wendy continued, clutching her father’s jacket.

“Not really.”

They stayed silent for a second.

“I didn’t say anything in case you were wondering.”
Mono turned to look at her. There was an unfamiliar honesty on her face.
“About… you know, that.”

Mono traced the little drawings on the music box with his thumb.
“Um… thanks.”

She nodded. Then, looking around, she opened her mouth again.
“Just…” she started, turning to Mono, “I was wondering, why don’t you use your powers to, like… get us all out of here?”

The boy sighed.
“It’s not that simple. I can’t just do whatever,” he said almost in a whisper.
“There are too many of us and too little signal.”

Wendy looked at him with a raised eyebrow, confused.
Mono let the little tin box fall on his legs, starting to gesture with his hands, as if that would help her understand.

“It’s like…” an example came to his mind, though he wasn’t quite sure where it came from, “when you have to fix the picture on TV and so you keep adjusting the antenna until the signal comes back. You know?”

Wendy stared at him.

Ok… maybe she’s never done that?

“Like…” the girl started, bringing a finger to her lips, “when I try to send a message on the phone with little Wi-Fi?”

“Yes, exactly!” said Mono, even though he still hadn’t fully grasped the concept of that Wi-Fi.
Morrison had tried to explain it (unsatisfactorily), but gave up halfway.
But hey, if it helped Wendy understand.

“And how does it work?” Wendy resumed.

“What do you mean?”

“How do you know if there’s signal or not?”

Mono shrugged.
“I just can. I have a sort of sixth sense for these things.”

“Can you show me?” Wendy looked at him, and her already big eyes seemed to widen even more.

Mono sighed, then leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

In the darkness, it was easier to better hear the buzzing of the signals.
He could hear the faint one from the lights above them, then farther away… distant and high, hidden in the upper floors of that building. There it was!
A signal from displays and televisions, different and connected to each other.
A monitoring room.

“There’s a camera room.” Mono said softly.
Maybe if he tried harder, he could listen to the conversations taking place.

Wendy breathed in, waiting.

“It’s on the upper floors,” Mono detached himself from the wall and reopened his eyes. “Even if we wanted to get there, first we’d have to take care of all the guards posted outside.”
He sighed.
“Then I’d need the strength to make more than one trip and I haven’t exactly been eating…” he finished.

Wendy’s smile faded a bit.
“So, we wait?” There was a hint of disappointment in her tone. Mono could understand that the girl hadn’t come just for a chat.

Mono nodded, bitterly.
“We wait.”
And started playing the music box again.

⸻

On the fourth day, the doors of the room suddenly opened, letting in two guards and a Talon officer.

“You are free to go,” he announced. “You must leave the room within an hour, we suggest you start moving.”

Confused murmurs echoed among those present. But it didn't take long before they began gathering the few belongings they had and following the orders.
Vincent and Ethan moved quickly, helping the wounded.
In the end, only Jack's stretcher remained.
Vincent approached Mono with a smile.

“Let me help you with that,” he said, bending down when a guard stationed himself nearby.
Too close.

“You are all free to leave,” he repeated, “except the old man.”

Mono froze.
“What?” He stood up abruptly. “I'm not leaving him here!”

“Those who refuse can stay with him.”

Vincent held out his hands, trying to stay calm.
“He's injured. He needs further care, you can't just keep him here. If you let us—”
The guard stretched out his arm, pointing a gun at him.
Vincent fell silent immediately but didn’t move from in front of Mono and Morrison's body.
Then the guard, with an unsettling coldness, moved his arm aside, aiming the barrel at the kids and Ethan.

Vincent paled. “Stop! Calm down. I'm sure we can reach an agreement.”

The guard kept staring at him, then took off the safety from his gun.
“I will count to three.”

“Alright!”
Vincent raised his arms, beginning to step aside. “Alright.” He repeated, almost defeated, placing himself in front of his children and Ethan, taking his hand.

Then he cast a pleading glance at Mono, who remained next to Jack.

“Mono,” he held out his other hand, “please, come with us, kid.”
Mono slowly turned his head toward him.
For a second he looked at him, his eyes shadowed by the black cap.
He wrinkled his nose at the outstretched hand, as if the very idea of abandoning Jack disgusted him.
Then he averted his gaze from the man.

He simply planted himself by the stretcher. Feet firmly on the ground.
He would not move.

The guard didn’t seem to like the boy’s audacity.

“Little brat,” he lowered the gun, focusing fully on Mono. “I said leave!”

He reached out, clearly intent on grabbing him by the hair, when Mono was faster.
The man let out a sharp scream, pulling his hand away to free it.
When he finally succeeded, there was a bright red bite mark visible on his hand, and the boy was looking at him, smug.
The adult grunted, more annoyed than hurt, then responded by throwing a punch at the boy.

Mono fell to the ground beside the stretcher.
A torn lip mirroring Jack’s and a bleeding nose.
He could taste blood in his mouth.

But the guard was not satisfied.
He cocked his gun.
Then a shout.

“What the hell is this delay?” The officer from before stepped forward toward the guard.

“It’s this brat! He won’t leave and even bit me!” He said, showing the hand with the mark. “I was just giving him a less-”

“Glad to know where your priorities lie, recruit. I said the area must be cleared within an hour, what’s unclear?” The guard didn’t answer. “He’ll get what he deserves, don’t worry, now get the rest out.”

Then he turned toward Vincent and the others.
“All of you, out!”

Vincent’s family gathered their belongings and moved out.
The man threw one last glance at that strange boy, sitting on the floor with a dripping nose.

But Mono didn’t look at him. His eyes were fixed on the backs of the Talon guards.
Shame and anger burned in his chest.
But soon it would be their turn.

He would let them take the civilians away. Let them believe he was harmless.
Let them have their fun, then it would be his turn.

⸻

For the first time in days, the room was empty.

Only the two Talon guards and the officer remained.
Including the bastard.

“Can you believe it?” He said, pointing toward Mono and Jack’s body. “Is this really the great Soldier who caused trouble for months?”

He laughed.
“A decrepit old man reduced to a sack of meat.
He went down easily as far as I’m concerned, makes you wonder how hard he really was to beat.”

He stepped toward them. Then another.
Mono stood up.

The guard tilted his head, pulling a short baton from his belt. He pressed a button and the tip lit up with a glow and an electric hiss.
“Feeling brave? Come on, if you want to look like your old man, I’ll give you what you want!”

