Moving Forward
POV: Silas
Location: Belmont → College Dorms
Time: Morning to Evening
I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a garbage truck.
Twice.
My shoulders ached, my legs felt like I'd sprinted uphill in concrete boots, and my palms were raw like I'd been dragging bricks. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest. Guess I found out what shadow-fueled strength training did to your nervous system.
But I was still breathing. Which, all things considered, was a win.
My first thought wasn't the belt.
It was the phone.
I'd spent another hour in the terminal after finishing my tests. Before I left, I made damn sure that phone was useless. I popped the SIM card, snapped it in half. Ripped out the battery, crushed it under my heel. Took a crowbar from a nearby maintenance shack and obliterated the rest of it.
Then I dug a hole — with my hands — and buried every scrap separately.
Not today, NSA. Not today.
I spent the next few nights going full lunatic mode trying to trigger the powers again. Shadow punches. Jumping off walls. Pretending to fall dramatically off park benches to see if the shadows would catch me.
They didn't.
At one point I whispered, "Activate" like I was some kind of budget Power Ranger. Nothing happened.
Tried yelling "Shadow Mode!"
Still nothing. Just weird looks from a raccoon.
Eventually, I gave up and called it a night.
Next morning, I came downstairs to the smell of toast and the sound of news chatter from the living room TV. Dad sat by the table reading his phone. Mom moved back and forth from the kitchen, humming softly.
Isaiah had already left for work.
"Sit," Dad said, barely looking up.
I sat.
He sipped his tea, scrolled once, then said: "You're going back today."
I blinked. "What?"
"You've rested. You've processed. Life doesn't stop because something bad happened. That's not how we were raised. You'll pack and head back before lunch."
Mom didn't disagree. She gave me that mom look — warm but iron-solid underneath.
I wanted to argue. But deep down, I knew he was right.
I had to get back to it eventually.
Might as well be now.
The ride back to campus was quiet. I stared out the bus window most of the way, earbuds in but no music playing. The trees passed like smudges. My thoughts jumped between shadow blades, shattered phones, and that damn red-suited figure in the video.
When I got back to my dorm, it was like nothing had changed.
Same faded posters. Same mystery stains on the carpet. Same weird humming noise coming from the vending machine outside.
But everything felt different.
I dropped my bag and sat on the edge of the bed, letting the silence settle. That's when I heard it — voices from the hallway.
"—they say he stopped an armored car. Flipped it like it was a soda can."
"—Spider or something. Swinging from buildings. Crazy."
"—You seen the clip from Queens?"
I stood up. Opened my door just a crack.
Two guys walking past, still chatting.
"He's new. Young. Wears red."
"Some folks are calling him 'Spider-Kid'."
"More like Spider-Weird. I don't trust that mask."
They rounded the corner and were gone.
I closed the door.
Sat back down.
Looked at my bag. The belt was still inside. Still waiting.
My eyes drifted to the window.
The city moved outside. Noisy. Messy. Alive.
And something inside me whispered:
"Maybe I should try something like that. Just... see where it leads."
Not to save the world.
Not to be a hero.
Just to understand what the hell I was becoming.
But not like this. Not in jeans and a hoodie, where anyone with a camera could ID me in seconds. That Spider-kid? At least he wore a mask.
If I was going to do this—test this in the real world—I needed something better.
I grabbed my laptop and sat cross-legged on the bed. Searched: urban hero costume designer, then indie cosplay commissions, then stealth tactical bodysuits.
Yeah. That last one was a bit much.
I wasn't about to drop $900 on something that looked like it belonged to a SWAT team LARP group.
Eventually, I pulled up a design app and started dragging pieces around myself. Hoods. Masks. Armored sleeves. I even sketched out a chest emblem at one point but deleted it. Too corny.
Nothing flashy. No capes. Just dark. Layered. Functional.
Shadow-compatible.
Once I had something that looked decent—a lean bodysuit with armored lines across the arms and boots, light plating along the chest, a hood instead of a helmet—I saved the mockup.
Then I stood up.
Turned off the light.
Faced the wall.
Closed my eyes.
I thought about what I had seen in the train yard. What it felt like when the shadows crawled up my arms and wrapped around my legs. What the armor looked like. What it felt like. How it moved.
Then I pictured the design on my laptop.
Visualized the color, the shape, the weight.
And I reached for the shadows beneath my feet.
The floor went quiet.
The air cooled.
And slowly, tendrils of darkness began to rise.
Wrapping.
Fitting.
Becoming.
My suit.
This... was the beginning.