Project Obsidian

The room is a perfect box. Clean. Cold.Walls of gunmetal gray. Corners designed with curved seams to prevent blind spots. A single recessed light overhead gives off a soft, neutral glow. No shadows should exist here—not in a place this controlled.

But one does.

Phantom sits at the center, legs crossed on a reinforced bench, posture rigid, as if meditation were part of his programming.

His expression is blank, but not thoughtless. Breatheh even. Hands open. Motionless.

And beneath him, the shadow lingers.

Too long. Too dark. It stretches at strange angles depending on how long he sits still, like it's growing bored with mimicking him.

No restraints. No glass. No sedation. He doesn't need them.

Because Phantom doesn't try to escape.

That's what makes him terrifying.

INT. OBSERVATION DECK — ADJACENT TO THE CELL

A control room lined with monitors, biometric feeds, and reinforced steel. The lights are dimmer here to aid visibility.

Dr. Desmond stands before the primary interface, flicking through footage on a tactile screen. His face is unreadable, his eyes tired but alert.

The video feed replays Phantom's reprogramming moment. The voice. The stillness.

"I am Phantom."

Desmond rewinds. Watches again.

Not because he doubts it.Because he doesn't understand why it still bothers him.

He taps in a frame-by-frame scrubber.

At 0.3 seconds before Phantom speaks, the shadow beneath the neural chair flickers, twisting upward briefly, then settling.

Desmond freezes the frame.

Zooms.

Magnifies.

The pixels distort, but it's clear: the shadow moved first.

Behind him, Dr. Mei stands with a datapad against her chest, silently absorbing new telemetry logs.

DR. Desmond (flat, clinical)"The identity is stable. Neural pathways show no divergence. Conditioning held."

He rewinds. Slower. Watching.

Shadow rise. Phantom speaks. Stillness resumes.

DR. Desmo, nd "But the shadow behavior's not predictable."

DR. MEI(without looking up)"It's not predictable because it's not reflexive. It's not mimicking him."

Desmond glances sideways.

DR. MEI: "He's not resisting. But the shadow might be."

INT. CONTAINMENT CELL — CONTINUOUS

Phantom remains in the same position.

But now, he tilts his head slightly. Not toward any camera. Toward the observation wall. As if listening.

But there's nothing to hear. The wall is soundproof.

He stares at it anyway.

Too long.

Unblinking.

On the internal biometric feed, heart rate is stable—42 bpm. Neural output is minimal, not dormant, but passive. Quiet.

[MONITOR 3 – SHADOW RESPONSE MAPPING]

Residual lag detected: 0.7s delay. Then overcorrection.Note: Shadow outline breaks the pattern. Predictive movement?

DR. MEI(stepping forward)"Run that again. Playback speed x0.2."

They watch as Phantom shifts one hand.

And his shadow shifts first. Then re-corrects. Like, it realized it moved too soon.

DR. MEI(quieter now)"What if it's not following light vectors?"

Desmond frowns .DR. Desmo: nd "Everything follows light vectors."

Mei leans in closer to the display, narrowing her eyes.

DR. MEI"What if we're not measuring an effect?"(beat)"What if we're watching a second subject?"

Silence.

Desmond turns away from the monitor, but not from the question.

INT. CONTAINMENT ROOM — SIMULTANEOUS

Phantom remains unmoving. Still staring toward the glass.

Then—a blink. Slow. Intentional.

He tilts his head the other way. Like he's listening again.

Or being listened to.

The overhead light flickers for a split second.

Not a power surge.Not a mechanical failure.

A shadow hesitation.

It pools wider beneath him for just a breath.

Then tightens again.

INT. OBSERVATION DECK — FINAL MOMENTS

Desmond leans into the console and activates a voice log.

DR. Desmond (recording)"Subject: Phantom_001. Status: stable. Obedient. Identity intact."

He glances up at the monitor. The shadow is still, for now.

DR. Desmond, but the anomaly continues. Visual desynchronization consistent with... autonomy. Possibly sentience."

DR. Desmond, the subject obeys. I'm no longer convinced… the shadow does."

CADMUS TRAINING CHAMBER – LEVEL 4 TEST WARD

This room isn't meant to challenge subjects.