He raised his hand, ready to strike him again.
But it stopped midair.
The lights began to flicker and tremble.

Mono was standing in front of him with his hand raised. His eyes, shadowed by the hat, lit up like TV screens.
On the boy’s face there was no anger, no smile.
Only an expression of pure determination.

Then everything started moving again. The man and his companions were thrown backward, dropping the various gadgets they carried.
Even the baton slipped from the bastard’s hand. It fell to the ground still emitting small electric sparks.

Then something caught Mono’s attention.
The puddle behind the three. That same puddle that had formed over those endless days of captivity.

A memory flashed in his mind.
One from Pale City. Of dark streets continuously soaked by rain.
Of people with distorted faces and chilling moans. The Watchers. He had already dealt with them that way.

He could do it again.

“What the fuck is that?” The second guard shouted, trying to get up.

“What the hell do you care!” The officer snapped back. “Shoot him already!”

The first guard was about to shoulder his rifle when Mono’s eyes lit up again and the three were pushed backward once more. This time falling straight into the puddle.

The whole room seemed to shake with the impact and some lights short-circuited.
Mono breathed heavily, holding himself from doubling over. There was no time.
As soon as he saw the three were where he wanted them, he lunged forward.
He crawled along the floor grabbing the taser baton.

The guard’s eyes widened, realization striking too late. “Wait—!”

Mono didn’t.
He plunged the sparkling tip into the water.
A dull whistle was heard. The three unlucky ones, still on the ground, screamed in unison, their bodies convulsed, then fell still.

Mono stayed two seconds catching his breath, then switched off the baton and began to get up.
He approached the Talon officer, being careful to touch only the dry parts.
Searching his pockets, he found a magnetic card, maybe it could help him get out of there.

He looked toward the stretcher, where Jack’s figure lay. He needed a way to carry him.
Returning his gaze to the guards’ bodies, his eyes fell on the belts.
Oh well… they wouldn’t be needing them anytime soon.

⸻

Damn you, Jack! Mono took a deep breath and started pulling again. I swear, if we survive this you won’t be eating so many steaks no more!

The boy was inching his way down the long corridor.
The place was strangely deserted. But Mono wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

In the end he’d managed to tie the two guards’ belts to the stretcher, dragging Jack behind him like a long and definitely heavy backpack.

His legs wobbled. His left shoulder burned and he didn’t want to think about why.
He took another breath and kept pulling.

He had to make it all the way.
He could see it ahead of him, at the corridor’s end. Where the hall split into two, right and left, but in the center remained him.
The elevator.
He simply needed to bring Jack to the upper floors. That’s where the camera room was, their ticket out.

He was almost around the corner when he heard multiple footsteps at the far end of the right corridor.

No, no no… Mono pulled with all he had, dragging Jack just to the edge. C’mon, come on!

Mono’s body was practically in the middle of the corridor when a squad of Talon guards rounded the corner at the far end of the right hall.
Seeing the boy, they raised their weapons and the poor kid barely had time to let out a strangled alarm and hide behind the corner, when a fusillade of shots echoed off the walls.

The guards opened fire without hesitation and Mono pressed himself against Jack’s body, covering his ears, praying the wall would shield them.

A guard barked an order that Mono didn’t catch, but the others halted.
The corner was in bad shape, with bits of wall chipped away by the bullets.

They were trapped. And so close to the exit too!
Maybe Mono could try one last trick…
But there was no guarantee he’d have enough strength left to use the screens upstairs.

“Show yourself with your hands up,” the guard shouted again, “surrender and you might survive.”

Mono peeked around the corner with one eye.
There were too many guards in formation…

He turned back to look at Jack’s face, gripping the belts and trying to steady his breathing.
Then a shot rang out.
Just one.

Mono spun toward the squad.
One guard, the last in line, was on the ground. Behind him, holding a shotgun in one hand and surrounded by wisps of smoke, a hooded black figure rose.
A sharp white mask covered its face.

The other guards panicked.
Some tried to turn and fire but the figure was too elusive, moving as if made of smoke. Actually, it was.
The corridor exploded into chaos.

Mono didn’t waste time, he resumed pulling.
When he reached the metal doors he could hardly believe it.
He pressed the stolen magnetic card against the panel.
The elevator opened with a ding of invitation.
As soon as he got Jack inside he began hammering the button for the upper level.

Please, please!

He could hear someone running toward him. He continued pressing madly.
Then another shot rang out, closer this time.
Mono looked up to see a Talon guard fall at the intersection where he’d been seconds before.

The guard clutched his side and crawled desperately to get away, when he caught Mono’s eye.

“Please,” he pleaded, trying to reach the elevator, “please, wait—”

Another shot, the guard’s head snapped sideways and he collapsed, a trickle of blood already spreading on the floor.
Mono flinched, falling to his knees and instinctively clutching Morrison’s jacket.

The doors began to close.
In front of the elevator appeared the same figure as before. Walking slowly, with measured steps.
It stood atop the guard’s corpse.
Then, just before the doors shut, the mask turned to the side, looking directly at Mono.

It felt as if time had stopped.
Mono could hear his heartbeat in his ears.
And finally, the doors closed.

Below, Reaper watched the elevator ascend.
Then he raised a hand to his com.

“Reaper here.” His voice echoed through the lifeless corridor. “No sign of the prisoner, proceeding with ground‐floor sweep.”

To anyone else it might have sounded annoyed. But those who knew him well would’ve caught that there was no irritation in his tone.
Only genuine interest.

He needed to know who that brat with Morrison was.
And why the hell he wore his beanie.

⸻

The elevator came to a halt after a few minutes.

He didn’t know where he was exactly, an upper level, maybe a storage floor.
Most of the lights were dead, wires exposed and blinking. Signs of battle were everywhere.

Mono didn’t care.
He resumed dragging the stretcher behind him, heading toward the camera room.
Here the signal was clearer, almost as if it were calling him.

He arrived at a door labeled Security – Surveillance.
He planted the card on the access datapad and stepped inside.
A wall full of displays greeted him, hissing as if recognizing an old friend. Or maybe it was just exhaustion.
Mono couldn’t have cared less.

He gripped Morrison’s wrist and stood, bringing a hand trembling with adrenaline to the first screen.

