Orphaned Seed
Copyright© 2026 by Fantasylover11
Chapter 6: Contract
The townhouse looked like every other vacation rental on the strip: gray shingles, white trim, a small porch that faced the marsh like it was a view worth paying for.
Noah followed Mara up the steps anyway, because he’d already learned the difference between a choice and a trap was whether you got to see the door.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of bleach and coffee. The living room had generic furniture arranged with the sterile patience of a staging photo. No family pictures. No mail on the counter. Nothing that belonged to anyone.
Mara took his phone without asking.
Noah stiffened.
Mara raised an eyebrow. “You can have it back when you leave.”
“That’s not a rule I agreed to,” Noah said.
“You agreed to survive,” she said. She dropped his phone into a small metal lockbox on the kitchen counter and closed it. The click sounded final. “This area is noisy. Devices make it worse.”
Noah swallowed his response and let it sit behind his teeth.
The overlay, uselessly calm, hovered at the edge of his vision.
MAIN QUEST: SURVIVE RECRUITMENT
Mara motioned him toward the dining table.
Two documents sat there. Plain paper. No letterhead. The top page had a block of text and a line for his signature.
“Minor-phase secrecy contract,” Mara said. “Narrow terms. Guardian not required.”
Noah read the words. “That sounds like a loophole.”
“It’s a boundary,” Mara said. “It’s deliberately smaller than the adult version.”
Noah picked up the first page.
The language was clean, legal: permissions and restrictions arranged like they were doing him a favor.
No sharing details.
No posting online.
No bringing outsiders to certain locations.
Consequences framed as “termination of support” and “protective measures” that sounded gentle until you imagined what they would look like in practice.
“Protective measures,” Noah said out loud.
Mara watched him. Her ring tapped once against the table.
“You negotiated honesty,” she said. “Here’s honesty: if you become a liability, Meridian will protect itself first.”
Noah’s stomach tightened.
He thought of the mills. The watchers. The word flagged.
“And you?” he asked.
Mara’s mouth flattened. “I protect what I’m assigned.”
It wasn’t warm.
It was still something.
Noah read the contract twice, not because he trusted himself to catch every trap, but because reading was the only control he had.
When he finally set the pages down, his hands were steady.
“If I sign this,” he said, “you train me.”
“Yes.”
“And you keep your part,” he said. “No mind games. No lying about consequences.”
“Yes.” Mara’s gaze didn’t blink. “And you keep yours. Discretion. Discipline. Show up.”
Noah picked up the pen.
The moment the ink met paper, the overlay expanded.
CONTRACT ACKNOWLEDGED STATUS: CANDIDATE (PHASE A) REWARD: LEVEL UP
Noah’s chest tightened.
He signed anyway.
The overlay updated like a lock turning.
LEVEL 4 REWARD DETAIL: +2 AP, +1 SP
ATTRIBUTE POINTS AVAILABLE: 2 SKILL POINTS AVAILABLE: 1
Noah looked at the prompt.
Changing himself still felt like stepping off a ledge. The penalty had taught him the Interface could shove.
Mara watched him with the same expression she’d worn in the diner: not patience, not pressure. Assessment.
Noah focused on the menu.
He needed stamina if he was going to train.
He needed Presence if he was going to be watched.
He allocated both points before he could talk himself out of it.
ALLOCATE: VIG +1 ALLOCATE: PRS +1
The overlay confirmed.
VIG 6 PRS 6
The change landed as heat under his skin, like his body had been running behind and finally caught up.
Mara nodded once, as if she’d expected that choice.
“Skill point,” she said. “Spend it.”
“On what?”
“On not panicking in front of the wrong person.”
Noah’s jaw tightened. “That’s not a skill.”
Mara’s gaze sharpened. “It is here.”
The overlay offered a new option like it had been listening.
PRESENCE: COMPOSURE (R1) — UNLOCK (1 SP)
Noah hesitated.
Presence was one of the branches labeled licensing required.
This wasn’t that.
This was a small door inside the lock.
He took it.
SKILL UNLOCKED: COMPOSURE (R1)
The air in the room stopped pushing at him.
Not because the world got kinder.
Because he got steadier.
Mara didn’t give him time to sit with the feeling.
“Shoes off,” she said, already walking toward the back room.
The space beyond the hallway was a converted garage gym: mats, a pull-up bar bolted into studs, a heavy bag that had seen better years. A small fan ran in the corner, pushing air that smelled like rubber and old sweat.
Noah stood in the doorway, feeling like he’d stepped into a version of his life where adults had decided what he was for.
“Breath first,” Mara said.
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