Chapter One — Last of My Kind (Speculative Thriller)

I’m releasing my novel Last of My Kind episodically. It’s a speculative thriller built on quantum‑entanglement metaphysics — not magic, not supernatural, but a world where consciousness behaves like geometry. Here’s the complete first chapter.

Full Chapter One
The old Victorian’s windows caught the late‑afternoon light in fractured angles, throwing thin geometric reflections across the stair rail as Rachel approached.

Carrying a paper grocery bag in one arm and her purse slung across her body, Rachel climbed the steps. The groceries dug into her arm as she rummaged through the purse for her keys. The Haight‑Ashbury sky was a bright, impossible blue, but she barely noticed it.

Often, especially after a stressful work day, beauty felt like background noise.

Her foot slipped, the bag toppled. She stopped climbing.

Her fingers scraped through receipts, lip balm, a charger she never used. The keys remained elusive. The grocery bag shifted again, threatening to spill. She muttered bad words under her breath.

I hate it when I forget to put those damn keys in the side pocket. But she knew why she forgot. She was always tired. Tired and late. She always felt like she was in a constant rush. Sometimes it just felt easier to throw them blindly into the purse.

She scrambled up a few more stairs, Aha! There they are! Her fingers caught the jingle of metal and slipped into a ring. She exhaled, adjusted the bag, and climbed the last few steps.

She bent to set the groceries down—

—and her Akh flared. Pressure built behind her eyes. The ache held her still.

The front door was cracked open.

Rachel straightened slowly, listening. The house was silent. Too silent. Her Dad always hummed, shuffled, breathed loudly. Even when he slept, he snored. The house always felt inhabited.

Now it felt hollow.

The street below buzzed with low city noise — conversations, a barking dog, a passing skateboard — but the house itself felt strangely insulated from it.

She nudged the door wider and stepped inside.

The air inside felt cooler, as if the house had exhaled everything warm and living.

The wreckage hit her like a physical blow.

It took a moment for it all to sink in. She stared, dumbfounded, her mind refusing to catch up.

Bookshelves were overturned. Their contents scattered like debris from a storm. Chairs broken. Couch ripped. The hallway leading to the kitchen was dusted with cereal, and a cloud of sugar—or salt—hung in the air like smoke.

The grocery bag slipped from her hand and hit the floor. It landed on a pile of books, tilted and fell over. The bag spilled it’s contents across the mess on the floor. She hadn’t felt it leave her fingers. A wave of emotion surged through her—anger, fear, heartbreak. It all crashed and receded in rapid succession.

As clarity sunk in she studied the Akh-Imprint more closely. She noticed that the bookshelves had not randomly fallen. It looked more likely that they had been pushed or pulled down by something moving fast and deliberate. The broken furniture carried splinter patterns that radiated outward in strange angles — not random, not natural. The cereal dust hung in the air in uneven clumps, as though disturbed by a sudden burst of force rather than a simple spill.

A shadow near the kitchen doorway seemed slightly too sharp, too defined, before dissolving when she blinked.

“Dad…” The word came out small. She tried again, louder. “Dad!”

Silence.

Followed by a faint vibration hummed through the floorboards beneath her feet — not sound, but pressure, like the house remembering something violent.

Then a creak above her. Weight shifting. Floorboards complaining.

Rachel held her breath.

Her seams prickled. Is it Dad or is it …

Lucas appeared at the top of the stairs, wearing the bathrobe and matching pajamas she’d bought him last Christmas. The light behind him bent slightly, casting his silhouette in uneven edges. His face lit up and he smiled down at her—warm, genuine, relieved.

“Rachel!” He hurried down the steps, arms open. His bathrobe swayed as he moved, but the shadows around him didn’t quite match the motion.

She searched his eyes. His eyes were clear, but the air around him felt wrong, as if something had just stepped out of him and was still lingering.

She held back a moment, searching his face. She didn’t know what she was looking for anymore. Ever since Margothi began coalescing with him, Lucas’s face carried rigid lines and awkward angles that appeared and vanished like shifting seams. But right now, in this moment, her Akh recognized him — not the Ba‑overlay that sometimes rose up in him.

The house seemed to settle when he reached the bottom of the stairs, the floorboards relaxing under his weight. The sugar dust in the air shifted direction, drifting toward him before dispersing.

She hugged him, slow at first, then tighter.

“Dad… the house.” She gestured helplessly at the chaos.

Lucas turned, confusion softening his smile. “Why… I don’t—”

“Furniture is broken. Everything’s everywhere.”

He looked again, really looked, and she saw the moment realization hit him.

“Oh my!” His hand went to his lips, “You are absolutely right. That was me, wasn’t it. What have I done?”