Come on, he could taste the metallic tang of blood in his mouth, one last jump, one last…

The screen seemed to light up in response to Mono.
The boy closed his eyes, trying to focus and align the signal.

Then he pushed.

The room around him seemed to expand then compress inward.
The air grew heavy, the other screens began to malfunction.

Then finally the pressure lifted and reality seemed to snap back into place.
He landed hard on a tiled floor.
The smell of dust hit him all at once.

Ignoring his body’s protests, Mono pulled himself up.
Everything hurt. His left shoulder felt like it was melting from the burn.
But nothing compared to the headache pounding in his skull.

Looking around, he realized they were in an electronics store.
The TV they had emerged from stood smoking a meter away. Its screen had a hole in the center, as if someone had punched through from the inside.

And at Mono’s feet lay Soldier, still unconscious, but alive.

Mono dragged himself next to the man.
He tried to move him but soon gave up after a spasm of pain shot through his body when he attempted to get up to lift him.
Unable to fight exhaustion and feeling the last flickers of adrenaline abandon him, Mono lay down beside Jack on the cold floor.

For once, he let himself slip into Morpheus’s arms.
Deep in his sleep, the boy rested his cheek on the man’s shoulder, the rough fabric of the jacket lulling him.
The scene would probably have embarrassed him if he were awake.
Thank goodness, he was sound asleep.

And for once, no dream came to visit him.

⸻

Deep within the facility, Reaper’s footsteps
echoed through the empty corridor.
Wrinkling his nose behind the mask at the childish state of the place, he entered the room where the hostages had been held.

There lay two guards and the officer who had disappeared for hours, sprawled in a puddle like beached whales.
Only the last of the three idiots seemed to have just regained consciousness.

At the sight of Reaper, he scrambled upright in panic.
“Mr. Reaper, sir,” the officer stiffened into a salute, “we had a small setback with one of the prisoners, we were going to—”

“You call this…” Reaper strode past him, eyes on the two still-unconscious guards, “a small setback?”

The officer didn’t turn.
“One of the kids refused to evacuate with the others. We were just going to teach him a lesson before moving the prisoner as planned.”
Then he lowered his chin, ashamed of his failure.
“He wasn’t a normal boy.” He shook his head to emphasize the point. “He pushed us back as if… aided by an invisible force.”
Then almost in a whisper he added,
“With those flashing eyes of his… It was terrifying.”

He turned to Reaper, who was no more than half a meter away, but the man kept his back to him.
“It was an accident.”
He didn’t know whether he was justifying himself to the hooded figure before him or to himself.
He turned toward the door, taking a step forward, unable to stand still.
“We didn’t see him coming,” a pause, “we underestimated him.”

A disappointed sigh came from behind him.
“You always do,” then the click of a trigger.

A shot rang out in the room.
Gabriel Reyes watched with glee as the officer’s body collapsed to the floor.
He cast one last glance at the two guards in the puddle. One bore the marks of a bite on his hand.

Then he walked away, raising a hand to his com.
“Sombra, I’m out,” his form began to dissolve into a cloud of smoke, “proceed with the detonation.”

⸻

Chapter Text

⸻

When he opened his eyes again, it felt as though no time had passed and yet as though a century had gone by.

Lying on the ground, the first thing that greeted him was a gust of cold air. The boy shivered, pulling his long trench coat tighter around him, still half-asleep.
But it did little to help. Everything around him was cold, from the floor to his own clothes. Even the body next to him seemed froz-

Oh God… Mono jerked upright, ignoring the discomfort that seeped into his bones like the humidity seeping through his clothes.

Soldier’s body laid next to him, paler than usual and completely still.

“Jack?” Mono shook him gently by the collar, but got no response.

The man’s hands were cold, and for a second Mono feared he wasn’t breathing.
Then he remembered a gesture Ethan had shown him the first few times he treated Morrison.
He placed two fingers on the man’s neck. Warm. Slightly, but still warm.
Mono let out a sigh of relief, then noticed a strange pulsing under where he was pressing.
Huh… odd, but there wasn’t much time to dwell on it.

The boy ran his hand along the sides of the man’s face.
The bruises that had been nearly black a few days ago were now a nasty ochre and greenish color, but they seemed to be healing faster than the rest, along with the more superficial cuts.
Still, the skin was cold and sticky, and unnaturally pale, even for someone as fair as Jack.

Shit, shit…
The first thing he did was drag the man’s body into one of the alleyways in the back of the shop, where they’d be more protected from the wind.
The only thing he could think about while doing it was how Morrison would have scolded him if he were awake, having drilled into Mono’s head not to move anyone unless he knew the full extent of their injuries. But he couldn’t leave him there, or it would get worse than it already was.
He tried to cover him with whatever he could find, but in the end, he decided to use his own coat as a blanket before heading out to find anything that might help.

The block was full of half-destroyed shops or others closed off by metal awnings.
Mono patrolled, finding what looked like the entrance to a pharmacy. The metal awning covering it was bent, as if a huge boulder had fallen on top of it, which to his luck left a small gap to slip inside.
He managed to find a few medkits and a fridge, now switched off, full of water bottles. The boy grabbed one and drained it. He didn’t know how long he had slept, but the TV trick and the escape in general had left his throat dry and his chest aching. He felt like he hadn’t had a drop of water in days. Once back with Soldier, he did his best to disinfect what he could and change the bandages, just like Ethan had shown him those days.
It should have been enough.

But in the following days, Morrison didn’t seem to improve, quite the opposite.
No matter what Mono did: keeping him as warm as possible, checking his fever, or keeping him hydrated… Nothing seemed to work.
The most alarming moment came one morning, when he touched his face and, instead of feeling cold, it was burning. Finally, the boy realized that at this rate, Jack would never wake up. He gave up. He needed help. And he only knew two people he trusted enough to ask.

He went out. As usual, it was raining. The streets were mostly quiet, but not empty. In the buildings around the university, which had sustained minimal damage, many civilians had returned to their homes as if nothing had happened. Mono studied the streets until one finally looked familiar. From there, it wasn’t hard to find the building where Soldier had been thrown… last week? Had so many days already passed? Maybe it was time to hurry.
Climbing the stairs, he checked the names on the buzzers. When he found the right door, he paused for a second. Was it wise to trust these two? Ethan had been a doctor, after all… and Mono, after the last time, would have been better off turning around and keeping his distance. But Morrison needed care, and the boy was only making things worse. He knocked.