It's meant to measure them.

Smooth metallic flooring. White strip lights lining the ceiling in perfect grids. Cameras built directly into the walls—each calibrated to detect heart rate, thermal variation, and quantum displacement. Every angle, every breath, every motion recorded.

At the far end of the chamber, a vertical white marker glows on the wall—Point B.

Phantom stands at Point A, still as stone.

Two Cadmus behavior technicians observe from the reinforced viewing platform above, flanked by a supervising security officer. Three guards stand inside the chamber, stationed along the perimeter—casual, but alert. Each wears minimal armor, stun batons on their belts.

No one expects this test to go wrong.

Because Phantom always follows orders.

A voice crackles over the intercom—precise, without warmth.

INTERCOM (O.S.)"Subject Phantom_001. Directive: Proceed to marker B at baseline pace. No deviations."

Phantom nods. Not with acknowledgment—just execution. A movement without emotional texture.

He steps forward.

Heel to toe. A perfect stride.

Then again.

Monitors blink green—readings all within protocol.

INT. OBSERVATION ROOM – MONITOR WALL

Technician 1 watches the biometric readouts.

TECHNICIAN: 1"Neural waveforms stable. Psionic quiet. Visual tracking locked."

Desmond , standing behind them with arms folded, narrows his eyes at the live-feed playback. His gaze is focused not on Phantom—but on the shadow.

Dr. Mei flips through displacement lag logs.

DR. MEI" Baseline behavior. Subject in full sync—"

Suddenly—

ALERT – MONITOR 3

CAMERA SYNC ERRORSUBJECT LOST — POS TRACE INTERRUPTION: 0.03s WINDOW

INT. TRAINING CHAMBER – SAME MOMENT

Phantom vanishes.

No noise burst of speed blur. He simply stops being there.

A ripple of black folds into itself where he stood—like a photo burned inward from its edges—and then he's gone.

Not a teleport.Not a jump. Just erased from one point and rewritten six feet away, mid-step, perfectly aligned.

The white floor beneath him flickers.

A low tremor vibrates the spa, e—but the light doesn't flicker. The shadow does.

The guards freeze.

One fumbles his baton.

GUARD 1"Did—did he just—?"

Another raises his comm."Control, we need—"

Before he can finish, the third guard panics.

GUARD 3"Hands! On the floor! Do it now!"

He unclips his stun baton with trembling hands and takes a step forward.

Phantom turns.

There's no change in face aggression. No anger.Just analysis.

He observes the threat. Registers it.Acts.

He steps forward.

Precise. Fluid. Quiet.

His right hand shoots out, grabs the baton wrist, rotates it backward with exact geometry—SNAP.

The crack of bone is clean, surgical.

The baton clatters to the floor.

The guard screams—high, panicked, human—and drops to his knees, clutching the twisted ruin of his arm.

Phantom says nothing.

He doesn't blink. Doesn't posture. Doesn't escalate.

He simply stands there, watching. Head tilts slightly, not in mockery but in diagnostic study.

The other two guards do not move.

Phantom looks at them.

A pause.

Their hands go nowhere near their weapons.

INT. OBSERVATION ROOM — CHAOS

Monitors spike.

PSIONIC DISCHARGE DETECTED SHADOW BIND DISTORTION – ACTIVEREACTION LAG: NEGATIVE 0.6s — SHADOW LED MOTION

TECHNICIAN 1: "He didn't move first. The shadow moved first—he followed it!"

DR. MEI(quiet, stunned)"It's choosing for him…"

Desmond leans in, eyes narrowing at Phantom's face.

DR. Desmond "No."

(beat)"He's not resisting it anymore. He's letting it drive."

INT. TRAINING CHAMBER — FINAL MOMENTS

Phantom drops the guard's limp wrist. Steps away.

He walks back to the line. Resumes his position.

Takes a single step forward.

Nothing happens.

But the shadow beneath him twitches—elongates just slightly in the wrong direction. Toward the wall. Toward the out.

Phantom stops.

Tilts his head—listening to something that no one else can hear.

Behind him, the injured guard stifles sobs. The others don't move.

Phantom turns slowly.

No hostility. No fear.