Rachel fumed for a moment as he confessed, then her anger dissolved. Of course he didn’t remember. Living with him was like living with someone who wasn’t entirely present. The Akh‑coalescence stole pieces of him and left him hollow. It tore her heart to think of him breaking apart into pieces — seams loosening, angles slipping, the geometry of him unraveling.

She let out a long breath.

“It’s okay,” she said gently. “It’s…I’ll just clean it up.”

She didn’t say anything more, though she was tempted, because it will happen again, there really was no way to stop it.

But there is a way. Her own thought scared her. She almost froze, terrified but she caught herself. She forced herself to calm down. She forced a smile for her father’s sake.

“Oh. Very well then. What would I do without you dear?” He patted her shoulder and shuffled back upstairs. A faint metallic scent drifted out from him — not blood, not rust, something older.

Rachel held back tears.

After a moment she moved through the wreckage, choosing to go into the living room. She worked her way past the torn couch and staggered between the broken chairs in the dining room. She stepped back out into the hallway. The door down into the garage and the bathroom door remained closed. Mounted wall ornamentation had all dropped to the floor, some cracked and bent out of shape. She turned and peered into the kitchen.

The counters were coated in a fine crystalline layer that sparkled under the overhead light. It was beautiful in a way that made her stomach twist. Cereal pieces on the floor formed odd scatter patterns, like they had been thrown by a force that didn’t move in straight lines. The air smelled faintly sweet, but underneath it was something sharp and cold.

She shook her head in amazement. She figured he must have been making breakfast when Margothi took over. This was the worst episode she’d ever seen.

She chided herself for procrastinating on learning the Ritualist Path. It was dangerous. Forbidden. She had inherited from her family. She knew it was the only thing that could stabilize the Akh‑Coalescence which had consumed her father.

If I don’t learn the ritual soon… she shook the thought out of her head. What would happen to him if she didn’t perform it soon. She couldn’t think about that right now.

For a moment, the light streaming in through the kitchen windows seemed to form a pattern she couldn’t name. When she stepped through the entryway, it vanished.

Rachel sighed dramatically, grabbed a washcloth and wet it. She started wiping the counters and scooping up the mess on the table.

She felt a presence behind her.

“You have the ability to clean this up with minimal effort, honey. Use it!”

She turned. Her father was on the stairs leaning over the railing, watching her. His voice carried a faint echo — not louder, not deeper, just doubled, as if spoken from two places at once.

Margothi had never spoken through him before — at most a flicker of Akh‑Tethering, a jerk of movement, a geometric ripple across his face. That was it. This was something entirely new. Something more, deeper, scarier.

She forced herself to stay calm as she pivoted to face him.

“No, Dad. I can’t. They’ll sense it. They will come and we’d both be dead.”

Something was wrong. She was certain of it.

Rachel looked at him again. Her heart dropped.

She watched his eyes go dull. The shadows around him tightened and pulled inward like threads being gathered. His smile faded. His face twisted into a sneer she’d never seen before.

Then, he spoke again. This time his voice wasn’t his anymore. It was completed different, like a whisper brushing against stone. The air around his face bent inward, she saw the ripples in the Akh.

He whispered, “I will protect you.”

That voice freaked her out. Margothi was escalating. She was losing her father, and she wasn’t ready to stop it. It gyrated her Ba but what happened next set her into flight mode.

The geometric glint she’d seen on the stairs flashed again, this time across his face. Then it vanished.

Rachel gasped. Something inside her dropped — a cold, instinctive warning.

She didn’t think. She moved.

She ran past him down the hallway, heart hammering, seams prickling. She bent only long enough to snatch her purse and keys. Her foot caught on the spilled groceries; she stumbled, caught herself, and bolted for the door.

At the threshold she hesitated for a single breath — not to think, but to survive.

She needed a reason to leave, something that wouldn’t provoke whatever was wearing her father’s face.

“I’m going to visit Brianna!” she shouted. “Be back later!”

She didn’t wait for an answer.

She didn’t want to hear what Margothi would say next.

She fled into the bright Haight‑Ashbury evening, the house exhaling behind her like something relieved to let her go.

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Rachel pulled out of the driveway; her pulse still hammering from the encounter with Margothi. The world outside blurred past her windows as she raced down the steep hill. The Victorian style homes she passed were painted in colors that looked almost too bright. The cheer they encouraged clashed with the tension in her chest. A beauty that almost felt hostile. She loved this neighborhood — the color, the history, the stubborn beauty — and normally she would admire them. Today it felt like a place she was escaping.