The door creaked open, and there they were. Vincent and Ethan.
“Mono?” the first asked, confused.
“You’re alive?” the second followed, equally puzzled. Then, looking him over. “God, kid, you’re soaked.”

And Mono was, indeed. Having left his trench coat behind with Soldier in the shop, he had nothing to shield him from the rain. The shirt he wore, besides having a large tear on the shoulder, was wet and clung to his skin in an annoying way that made him want to tear it off. His hair was plastered to his face, and the black beanie flattened it even more, covering his eyes.
But despite the miserable state he was in, Mono didn’t waste any time.

“I need help,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Please. It’s Jack. H-He won’t wake up and I don’t know what to do.”

For a second, no one spoke.
Then Ethan stepped forward, giving Vincent a knowing look. The man turned to Mono.
“Lead the way.”

⸻

They took him in.

And over the following days, things seemed to get a little better.

Ethan had taken it upon himself to care for Jack.
At first, he’d suggested taking Soldier: 76 straight to the hospital, but the boy, already tensing at the thought of that place again, was about to refuse outright, when Vincent cut in first.
Dragging a not-so-dead Jack Morrison into a public hospital, especially so soon after the attack, would’ve immediately drawn the attention of both the authorities and whoever had come after them.
So, they decided to treat him at home.

Mono wasn’t sure how, but Ethan had managed to get his hands on some medical equipment.
He came back after being gone for a few hours with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and when he opened it to reveal plastic tubing, IV bags, and other medical equipment, the boy could’ve sworn Vincent’s jaw hit the floor.

“Where the hell did you get all this?” Vincent started, eyes widening as realization dawned. “Don’t tell me you—”

“Vincent, darling,” Ethan cut in brightly, “either this, or our patient here starves.”

Mono decided not to comment, but as he knelt down to help Ethan, he couldn’t help but notice the fond, almost admiring look Vincent shot at the other man.

Once Jack was stabilized, Ethan turned to Mono. The boy at first tried to refuse, insisting he was fine, but eventually gave in as he couldn’t really hide the pain in his shoulder anymore.
Ethan carefully stitched the wound that had reopened, likely from dragging Jack during their escape (it was a miracle it hadn’t gotten infected yet).
He didn’t notice Ethan’s brow furrow, nor the worried glance the man shared with his husband when he saw the dried, black blood around the cut.
They didn’t say a word, but the message was clear.
Something was wrong.

So the boy ended up staying with the two men and their kids.
Soldier was laid out on an inflatable mattress in the corner of the living room, turning the space into a makeshift infirmary.
Wendy had cheerfully offered to share her room with Mono, but the boy refused, choosing instead to sleep on the couch so he could keep an eye on Jack overnight.
Vincent didn’t object.
As much as Mono seemed like a decent kid, he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of him sleeping in his youngest daughter’s room.
Nothing personal, but the more time passed, the stranger the boy seemed.

He was secretive. Guarded.
It was clear he was hiding something.
When asked how he’d managed to escape with Morrison, Mono gave a quick half-answer about pretending to be dead after a beating and waiting until the guards left, before promptly changing the subject.

Yeaaah, no. Vincent called bullshit on that.
The kid was a terrible liar. And he could clearly see, tucked under that trench coat Mono had gone back to wearing, the same kind of staff the guards had been carrying. Still, both he and Ethan let it slide.

Just like they let other questions slide.

When asked where he was from, the boy quickly answered Boston—but it was obvious to anyone listening he was anything but Bostonian. Even Wendy had commented on Mono’s odd way of speaking.

“What was that?” she laughed, mimicking him: “Oi! What are you, british?”

Mono froze, their earlier conversation forgotten. To Vincent, it almost looked like the boy was trying to figure out what “british” even meant.
Then, as if snapping out of a trance, he jumped back in, defending his odd speech pattern like his life depended on it.
Vincent left the two to their friendly banter.

No matter how many questions Ethan or Vincent asked...
Why follow Morrison?
Why throw himself into a fight with Null Sector robots alongside a super soldier?
How did he even know it was Null Sector and Talon?—
Nothing. Mono either dodged with a flimsy excuse, switched the subject, or gave half-answers.
And the two men might’ve let that go.
After all, he was just a kid.
But the oddities kept piling up.

It started with small things.
So small that Vincent thought he was imagining it: a lightbulb flickering no matter how many times it was replaced, the TV switching on at random hours, sometimes in the dead of night, always just showing black-and-white static that made his skin crawl. Maybe it was just his nerves, or the stress of everything.
Maybe it was seeing Morrison alive again after twenty years, not really knowing how to feel about it.
And yet… Mono always seemed to pretend nothing was wrong when something strange happened, or he’d stiffen, then quickly force himself to look relaxed.

The worst part, though, was when Wendy started having nightmares.

Her older brothers didn’t seem too shaken up. Sure, being locked up for four days hadn’t been fun, but once home, they bounced back quickly enough.
Mono, for his part… well, Vincent just added his frequent night-wakings and lack of sleep to the list of odd behaviors. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the boy had night terrors.
Sometimes he even seemed scared at the mere mention of going to bed.

But now Wendy was having them too.
More than once, Ethan had woke to find his daughter in tears at their bedside, or worse, hearing terrified screams echoing from her room.
Those nights always ended the same: a trembling Wendy recounting her latest dream.

She spoke of strange, desolate places filled with monsters that always ended up grabbing her. Only one figure seemed to appear every time: a hulking man, reeking like rotten fish, with a face like a melted candle.
Vincent didn’t know what to do with that description.
Maybe it meant something in terms of her subconscious, but the more he tried to make sense of it, the more his head hurt.
Damn it, he was an archaeologist, not a psychologist!

Ethan suggested letting it go for now. After all, it wasn’t unusual for a child to have nightmares after a traumatic event.
The words had stuck with Vincent.
Traumatic? Was it really that serious?
They’d survived, returned home safe and sound after less than a week in captivity. Not much had even happened during it. At least… not to his family.
But had it really been enough to traumatize Wendy?
His poor girl…

And again, it wasn’t that he had something against Mono. But it was far too strange that the boy not only listened to Wendy’s stories but encouraged them.
He was especially focused on the figure she kept seeing, asking her over and over to describe its appearance and actions.

