Morning Star

Prologue

His sensor beeped insistently, like a pulsing heartbeat. Frowning, he crept alongside the wall of an abandoned alley, throwing a quick look behind him to confirm that he was not being followed. He knew, as well as anyone that lived in these parts, that alleys such as this one were dangerous, and many crimes occurred. Despite this, very few were reported. He almost felt sorry for the victims.

He would have, if one of them had not been his wife. It had been a year since her death, yet he remembered everything about her. The way her eyes seemed to change colours when she smiled. The way her hair was always so perfect - until the last few weeks, when she'd transformed her typical hairstyle into a pixie cut. Her hair was getting in the way, she'd said. He'd been aghast and horrified, but of course he became accustomed to it. How could he not? She was the love of his life. She had been the one and only girl he'd ever love, from the very beginning.

And in the end, the world was cruel. The gods were cruel, taking her away from him. She'd always had big dreams, he remembered. She'd died that day, bleeding out in an alley not unlike from the one he walked down now, her senses clouded by her greed for...magic.

As a scientist, he'd scoffed at her. Magic wasn't real. It was something created by men, to give them stories to tell their children at night, in order to psychologically manipulate them into doing what they wanted. Anyone with a sane mind knew that magic only existed in fairytales.

Right?

But his wife had been a scientist too, an exceptional one, before the rumours began - that her obsession for magic had turned her insane. He'd lashed out at anyone who dared challenge her. He didn't believe in magic, but he had believed in her. She had insisted that she was about to unlock a new discovery to Earth, and who was he to stop her?

However, before she could get any further than perfect a design for a tool that could track magic, she had been murdered. In a desperate attempt to keep her memory alive, he'd taken that design, and made it his own. He'd worked hard, day and night, to create the device of her dreams.

He hoped she was proud of him. His - no, her sensor continued to beep, faster and faster, as he stalked closer towards a dead end in the alley. Perhaps the sensor was faulty, for there was nothing here.

Nothing...to those who were not bothered to search further. If there was one thing his wife had taught him, it was to look at the bigger picture. He had to give this sensor a chance. Give her a chance.

He let her sensor guide him, drawing him closer to the decaying brick wall. He ran a rough, gnarled hand over the wall, grimacing slightly when small bits fell from the wall and cut into his skin. He ignored the pain, his brows rising in surprise when the sensor began to shudder in his hands. As if overwhelmed by whatever it had found, the device began to smoke, and right before his very eyes, it disintegrated.

That definitely was not supposed to happen. And it went against the laws of science - an inanimate object, especially one created like his wife's sensor, should not have randomly crumbled into nothing.

There was something here. Something bigger than him. Something bigger than this entire world.

"You really weren't lying, were you?" he mused under his breath, thinking of his wife, of her secret smiles and the glint she'd get in her eyes whenever she mentioned magic. "You knew there was something, even though everyone refused to follow you. You, my love, are a genius."

Of course, there was no reply, except for the faint sounds of the frosty wind that whipped past his face, turning his cheeks and ears pink. He should head back to his laboratory soon. Staying out in the open for too long was doing no good. He was needed back inside, with his half finished inventions and ideas.