The hill gave way to Haight Street. A sudden wall of slow-moving cars came up on her fast. She hit the brakes hard, heart still hammering from Margothi’s voice. Pedestrians clogged the streets moving from street vendor to shops. One such vendor had a sign taped to his cart:

NO AKH-FLARES NEAR FOOD

The tape peeled at the corners, warped by metaphysical static.

Traffic pressed around her, forcing her too close to the sedan ahead. Too close, too fast. Nothing mattered except getting away. Her fingers twitched on the wheel. She fought the urge to slam her palm into the horn.

Cars stacked bumper‑to‑bumper. Horns flicking in irritation. A delivery drone buzzed overhead. Its shadow flicked across her windshield in uneven shapes.

The hum sparked a memory .

It was Lucas’s face — no, Margothi’s face. The memory replayed in micro-echoes. The dull‑eyed sneer. The voice. His mouth moved. Then a geometric glint. She crammed her eyes shut and screamed for it to go away. A sharp, stabbing fear tightened in her chest.

Her eyes opened just in time to see it. A flash of open asphalt. She lunged for it. Her car squeezed between two others with inches to spare. The opening gave her just enough room to breathe — not much, but enough to keep moving.

Despite her speed she felt stuck — barely rolling forward. If it wasn’t a car in her way it was pedestrians that moved with practiced indifference between them.

The Pan Handle blurred past her windows as she cut ahead, weaving through traffic. Geary was coming up. An opening in the left lane appeared. She knifed into it.

Rachel felt the urgency. A deep desire to just get away. To flee from her house. From her father. From Margothi. From her responsibility to him.

But no — she was responsible for him. She had to go back. Had to start the ritual. It was her duty to save him.

Margothi’s words haunted her.

Could he protect me? Really?

The thought flickered, unwelcome. She shoved it aside. Margothi could protect her from the Akh‑broken if they came. Freeing him may free her father, or it might …

She didn’t let herself finish the thought.

The light at Geary turned red at the worst possible moment. Everyone stopped suddenly. The nose of her car bled into the crosswalk. A sound to her left made her look. A mother pulled her crying child away from a mural that seemed to shimmer at the edges.

Cries drew her attention to the cars around her. Drivers leaned out of windows to shout at each other. Their voices were swallowed by the constant hum of the city. Across the street two San Francisco Police Department officers swept a cordoned off area with handheld anomaly detectors, the devices humming in uneven pulses. Pieces of something spilled all over the asphalt. A car accident? A fight? They looked bored, like they’d done this a thousand times.

Without warning, the light turned green. Instinctively, her foot pushed the pedal all the way down. The car jerked forward, tires spinning. It started fishtailing mid-turn. Rachel yanked the wheel in the opposite direction to settle it.

Safely on Geary Boulevard she cruised silently, catching every green light. Each one was a small mercy. She pressed the accelerator, letting the city peel away behind her.

Further down the street sat an ambulance blocking the lane. Flares burned, directing traffic away. A paramedic team knelt beside a man slumped on the concrete. One wore the black Ritualist sash, fingers hovering over a trembling anomaly reader. Rachel looked away — licensed Ritualists made her Akh itch. She veered into the next lane to avoid hitting them but did not slow down. Sunlight hit the ambulance window just right. It split into a sharp triangular glare that flashed across her dashboard. It nearly blinded her. The reflection broke into smaller angles — shapes that didn’t match the glass — then vanished. Wrongness tightened in her Akh, a pressure behind her ribs.

Inner Richmond tore past her windows.. A cyclist cut in front of her crossing in the middle of the street. He didn’t glance up. Never acknowledged her even though she could have ended his life prematurely.

Highway 1 opened ahead, a thin corridor through the city’s noise. A loudspeaker crackled overhead: “Please report any—” The rest dissolved into static.

This was the world now.

People complained, but they lived with it. They had no choice.

Presidio’s open green spread out like a welcoming blanket. Public-safety drones hovered above the park. They drifted unevenly, their stabilizers whining — a clear sign that their anomaly sensors were failing again.

She merged onto Highway 101 North, expecting fog. The Golden Gate Bridge rose ahead — clear of it. Years ago the toll booths were replaced with concrete checkpoints.

Floodlights lined the booths, they cast long, sharp shadows — too sharp, bending at angles that didn’t match the structures. City responders waved cars through with handheld scanners that buzzed in staccato bursts, like dying electronics.

The REPORT KA‑DISTURBANCES notices posted on the toll booth pillars had been vandalized so many times the paint looked like layered scars. A second sign below it — half torn — read: CIVILIAN SAFETY PROTOCOLS IN EFFECT but no one paid attention.

The line of cars waiting to get through the checkpoint grew longer. Rachel battled her way into a spot and eased forward little by little.