That was the last straw for Vincent.
After the fourth sleepless night spent comforting his daughter, seeing her the next morning sitting at the kitchen counter, discussing dream details with Mono, was enough.
Wendy didn’t need this.
She needed rest, not to have her nightmares stoked by a too-curious, evasive boy.
And besides... Morrison wasn’t getting any better.
They needed help.

“We need to call somebody,” he ad said one afternoon to his husband.
The kids were out, and Ethan was unloading the dishwasher.

The man only sighed.
“Okay, fine,” he said, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow at Vincent. “Who?”
The irony wasn’t lost on him. Jack Morrison, or Soldier: 76 now, was a wanted man in more countries than Vincent could count.
Who to call, indeed…

Vincent’s eyes drifted to the comatose figure in their living room. Then to the duffel bag Mono had retrieved from a back alley the night of the attack. Without another word, he walked over and began rifling through it.
He found exactly what he’d expected.
He brought the datapad close to Jack’s face, silently thanking the heavens Morrison hadn’t disabled the facial ID.

“Vincent!” Ethan half-yelled, scandalized.

“Oh, come on! You can swipe medical supplies from an hospital, but I can’t bend privacy just a little to get help for your patient?” he whined.
Ethan only shook his head, though Vincent swore he caught the ghost of a smile.
And sure enough, once the datapad was unlocked, it wasn’t hard to find some numbers. One in particular had tried calling over and over, never getting through.
Bingo!

That night, after making sure Mono was asleep, he set about making the call.
The lack of a connection for the first thirty seconds nearly made him hang up. Then, at last, a woman’s voice, thick with an accent, answered on the other end.

“Jack? Wh—”

“Uh… hello?” The voice fell silent. Vincent almost thought they’d hung up on him. But after a moment, the same voice returned, this time harder, more suspicious.

“You have exactly twenty seconds to identify yourself and explain how you got this number.”

“Wait! Wait! This is Vincent—it’s about Jack Morrison!”

Another pause.

“Vincent?” Her tone shifted. Almost recognizing.
“What happened? Where is Jack?” she pressed, clearly worried.

Vincent gave a brief summary of the past two weeks: the attack, their captivity, Mono, and Jack’s condition.
Then, finally, he added,
“Sorry, but… who am I speaking to?”

He could hear footsteps and muffled voices on the other end. Then the voice returned, steady as before.

“This is Ana Amari.” More footsteps. “We’ll be there by tomorrow.”

⸻

Jack didn’t quite know where his head was at.

Sensations came and went like flashes of light in a tunnel.
He remembered feeling something similar only two other times in his life: the recovery after his first SEP injections and waking up after the explosion at the Zurich base.

Moments of clarity intertwined with dreamlike delirium, making it hard for him to tell what was real and what was not.
One moment he was standing, surrounded by Null Sector sentinels at the University of Oregon, trying to prevent them from reaching two injured security guards.
But the more he shot, the more the enemies seemed to multiply. And there kept appearing more. Bastions and war bots from the crisis seemed to materialize among the Null Sector lines, and it was like being back there. In that war.
More and more…

The next moment he was lying on the floor, in a gray, bare place, his head throbbing and spinning as if he had a hangover. It was almost as nauseating as the real thing.
Mono was there, turned away.
Jack didn’t know the how or the why.
He could barely focus on staying awake. His gaze began to wander around the room, trying in every way to anchor himself to reality and escape the darkness. It was useless.
Before being claimed by the darkness, he thought he saw the figure of a woman leaning against a column, dressed in blue. She looked so young.
A-Ana?

The next time, he was still lying on the floor. This time he could feel the cold of the place biting at his face.
Mono was there again, next to him.
The boy was turned away, and Jack could only notice the absence of the paper bag.
His eyes blurred, and for a second he feared falling asleep again.
He tried to open his mouth, to say something to the boy. Anything.
To tell him to leave, that it wasn’t safe, that the sentinels would come back, like they always did…
The most he could manage was a choked breath before feeling himself falling again.

Then the lights of the room pierced through his eyelids.
Jack let out an annoyed grunt, repositioning himself to press the pillow against his face, hoping it would be enough to return to the dream he had been having.
There, he had already forgotten it!

With a whine, he shook the pillow off his head, finally opening his eyes.
He was in an apartment. There was something vaguely familiar, yet at the same time new about the place.
He soon realized he was lying on a blue sofa, a blanket covering him.
What—

“Jack?” called a man’s voice from the next room.
Vincent…

“Thank God you’re awake. I was starting to think you never would be.”
The voice was exactly as he remembered, those few sentences they had exchanged before the man had gone to be overwhelmed by Null Sector troops.

Jack got up.
For a second he felt dizzy, as if he had to relearn how to walk; the world seemed to blur for a moment.
Then it returned to normal, and Jack entered the kitchen.
Vincent had his back to him. He was facing the sink, fiddling with a large glass jug containing a golden liquid.
Is he still making beer? Morrison wondered.

But looking more closely, something seemed off.
He would have sworn that last time his hair had been white.
Why then—

“You know I can hear your thoughts from over there, right?” said the other man lightly, turning to face Jack.
Jack froze.
Vincent was standing right in front of him, only he was no longer the older man he had seen that evening in Eugene, but the young man he had known that evening at Huntingdon University, whom he had visited during the few quiet moments of the Crisis, whom he had last seen that damned day in London.
Jack remained staring, like watching a comet appear, where every microsecond spent blinking is time you’ll never get back.

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”
It was then that Jack realized he had been staring.

“Sorry, no, it’s just that…” He glanced around the room, trying to examine it. “What—what happened?”

Vincent, in a quick gesture, took Jack’s chin in his hands, directing his gaze back to himself.
“You okay?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “If I had known you’d wake up this out of it, I wouldn’t have let you sleep in the middle of the afternoon.”
It was meant as a joke, but Jack could perceive the subtle, genuine concern in the man’s tone.
The gentleness with which he held his face…
God, he had missed him.

But Jack was more confused than ever.
“Vincent, seriously,” he took the man’s hands, holding them between his own (strangely unscarred). It was a gesture he had done during the years of their relationship, but in that moment, trying to repeat it felt so… foreign. Like a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit.
“What is this?”

Vincent looked at him as if a second head had grown.
“What do you mean?”

Jack closed his eyes, inhaling.
“This!” He gestured around himself. “It doesn’t make any sense, what—”

Vincent squeezed his hands lightly, shushing him.
“Jack,” his voice was calm and soothing, “where do you think you are right now?”