Just the stillness of a being that was told to walk a line—and now knows the line is irrelevant.

CADMUS BIOHAZARD LOCKDOWN ROOM — LEVEL 10 ISOLATION, RED CODE ACCESS

The room hums with quiet tension.

Every surface is seamless, hermetically sealed. Walls reinforced with internal heat coils, sound baffling layers, and embedded multi-spectrum sensors. The floor drains silently in slow intervals—not because something has spilled, but because something might.

The walls glow faintly. No sharp shadows—only light that bends deliberately, artificially.

But in the center of the room, one shadow remains.

Phantom, seated on a padded platform, legs together, arms resting on his thighs. Dressed in containment-grade fabric: tight grey jumpsuit, biomonitor nodes embedded in the collar and sternum. No shoes. No tools. No restraints.

He stares upward, directly into the ceiling light.

Unblinking.

Still.

The light is dimming, just slightly. A passive cadence to simulate passing time. The world moves around him. He doesn't move with it.

His shadow, faint but defined, clings under and behind him—too still for the nature of the light, too dark for its source.

INT. CADMUS STRATEGIC OVERSIGHT ROOM — SECURE LINK ACTIVE

Dr. Desmond stands before a vertical communication module.The hologram of a Cadmus Administrator flickers with secure distortion—faceless, hooded, voice filtered through a modulation protocol.

CADMUS ADMIN: "You've placed the subject in isolation."

DR. Desmond "He initiated displacement in a live environment. The reaction was uncalculated. We treat unstable variables as biohazards."

CADMUS ADMIN(disapproving)"You told us the protocol was working. That Phantom was Cadmus-compliant."

DR. Desmond "He is. Mentally. Behaviorally."

Desmond taps through holofeeds of Phantom pacing through the training chamber. Freezes the frame where Phantom vanishes mid-stride. Replays it slowly.

DR. Desmon, "But something else is active now. Something outside the template."

The administrator's tone sharpens.

CADMUS ADMIN: "Outside of what? His programming?"

Desmond hesitates.

DR. Desmond "Outside him. This isn't behavioral drift. It isn't neurological failure. This isn't a rejection of control."

CADMUS ADMIN(coldly)"Then what is it?"

Desmond finally says it.

DR. Desm, and "A new variable. Possibly... non-subjective autonomy."

A long pause on the line.

CADMUS ADM IN"Then you've failed."

Desmond doesn't reply.

The comm flickers off.

INT. CADMUS PSIONIC SIGNATURE LAB — MEI'S WORKSTATION

Dr. Mei sits hunched before three wide displays.

Each shows layered diagnostic footage—infrared shadow movement, kinetic waveforms, neural overlays.

She's not watching Phantom's body.

She's watching his shadow.

On-screen, Phantom lifts a hand in the training chamber.

His shadow moves before him—a liquid fold that arcs up milliseconds before the muscle fibers even twitch.

She narrows her eyes. Rewinds. Watches again.

Same result.

Again.

Same result.

Her fingers dance across the keyboard.

A fourth overlay appears—non-light-dependent projection mapping.

The shadow isn't behaving according to angle, mass, or light source.

It's behaving according to its own rules.

DR. MEI(softly)"This isn't mimicry…"

She scrubs through more data. A section where Phantom's step shifts—his body glitching forward six feet.

The shadow doesn't lag. It doesn't catch up.

It goes first.

DR. MEI(under breath)"It's guiding the displacement… Not him."

Her hand hovers over the console, suddenly reluctant to touch it.

INT. DECONTAMINATION CELL — SIMULTANEOUS

Inside the sealed chamber, Phantom does not move.

His pupils reflect the dimming light, but do not react.

The shadow beneath him is still—but then, for just a moment, it shifts.

Not with him. Not because of him.

It slides toward the eastern wall, like a drop of ink pulled by invisible gravity.

A proximity sensor blinks.

"Shadow drift detected."

But Phantom hasn't moved.

Hasn't blinked.

Hasn't even breathed in eight seconds.

Still staring into the light.

As it dims further.

INT. OBSERVATION PLATFORM – ABOVE CONTAINMENT

Desmond enters. Mei's already there. The screen shows Phantom's vitals—perfectly stable. Too stable.

