Nikola Tesla

He had been staring at the eviction notice for so long the words had stopped meaning anything.

The ink had smudged where his fingers had lingered too long. The paper itself was torn at the edge, a casualty of being thrown, retrieved, thrown again, and then folded neatly as if respect could undo what had already been done.

It didn't matter.

None of it did.

The apartment was silent except for the dull sound of the landlord knocking at the door. It wasn't an angry knock. Not yet. It was polite. Just business. Just another man collecting what he was owed.

Nikola sat in the middle of the floor, his back against the peeling wallpaper, his legs stretched out over the clutter that had once been his life. He had no energy left to move.

No energy left to care.

He had tried. He had been so sure. Every blueprint, every prototype, every model—rejected. Stolen. Used against him. He had trusted too much, believed too much in people who only saw him as a resource to be drained.

And now, he was here.

A genius with nothing.

The knocking grew impatient.

Nikola let his head fall back against the wall. He was so tired.

Maybe it was better this way. Maybe he was just one of those people who was meant to be an idea, a name scrawled in forgotten notebooks, a cautionary tale for those who dreamed too big without securing their own foundation first.

His stomach twisted, hunger gnawing at the edges of his thoughts, but he ignored it.

If he just closed his eyes, maybe he could pretend—

Something shifted.

The air in the room went still.

The weight of exhaustion that had settled over his body for years lifted just enough for him to notice the difference.

He opened his eyes.

A child stood in front of him.

Nikola's breath caught in his throat.

There had been no sound. No footsteps. No door creaking open.

The child had not been there before.

And now it was.

Nikola's heart pounded, confusion pressing against the haze of his exhaustion. "What the hell…?"

The child tilted its head. "You are going to die."

Nikola let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Yeah. I figured."

The child crouched, watching him. There was nothing curious about it. Nothing human. Just observation.

Nikola had seen people look at machines that way—assessing, analyzing, wondering what it could do if it had just the right modifications.

"You want to continue," the child said.

Nikola let his head rest against the wall again. "Sure. Not like I've got a choice, though."

"There is always choice."

He huffed a breath, shaking his head. "That so? Well, tell me, kid. What's my choice?"

The child did not answer.

Instead, it reached out.

Nikola wanted to move. Some part of his brain told him to get up, pull away, do anything—but his body felt disconnected, sluggish. All he could do was stare as the child's fingers pressed lightly against his forehead.

And then Everything changed.

The fog lifted.

No, not lifted—shattered.

Nikola's body thrummed with energy, every nerve humming with a clarity he hadn't felt since.

Had he ever felt this before?

His limbs, once too heavy to move, felt weightless. His mind, which had been drowning in exhaustion, snapped into sharp, crystal-clear focus.

He gasped, his hands gripping the floor, his breath coming faster.

He wasn't just awake.

He was awake.

He pressed his hands against his chest, against his arms, as if he needed to prove that he was still real. His thoughts raced, not sluggish, not tired anymore.

"What… what did you do?"

The child spoke. "You will continue. You will build."

Nikola let out a breathless laugh, running his hands through his hair.

He had been on the edge of collapse just moments ago. Ready to give up. Ready to let everything slip through his fingers because he had nothing left to fight with.

But now?

Now his entire body burned with purpose.

He felt like he could go weeks without sleep, months without slowing down. His ideas—ones that had sat uselessly in the back of his mind, too clouded by fatigue to act on—were now right there, ready to be built, designed, shaped.

The child had rewired him.

And he was never going back.

His mouth curled into a grin, wide and wild. "Oh, I get it now."

He laughed. It wasn't relief. It wasn't disbelief. It was joy—the kind that came with understanding something no one else had ever understood.

He climbed to his feet, his limbs steady, his mind racing. He had failed before. Had trusted the wrong people. Had let himself be ruined by those who could never see the full picture.

But that was before.

Now, he had this.

Now, he would never let anyone take from him again.

He turned to the child, grinning. "So, do I get a new name now? Something cool? Something that fits?"

The child tilted its head, considering.

Then it spoke.

"Nikola Tesla."

Nikola's grin froze.

A slow, rolling silence stretched between them.

He let the words settle in his mind, turning them over like a perfect equation.

He had never thought about names before. Never thought about what he should have been, only what he had lost. But this?

This was fitting.

Nikola Tesla had tried to change the world.

And he had been destroyed for it.

Nikola let out a low chuckle, his lips curling into a sharp, knowing smile.

"Yeah." He nodded, exhaling as the name burned itself into his thoughts. "Yeah, that'll do."

He wasn't that man.

He wasn't the original.

But he was something better.

Nikola Tesla was born again.

And the world would never see him coming.

This version fully immerses us in Nikola's perspective, keeping the same emotional weight and pacing as Wesson's introduction. He goes from defeat to revival in a way that feels earned, and the naming moment is collaborative and personal.