Morrison struggled to find words, letting his gaze wander again. But every time his eyes drifted from Vincent, the man drew his attention back, almost forcing him to focus on him, to answer.
“I…,” he shook his head. “Damn it, Vincent, I don’t know! Zurich? Switzerland, maybe?”

The other looked even more puzzled.
“Why would we be there?”

“Why wouldn’t we? You know, Overwatch—”

“Jack, what are you talking about? You left the organization last year.”

The sentence paralyzed the blond.
Left Overwatch?
“What do you mean?” he asked, almost whispering.

“You left. They wanted to make you Strike Commander and you refused…” Vincent paused, studying him.
“You don’t remember? Are you sure you’re okay?”

Jack ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t know what to think.
“So… who did they pick in the end?”

Vincent looked to the side, biting his cheek.
“Reyes.”

Gabe?
It made sense. He had led them during the Omnic Crisis…
But he remembered why he had accepted the position in the first place.
Even Gabriel Reyes hadn’t wanted it. He was never a man who liked the spotlight.
He had truly left that burden to Reyes and disappeared from the organization to live with Vincent?

He stayed silent for a few minutes, thinking.
He could sense Vincent growing more concerned with every passing second, but he couldn’t stop the flood of thoughts.

“Are you… having second thoughts?” The dark-haired man’s voice was small. “About… us?”
The tone pierced him. He had never heard Vincent so confused and sad, not even the last time they had met.

“No, it’s not—”
Jack clenched his jaw.
Maybe—no… Yes.
Why did everything have to be so confusing?
“It’s not what you think,” he finally said, running his thumb in a circular motion over Vincent’s hand, in a reassuring gesture.
“You don’t know how much I’ve wanted something like this.”

And it was true.
How many days had he spent ruminating over the choices he had made. How many times had he asked himself the same question, never able to have an answer?
If things had gone differently. If it hadn’t been Jack Morrison, “the war hero,” who came out of the Crisis, but just a soldier among the lucky survivors.
If he had ignored S.E.P.
Refused the Strike Commander position…

Wouldn’t it have been better for everyone?
How many mistakes could he have avoided?

He reopened his eyes.
Vincent was looking at him as if he had hung the stars in the sky.
How he wished he could stay in that moment…

And maybe that was the problem.

Vincent leaned in, pushing for an embrace between them.
And God… oh God, was he not tempted.
One last time, even if it was a dream. Anything to live that fantasy just one second longer… just one.

But he stopped.
Gently, he trapped two fingers between himself and Vincent, placing them on the man’s lips. He let them wander down, taking his chin and lowering the tense face toward him.
Vincent’s eyes were glossy, staring utterly lost.

Jack closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear that look.
Vincent deserved something better. He had found something better.
A husband. Children. A life.
The best Jack could do for him now was get out of the way… before he could ruin that too.

“Tsk!”

Jack furrowed his brow. W-What?

“Do you really think this pity party is going to make him hate you any less?”

The voice was Vincent’s and at the same time not.
Then gravity seemed to vanish all at once. Jack found himself in free fall downward, sinking into the floor.

⸻

When his eyes readjusted to the dim light, he was in a small apartment, sitting at a minimalist table.
Some details began to catch his attention, giving him a strange sense of déjà vu.
A patched-up sofa against the wall, a row of cupboards stretching over the kitchen, which was in the same room as the living area.
He knew this place. It was Eugene’s small safehouse.

It was warm inside. Outside, the wind howled against the shutters, carrying the scent of pine and distant woodsmoke, but here… it was almost too quiet.

The clink of a shot glass on the table made Jack flinch, pulling his attention back to the man in front of him.
At the opposite end of the table sat a man with brown skin and black hair and beard.
Jack watched Gabriel Reyes bend over laughing, and suddenly it was as if his ears had reopened and he could hear again.

“…you look like a damn biker!” came Reyes’s voice. He was clearly tipsy, which wasn’t surprising given the bottle of liquor half-empty on the table and another in the man’s hands.

And it was then that Jack realized… this was a memory.

He remembered this moment: one of the last missions he had done with Reyes. A simple undercover thing. He even remembered what he had worn, and honestly, it was one of the outfits he was most proud of.

Black leather jacket, blue jeans, sunglasses, and a red bandana around his head. He wasn’t one for compliments, but damn, he looked good in that outfit.
If he hadn’t constantly been under public scrutiny, he would have enjoyed exploring style more.

The mission had been a few years before things got complicated.
Before he had thrown everything into chaos…

His gaze returned to his old friend.
He felt a strange sensation. He couldn’t move.
It was like being trapped in his own body. Able to watch, but unable to direct his own actions.

The Jack in the dream gave a short laugh, shaking the water from his hair like a dog.
“Jealous I still have hair to grow?”

Gabriel Reyes leaned against the back of the chair, a bottle in one hand and a crooked smile on his face.
He tossed a beer to Jack, who caught it easily.

“I have hair!” protested the other. Then took a pause to take a drink.
“You’re lucky we didn’t get stopped on the way back,” Reyes continued. “We looked like a couple of runaway mercs. Especially you, with that grim reaper cosplay you call a jacket.”

“I blend in with the locals,” Jack replied, popping the cap. “Besides, you’re the one who insisted I wear the leather. ‘Intimidates the bastards,’ you said.”

Gabriel took a long swig and grinned. “Only because I knew you’d actually do it. And I said ‘something to intimidate,’ not to flirt!”

Jack raised his arms in his defense. “Who was flirting?”

“Oh, come on, one of them was eating you with their eyes! Don’t tell me you didn’t catch it.” Gabriel ran a hand over his face, flushed from the alcohol and disappointed by his friend’s lack of understanding.

“Not that it would have changed anything.” Jack took a sip of the beer, trying to seem nonchalant.
But Reyes had always been good at reading him. Sometimes too good.

“Still stuck on Vin—?”

“No! It’s just that it wouldn’t have gone anywhere, right?” Jack remembered trying to hide the melancholy in his voice, but he had only earned a raised eyebrow from Reyes.

“Are you telling me that Mr. Jack Morrison, Strike Commander Jack Morrison, hasn’t had any short of flings in all of these years? Not even one night of fun?”

Jack almost choked on his beer at the words.
Then laughed, finally feeling his vision widen like a 360-degree camera.
Ah… he had missed that feeling.