At the booth the handheld scanner buzzed as she passed, its tone warbling like a dying electronic heartbeat. The responder didn’t even look up. He waved her through with the same tired gesture he used for everyone.

A faint ripple moved through the air as the scanner swept over her car — a distortion she felt more than saw.

Everyone was working into the left most lanes. The slow lane — empty, blessedly empty — beckoned her. Once in it her car sped up.

On the far side, a charter bus lurched out from the Vista Point, sliding directly into her lane. Rachel slammed the brakes. Tires shrieked. She jerked the wheel, swerving hard and knifing into the next lane. Horns blared behind her. Furious. Her car bumper was inches from the car in front.

A tight ache bloomed in her chest; she’d been holding her breath.

Fear pulsed in her chest. It fed the urgency that motivated her. The violent mix made her vision tighten at the edges. A gap opened in front of the bus. Thrill replaced the fear. The pedal felt light under her foot answering to her will without question. The move into the lane in front of the bus was cut dangerously close. In the rearview mirror the bus driver swerved, just a little. Then regained control.

Open asphalt stretched out before her; the engine answered with a rising growl.

The air changed in the Marin Headlands. It was cooler, cleaner, touched by a hint of the ocean. The massive hill loomed ahead, the tunnel at the top signified a change from entrance to the Bay to the northern mountains. On the other side gravity pulled the car down so fast it was almost uncontrollable. Fear of the brakes burning out forced her to tap them rather than ride them.

Northbound on 101, the foothills rose around her, dotted with ranger stations reinforced for anomaly response. Park rangers stood near trailheads, scanning the woods with devices that hummed in low, uneasy tones.

A dented sign flashed as she passed, its edges warped as if something had pressed against it from the wrong direction.

NAGUAL TERRITORY

CAUTION ADVISED

Someone had spray‑painted over the bottom line: THEY SEE YOU, but the paint was already fading.

Pulling off the highway into San Rafael the traffic thinned. Everyone drove this boulevard more leisurely. Shoppers, people traveling home from work. She weaved in and out of them as safely as she could without having to slow down.

Commercial buildings rose on her left, their windows glowing with warm evening light. On her right, quiet homes lined the hill, porch lights flickering on one by one. Life moved at its usual pace — steady, unbothered — while she felt like she was still running for her life.

As if queued by her thoughts a distant siren warbled through the neighborhood — not police, not fire, but the city’s Akh-disturbance alert system. No one paused. The tests happened often.

The road narrowed as she climbed into the hills. Fairfax appeared over a rise. Traffic slowing down to squeeze through the tight city streets. A guitarist sat outside a café, strumming something soft and imperfect. A group of friends laughed near the crosswalk, their voices rising over the hum of traffic. Someone painted a mural on a plywood board, colors bright against the fading light.

Moments later she was back out into the countryside. A few bends later the city scene was lost. Around a bend she spotted two utility workers who stood beside an open utility box. Cables spilled out like tangled veins. Their anomaly meter buzzed softly as it picked up metaphysical interference from somewhere nearby. The workers looked exhausted and confused.

Another sign hung above the road as warning to travelers, its LED border flickering in geometric pulses:

AKH‑BROKEN RISK ZONE

DO NOT STOP

Beyond this there was no more protection. No one would come to help. Despite that, Rachel didn’t stop.

The road rolled by in front of her. Everything else around her felt distant like a dream scrolling by. Close enough to feel a part of but too far away to touch.

The road twisted through the mountains, sunlight strobing through the trees in sharp, nervous flashes. She leaned into the curves, urging the car forward.

Her car’s HUD flickered, the navigation line bending at impossible angles. She blinked hard. It corrected itself.

The hills tightened around her, shadows reaching across the asphalt like long fingers. Not mystical — just aware, as though the land itself had seen too much.

Her mind relaxed as a long opening stretched before her. Her mind wandered back to her home. To her father.

The Ritual. Time was running out. What would happen to her father if she let it be? No she couldn’t think that way. The answer was clear. He’d be gone. Gone for sure.

I am ready. I can do this! Ready for what? You’re rusty, unpracticed.

Certainly not strong enough. Practice built endurance and strength. She had neither.

But does that matter? Do I have any choice?

Readiness did matter. But she had no choice. Lucas was running out of time. If she didn’t perform the ritual soon… If she didn’t extract Margothi… If she didn’t save her father…

Her chest tightened.

The straight lane ended, giving way to a winding climb up the mountain. The orphanage waited somewhere beyond the next bend — close now, close enough to tighten her chest. Brianna. She needed her sister.

If you want to follow the rest of the story as it releases, Chapter Two will be posted on Patreon: patreon.com/adammurray0571

I’d love to hear what you think — especially about the metaphysics angle.