Chapter 4: The Great Atavistic Echo

"I tested a million weird abilities just now—how'd I forget to try phasing through walls?"

Now that he'd cracked the black light's secret, Nathan whooped and danced around, so happy he nearly bounced off the ceiling.

Nathan's mom heard the racket behind her and turned around; he hurriedly pulled the black light back inside before he could give her a heart attack as Darth Vader. Faced with her flailing son, she asked, half-scolding, "What's gotten you so happy today?"

Nathan gave a sheepish heh-heh. "Nothing! Just, y'know, school stuff."

His mom didn't think much of it and went back to her chores. Nathan, light on his feet and in a great mood, sidled up to the table, demolished breakfast at record speed, grabbed his backpack, and dashed out the door. Usually he was rushed on school mornings, but today—up early and feeling great—he took it easy the whole way.

Nathan itched to try out his new power, but the thought of all the cameras on the street killed that urge. Getting superpowers on camera was absolutely the prologue to ending up sliced up in a government lab. He decided to find some out-of-the-way spot after school to test the black light's wall-phasing.

Nathan had walked his route to school close to a thousand times, knew it like the back of his hand—but today, after passing one street, he suddenly realized he was off course.

He clearly remembered only two cross streets on the way to school: Longwood Road and Greenhaze Road—Longwood first, then Greenhaze. Neither was a commercial strip; plenty of traffic, but no storefronts doing business. He'd just passed Longwood Road, and now here he was in some bustling, thriving commercial street—and this street was definitely not Greenhaze Road. There was no street like this on his way to school, period. At first, realizing how unfamiliar it was, he figured he'd taken a wrong turn somewhere—but pretty quick, things started feeling genuinely off.

The architecture along this street was ancient and bizarre. Standing at the curb and looking in any direction, there wasn't a skyscraper to be seen. Lining both sides were mostly single-story houses with little courtyards, with the occasional two- or three-story building—the tallest, grandest building on the whole street was a mere five stories. Nothing like the big city at all.

In all the years he'd lived in this city—ten-plus—Nathan had never once heard of a street like this.

The architecture was one thing—Greyhaven was a historic old city, an imperial seat that outlasted six dynasties, with no shortage of ancient buildings—but the pedestrians were what really set off alarm bells.

Most of the people on the street wore normal city clothes, and there were even plenty of students around Nathan's age—but a small fraction of the pedestrians and the shopkeeping families were decked out in ancient garb you couldn't pin to any age or any country. And the way they wore it, totally at ease, you could tell at a glance this was everyday life for them—absolutely not the kind of cosplay Isolde's crowd did.

Architecture and outfits were secondary, though. The big deal was this... In just the brief stretch Nathan had stood there gawking—a minute or two, tops—he'd already spotted several live, actual bloodborn!

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A burly hulk with a pig's head chugging beer straight from the bottle; a gorgeous young married woman with a tail curling playfully around her hips; an elephant-headed spirit nearly ten feet tall actually wearing a moving-company vest, hauling a giant crate... There was even someone riding a monstrous beast tearing down the street, as chill about it as if it were an electric scooter. These bloodborn looked absolutely "genuine article"—no way latex masks and makeup could pull that off.

"Am I hallucinating right now?"

School completely slipped Nathan's mind. He just stood there, staring blankly at it all, rubbing his eyes hard over and over, still unable to process what he was seeing.

"Nathan, school time! What are you doing zoning out here?"

A hand clapped his shoulder. "Oh—right!" Nathan answered on autopilot. One light push from behind, and he found himself walking across the street without deciding to.

The moment he crossed, the scenery flashed and the modern skyline snapped back into place. All that eerie atmosphere from moments ago vanished into thin air. Nathan whipped his head around—normal street behind him too. He could even see the Longwood Road intersection not far off. No sign whatsoever of that strange, exotic street.

"Nathan! Nathan! What are you spacing out about now?"

Nathan turned and saw the girl behind him, and his eyes went wide. "Wren? What—are you doing here?!"

This girl was a classmate of his—not pretty but not homely, grades neither great nor terrible, usually quiet and easy to overlook, and she hardly ever mixed with the other students. They'd been classmates over two years, and Nathan couldn't remember exchanging a single word with her.

"Why can't it be me? How long since you awakened? This is the first time I've ever seen you on Elderrow."

"Awakened? What's that supposed to be? And what's an Elderrow?"

Wren put a hand to her forehead, thoroughly done. "Didn't your parents ever sit you down and explain any of this?"

Nathan had to blurt, "My parents are normal human beings, okay?!"

Wren's eyes went round. "They don't know? Oh-ho! So you're an atavistic case! Then some elder in your family must have at least mentioned this stuff! Don't tell me you don't even know you've awakened bloodborn blood?"

Nathan blurted out loud, "Nobody in my family is a bloodborn!"

Wren hastily clapped a hand over his mouth, warning, "Quit shrieking in the street!"

Nathan squirmed his way free of Wren's little hand. It had only been a split second of contact, but the sensation stayed oddly vivid—her hand was incredibly soft and carried a faint sweet scent, and honestly it felt pretty nice. Still, he wasn't used to being that close to anyone, and his face flamed red on the spot.

Spotting the blush, Wren snickered, took her hand back, and gave him a head-to-toe once-over—then gasped, even more amazed than before: "Oh, wow. Not just a regular atavistic case—you're a GREAT atavistic case!"

A vein of pure exasperation threatened to pop out on Nathan's forehead. Face blazing, he snapped, "Atavistic my foot! My whole family's normal—human to the bone, through and through."

Wren sighed. "Well, with no awakened elders in your family, I guess it falls to me to give you the rundown."

Wren raised one finger, so fair it was almost translucent, and launched into her lecture like she'd rehearsed it: "The bloodborn world and the human magus world each have their own theory. The bloodborn world says: from ancient times to now, bloodborn have lived alongside humans and intermarried with them, so a portion of humans carry dormant bloodborn genes. Solid survey data backs this up—at least a quarter of all humans have bloodborn genes. The human magus world says: humanity descends from the ancient bloodborn kindreds, and there's no such thing as pureblooded humans; it's just that most humans' alien genes are buried so deep that no current spells or scientific methods can detect them—and there's real evidence backing that version too. Bottom line: either way you slice it, tons of ordinary humans are carrying dormant bloodborn genes, and under the right trigger, those dormant bloodlines can awaken and turn them into bloodborn!"