“Why all the interest in my sex life?” Another sip. “One: it’s my business. Two: do you really think they wouldn’t recognize me?”

“Because you always refuse to come to our pub nights! You have no idea how many scenes you missed with Reinhardt and Ana. I can’t even remember the last time I saw you this drunk—”

“At Gérard’s wedding.”

“That was years ago!” Gabriel shook his head, as if not knowing what to do with the idiot in front of him. Then narrowing his eyes with a mischievous smile.

“And if your identity’s the problem, why not seize the moment? What’s stopping you from going out and having a little fun?”

Nothing ever escapes you… huh, Gabe?
Jack knew the answer. He knew why he had never even tried a fleeting experience.
And how much he had tried to ignore it.
But the more the man in front of him continued to give him that look, the harder it was for the observing Jack to prevent the same feeling from resurfacing.
Years had passed. The Reyes in front of him wasn’t even really the same in real life anymore…

“It’s just… not my style,” he finally replied.

Half of it was true. And the look Gabriel gave him said he knew it too.
A strange silence fell between them.
Gabriel kept studying him, and Morrison struggled to evade the man’s gaze.
He would soon realize that the redness in Gabriel’s face wasn’t due to the alcohol. But that little thought kept buzzing back like an annoying fly in his ear.
And it made him blush.

Pressed to not let the moment stretch on, Morrison tried to continue the conversation.
“So… how’s it going with Martina?”

What an idiot.

Gabriel tensed. He looked down, then settled back into his chair with a cough.
“More like… it’s not going, like at all.” Morrison realized too late the mistake he had made, but Gabriel continued. “She’s tired, and so am I.”

“Gabe, if you need a break—” Morrison leaned forward, dizziness forgotten, concerned for his friend.

“Would you give it to yourself?”

“What?”

The man’s brown eyes locked on him, staring with a challenging air.
“If I came to you saying you need a break, would you take it?”

“No, but—”

“Then there’s your answer.” Gabriel leaned back in his chair, taking another swig from the bottle as if he had just won a prize at one of those stupid debate contests.

The man’s attitude annoyed him.
“Damn it, Gabe, I’m not the one in the middle of a separation!”

“So what should I do? Go home and talk to Martina? Risk putting them in danger? Blackwatch is in the mid—”

“What about your son?” The sentence seemed to hit Gabriel squarely. He didn’t take it well.

“What about him? What do you know about having a son?!” he growled.

Ouch.
That had hurt.
The Jack in the dream was speechless.

Morrison remembered what came next. Minutes and minutes of silence, interrupted by the sounds of large gulps.
Looking back on the conversation, he couldn’t help but bite his hands for the stupid choice of bringing the topic up.
All just to distract Gabe from continuing to analyze him.
And in doing so, he had ruined another evening.
Well done, Morrison, congratulations!

After a few minutes, the Jack in the dream tried to get up. He pulled himself up, wobbling for half a second, before trying to say something. Perhaps goodnight… perhaps something else.
But Reyes beat him to it.

“Sometimes, I keep thinking back to the work at the station in L.A., how it didn’t matter how many criminals we caught, how many extra hours I put in… It changed nothing. The big fish were the hardest to catch, and if we did, they were out soon after. And the cycle repeated.”
He took another swig from the bottle.
“And now… we go after Talon and other organizations, and it’s better than what I was doing in L.A., but the more time passes, the more I can’t help but wonder…”
He lifted his gaze.

Jack didn’t remember this part. Maybe he had been too drunk to notice.

On Reyes’s face was a melancholy Jack had never seen.
When he spoke again, his voice was low.
“Am I ruining all my relationships… for nothing? Am I repeating the same cycle?”

There he was, his best friend, opening up.
Asking for clarification, maybe support. Perhaps he just wanted Morrison to listen to his doubts.

“Criminals, small or big… they’re still criminals.” Placing the beer on the table, he turned his back.
“Wouldn’t dwell on it too much if I were you,” and then finishing, as if nothing had happened: “Sleep well, Gabriel. Tomorrow we go back to normal.”

Had he really been that… cold?
Maybe it was because of the earlier comment.
Maybe it was Reyes’s stubbornness, reflecting his own so well (and that the man had always been good at turning it against him).
Morrison didn’t know.
But as his body moved toward the next room, he could hear a murmur behind him that his alcohol-fogged mind hadn’t noticed at the time.

“…it has to mean something… it has to serve a purpose…”

Jack wanted to bury himself. He wanted to go retrieve whatever poor bastard was buried in his place under his memorial and sink into the ground till suffocating.

How could he have been so blind?
Not even blind… just, such a jerk? All for what?
To distract Reyes for a second over something practically harmless, at least compared to other problems in their lives?
There he was, ruining another good moment, like he always did! How many seconds had it taken this time?
How many times had Reyes come to him, and the conversation always turned into an argument? How many times had he brushed aside Gabriel’s concerns with a couple of flat words? About Blackwatch, Talon, Overwatch…

And the same question returned.
Would it have changed anything?
That terrible day in Zurich, when everything came crashing down on them?

If that day he had stopped to listen, if he had really understood his friend’s concerns…

Suddenly, it was as if he were in control of his body again. He wanted to turn.
No matter if it was a dream or a memory, if he could even just speak to his friend one last time. Even just to apologize…

“Again with the whining. Like your being upset changes anything,” a voice rang around him. But it was no longer Reyes’s. Too distorted and guttural.
But he had heard it before.

The man’s body reacted instinctively, tensing and turning sharply on the defensive.
But there was no one.

The table was empty, only the beanie the man had worn and the half-empty bottles remained.
Actually, no, one had tipped over, spilling dark liquor everywhere, on the table and the carpet.

Wait…

That wasn’t alcohol.
And the longer the seconds passed, the more the liquid poured out as if the bottle had no bottom.
The air suddenly turned cold, the walls seemed to collapse and sag, as if melting at any moment.
What the hell?

“Right here Jack!” echoed a voice behind him.

Jack started to turn when a shadow threw itself at him, slamming him down.
Streams of smoke clouded his vision, while the floor beneath him lost solidity, bending under pressure as if it were gelatin.
He could feel a clawed hand tightening mercilessly around his throat, while another pressed against his head, nearly crushing it.
He could barely make out the skull mask—white and terrible despite the absence of light—as a distorted laugh echoed in his mind.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” Reaper’s mocking voice rang out.
“If it isn’t Overwatch’s golden boy. Ooh, just look at you.” He paused, tilting his head as he savored Jack’s desperate struggling. “You look horrible.”