Desmond stares down at him through the one-way glass. Watches the shadow slowly retract into its normal position.

DR. MEI(quietly)"He's not resisting the shadow. He's not reacting to it."

Desmond turns slightly, more interested in what she's not saying.

DR. De: "What do you see?"

Mei pauses.

Then looks him in the eye.

DR. MEI" I don't think he's controlling it."

Beat.

DR. MEI"I think he's cooperating with it."

Desmond looks back into the cell.

Phantom remains still.

But the shadow shifts again.

Just once.

As if it heard them.

Low light.

The hallway outside flickers occasionally, but inside this sealed observation chamber, there is no movement. No voices. No guards. Just Desmond .

He sits at a long console built into the wall, draped in dim orange backlight. The screens above him show Containment Cell 10 from six different angles. Phantom, the center of every frame.

Desmond adjusts the mic. Begins the log.

DR. Desmond (toneless)"Redline protocol, Level 3 log — Entry 44-A. Subject: Phantom_001."

A moment of static.

He taps the console to stabilize the feed. His voice continues, smooth, clinical.

DR. Desmond (CONT'D)"Status: contained. Heart rate—resting. Breathing—minimal but consistent. Core temperature—stable."

His eyes never leave the center screen, which shows Phantom from above—seated cross-legged on the padded floor. His hands rest on his knees. His head is slightly tilted upward. Eyes closed.

But he's not asleep.

He's listening.

DR. Desmond (CONT'D)"Mental state: non-reactive. Behavioral indicators remain within passive range."

Another screen flickers to life—infrared overlay. It maps Phantom's biometric heat signature perfectly… except for one anomaly.

The shadow.

Desmond notices it immediately.

The heat map doesn't match it . It shouldn't even exist on infrared. A nd yet it moves—just behind Phantom, creeping along the floor like a second pulse.

DR. Desmond "Shadow behavior remains... inconsistent. Currently unsynchronized with host locomotion. Lag times vary. Lead intervals have occurred as well."

He rewinds the feed, slowing the moment Phantom turns his head slightly left, but the shadow twitches a second earlier, like a puppet pulling the strings from behind the stage.

Desmond leans closer. His voice drops.

DR. Desmond (almost to himself)"It's not matching him. It's anticipating him."

INT. CONTAINMENT CELL 10 — LIVE FEED POV

Phantom sits in utter stillness.

The lights are deliberately dimmed—Cadmus's latest test: to see how the shadow behaves when the light source weakens.

Phantom hasn't moved for twelve minutes.

But behind him, the shadow pulses, slow and breathing—like a low tide rolling in and out. Then it begins to detach, creeping up the rear wall with a twitching crawl.

It coils slowly into an unfamiliar shape, stretching long and flat, then lifting, impossibly, into a faint humanoid outline.

A hand.

Five fingers. Broad. Palm out.

It presses against the inner wall, directly opposite the one-way glass. As if it knows someone's watching.

Phantom remains still. His head doesn't turn.

But the handprint doesn't move with him.

It st, ys—lingering even after the rest of the shadow recedes.

Then it flickers—not like light, but like something reacting to interference—before it disappears altogether.

INT. MONITORING HALL — CONTINUOUS

Desmond stares at the screen.

He doesn't blink.

He's forgotten to speak.

After a moment, he re-engages the log.

DR. Desmond "Shadow-responsive behavior has diverged from previously modeled parameters. Delay sequences are no longer strictly reactionary."

Another beat.

DR. Desmond, "There is... autonomous behavior. Directed intent. It phases toward structural exit points—door frames, vents, sensors."

He breathes out slowly.

DR. Desmond, "It may obey him. But I'm no longer certain…"

Hepausess, hiss— ye,s narrowing slightly.

Phantom's head, in the live feed, suddenly tilts up, eyes still closed, but his mouth curling ever so slightly—like he heard something.

Or someone.

DR. Desmond "…he commands it."

He taps the recorder. Ends the log.

Behind him, one of the monitors glitches.

Then another.

For less than a second, all six live feeds flash with the same image:

A silhouette. A figure made entirely of black. Not Phantom.Standing behind Phantom.

Then it's gone.