LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 7: Tom's Awakening
The cavern trembled again as Imma led Xina through the narrow passage, her light guiding them over jagged rocks and phosphorescent fungi. Tom's egg, cradled in Xina's arms, had grown warmer, its golden veins throbbing like a heartbeat.
"He's stirring," Xina murmured, her voice tinged with awe. "I can feel it—like a song humming beneath his shell."
Imma's glow flickered uneasily. "The seal is intact, but his energy… it's resonating with the remnants of the Wheel's power here. We need to—"
A deafening *crack* cut her off.
The eggshell split, not with a shatter, but with a sound like a universe exhaling. Light erupted—gold, then violet, then a color neither had names for—flooding the passage. Xina staggered back, shielding her eyes, but Imma surged forward, her form stretching into a protective lattice of light around the egg.
"Imma, what's happening?!" Xina cried.
"He's *awake*," Imma whispered, her voice trembling with dread and wonder.
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**Inside the Light**
Tom's consciousness unfurled in fragments.
First, a *voice*—warm, metallic, familiar. *"Welcome back, Master."*
Then, sensations: the weight of galaxies in his bones, the taste of stardust on his tongue, the hum of a roulette wheel spinning somewhere deep in his chest.
Memories? No. *Echoes*. A woman's face, blurred and fractured. A sister's laughter, sharp as shattered glass. And a *pull*—a thousand threads of probability tugging at him, each a possible future, a choice, a story.
*"Careful,*" the voice warned. *"You're not ready to hold them all."*
Tom reached for the nearest thread anyway.
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**Outside the Light**
The cavern collapsed.
Not in rubble, but in *layers*—like reality itself was peeling apart. Boulders dissolved into stardust; stalactites became serpents of light coiling upward. Xina clutched her child's egg tighter, her own magic flaring in response—a storm of silver runes spiraling around her.
"Imma! The seal—!"
"It's holding, but his *mind*—he's interacting with the Wheel instinctively!" Imma's voice crackled with static. "I need to anchor him. *Help me.*"
Xina didn't hesitate. She pressed a hand to Tom's egg, her magic merging with Imma's light. For a heartbeat, their energies entwined—ancient, organic sorcery and neon-bright code—and the chaos stilled.
Inside the egg, Tom gasped.
The threads vanished, save one.
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**The First Breath**
The light dimmed, coalescing into a small, pale boy with hair like spun gold and eyes that flickered—one moment deep brown, the next swirling with constellations. He blinked up at Xina, then at Imma, and smiled.
"Mama?" he said, the word echoing oddly, as if spoken in unison by a thousand voices.
Xina's breath caught. Her child's egg, still nestled against her chest, pulsed in time with Tom's heartbeat.
"No, little one," she said softly, kneeling. "But I'll keep you safe all the same."
Tom tilted his head, then reached out a hand. The air around his fingers *warped*, and a tiny golden roulette wheel materialized, its slots filled not with numbers, but with symbols: a crown, a sword, a dying star.
Imma lunged. "Tom, *don't—*"
He spun the wheel.
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**The First Gamble**
The crown landed upright.
A rush of wind tore through the passage, and suddenly Xina's child's egg *hatched*—not in a burst of shell, but in a cascade of light. A girl emerged, her scales iridescent, her eyes the same impossible gold as Tom's. She stared at him, then giggled.
"Brother!" she declared, as if the word itself delighted her.
Tom giggled back, the roulette wheel dissolving.
Imma sagged with relief. "A… harmless outcome. This time."
Xina studied the children, her mind racing. "They're connected. Her magic, his luck—they're balancing each other."
"For now," Imma said quietly. "But the Wheel's seal weakens every time he uses it. And he doesn't understand what he's doing."
As if on cue, Tom spun the wheel again.
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**The Second Gamble**
The sword.
A blade materialized in Xina's hand—jagged, glowing, and *alive* with a power that sang to her blood. She nearly dropped it.
"The Sword of Sindore," she breathed. "His ancestral weapon. But it was destroyed centuries ago!"
"Not destroyed," Imma said grimly. "*Erased.* Tom's luck didn't retrieve it—it *rewrote history* so the sword always existed here."
Xina's grip tightened. "Can he undo it?"
"I don't know. But every spin risks worse. We need to leave this place. *Now.*"
As they gathered the children, Tom hummed and spun the wheel a third time.
Imma froze. "Tom, *no—*"
The wheel landed on the dying star.
Far above them, in the cold expanse of space, a supernova flared to life.
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** A New Cosmos**
Somewhere, in a galaxy Tom's gift had once drained, a planet survived—its people spared by a miraculous supernova that reignited their dying sun. They would call it divine intervention.
They would never know it was a toddler's game.
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