The floor, once semi-solid, turned suddenly liquid. Morrison sank further.
“You always do this… act so high and mighty, then let everything fall apart, and we’re supposed to feel sorry for poor Morrison. How far has he fallen, how far down?!”
He emphasized the words by tightening his grip, forcing Jack deeper. The black water rose to his knees.

“Let’s take a little trip, shall we? Down through all your little fuckups.”

Jack sank so far that his head finally dipped beneath that black sea. He felt the liquid invading his mouth, nose, even his ears. Yet Reaper’s voice was sharp in his mind.

“You pushed Vincent away for this mission of yours, like a good little martyr, going to be stoned for the greater good, right?”
He thrashed, already starved of oxygen, but his body was locked in that black miasma, smothering him inch by inch.

“Because God forbid the golden boy doesn’t play the hero. And you were, to the whole world… except the people closest to you.
Rose too high above us mortals, didn’t you, Strike Commander?
Too important to spare even a second of your time for those of us who bled at your side.
Sure, you were a hero to the others… but I saw.”

Stop.

“I saw the way you cast out Reinhardt. All it took was one order from the UN and, like their dog, you bent over to obey.
You signed that order without blinking.
One of your friends, a true hero, and you tossed him aside like nothing.”

Jack didn’t know what hurt more: the claws tearing his skin, the crushing grip, the suffocating blackness, or Reaper’s words.

“Your little mistake with Gérard?
That signature for Amélie’s release cost him his life…” Reaper hissed, savoring his weakening prey like a serpent.

Jack squeezed his eyes shut, convulsing from pain and lack of air.
Please…

“And Ana… that was your mission. Your call.
You pushed her the whole way and then? When she didn’t come back?”

… please… stop…

“You wore the grief like a badge.
But deep down, you knew… we all knew.
You were the one who killed her just as surely as if you’d pulled the trigger yourself.”

Jack’s throat burned. His pulse thudded in his ears.
Reaper leaned closer.
“Good boy scout Jack.” He spat the words like an insult.
Then his voice dropped—darker, slower, poisonous.

“Oh, almost forgot… there’s that little secret of yours.”

Jack’s eyes flew open. He fought not to think of it, but he could feel the figure digging into his mind as deeply as its claws into his flesh.

“Aaah, there it is. You truly are depraved, Jack.
Over a married man?
And your best friend on top of it!”

Reaper yanked him up just enough for one eye to breach the surface, savoring the way it widened.
“Tell me… do you still feel that now? Now that you’ve seen what I’ve become?”

Jack wanted to look away, to fight, to deny it—but the truth twisted in his gut, unbidden, undeniable, making him sick.

Reaper’s tone shifted, almost pitying. Almost.
“You sick old man…”

And with that, he forced Jack down. The black water swallowed him in a single choking rush. Reaper’s weight pressed on him like the past itself.
Every failure, every face he couldn’t save.

“It’ll always end like this, you’ll see. Just a matter of time before it’s the boy’s turn.”

The words hit like a blow. The way Reaper said it—like Mono was just another name for the long list of people Jack had failed. As if it were a promise.

Something inside him rebelled. The hands on his throat weakened, suddenly less certain. Soldier pushed upward, thrashing, swimming, clawing against the black liquid with all his strength.

Finally, he broke the surface.

Jack’s hands braced against solid ground, dragging himself up with every last ounce of strength. When his eyes opened, he wasn’t drowning anymore.
He lay sprawled on the floor, chest heaving like he’d run a marathon, sweat and black liquid cold on his skin.
The air was still and quiet, like the small hours of the night.
The surface beneath him was solid, but when he looked around, there was no floor, no walls, just endless black.

And there, a few feet away, was a couch.
On it, curled into one corner, Mono slept.
The boy’s head rested against a cushion, black hair spilling across his face. No mask. Just the pale, sharp features Jack rarely saw unguarded.
His chest rose and fell in slow, steady rhythm.

Jack didn’t move. Couldn’t.
He just watched the boy like a beacon in the storm.

Mono looked… fine.
Not restless. Not fighting invisible battles in his sleep. Just a kid, asleep on a couch.
And it was enough to make Jack’s shoulders loosen, to let out a breath that wasn’t just air but relief.
The boy was fine. He was safe.
Far from the world’s problems.

Jack still wondered if he’d done right by not telling him anything. About Overwatch, about himself. About all the blood on his hands…
He realized, with a dull ache in his chest, how much he’d been carrying.
But every time he’d met the boy’s gaze, he hadn’t found the courage.
Mono was the first in a long time not to see him as either failure or hero.
The boy hadn’t grown up under Jack Morrison’s shadow. To him, Jack was just… Jack.
And the thought of losing that terrified him more than he’d admit.

For a while, he just watched Mono sleep.
He noticed small things—the way his hand tucked under his chin, the way his hair shifted with each breath, the slight part of his mouth as he slept.

A small moment of peace.

Then… a shift.
The faintest ripple in the black, and a figure appeared behind the couch. Large. Ominous.
It wore a tattered gray trench coat and a fisherman’s hat, but what struck Jack most was its face—if it could even be called that.
It looked like a sack of skin with two hollow holes where eyes should be. A tumor left to grow unchecked.

And it was staring at Mono.

A cold spike pierced Jack’s chest.
Without thinking, he planted a hand to the ground, trying to push himself up. His body still trembled from the fight for breath, but instinct overrode everything: pain, exhaustion, even reason.

That thing wasn’t getting near the boy.

“Stay away from him!” Jack growled.

The being didn’t respond. Didn’t even glance at him. It kept its gaze fixed on the sleeping boy.

Jack tried to rise, but the ground liquefied again. He struggled to fight free, but it was like battling quicksand. His boots scraped against nothing, muscles straining against an unseen current.

“No—” Jack hissed, forcing his legs, pushing forward, but every move sank him deeper into suffocating dark.

The figure didn’t turn. Still ignoring him entirely. As though Jack wasn’t a threat, just an inconvenience.
He wasn’t being fought. He was being dismissed.

The last thing Jack saw before the black swallowed him was Mono’s peaceful face, unaware… and the shadow looming too close.

“Too awake to sleep, too wise to wonder. Still you sink.”

⸻