On the dormitory balcony, Gabriel leaned forward, narrowing his eyes as he scrutinized the trembling insect specimen clutched delicately between his tweezers. The beetle, preserved in formalin, had lost its once-vibrant sheen, its exoskeleton now pale and waxy. Under the dissecting microscope, its six spindly legs quivered like the taut strings of a harp disturbed by an errant breeze, as if at any moment, it might escape his grasp.

Were it not for the necessity of ventilation, he would never have chosen to work here. The wind was a persistent adversary, threading through the plane trees outside, their rustling leaves whispering ceaselessly, disrupting his concentration. It made an already delicate operation an ordeal of patience and steady hands.

"The leg joint must retain the complete muscular structure..." he murmured, repeating the anatomical directive under his breath. His fingers ached from prolonged precision, and his eyes burned with fatigue. He blinked, hoping to dispel the strain, but at that precise moment, the plane leaves outside shuddered violently.

A grey blur streaked past his nape, trailing a sudden chill. Then—something landed on the brim of his baseball cap.

"Damn it!" Gabriel snatched the hat off instinctively. A warm, viscous mess clung to the fabric. His brow furrowed as his lips curled in distaste. Brushing against his knuckles, two brown-grey tail feathers flicked away. A sparrow perched brazenly on the clothesline, its amber eyes fixed on him with an unsettling, almost mocking gaze.

White streaks marred the brim of his hat, and nestled within them was a half-digested seed—no larger than a black bean, yet tinged with deep crimson. A faint metallic scent lingered in the air. His stomach churned as a sour taste rose in his throat.

A memory stirred—his mother’s voice, crisp and urgent, as if she were standing just behind him: "If you’re struck by bird droppings in the field, wash it off immediately! Many migratory birds carry avian influenza..."

Shaking off the thought, he reached for the box of alcohol wipes on his desk. Yet, as his fingers grazed the surface, they encountered something unexpectedly hard and uneven.

"A seed?" he muttered. Lifting it with his tweezers, he examined its slick, dark surface. He wiped it carefully, stripping away the filth. Beneath, intricate golden filigree traced the black husk, like veins of precious metal embedded in obsidian. It gleamed faintly in the fading light, unnatural in its exquisite craftsmanship.

His fingers trembled. A curious apprehension quickened his pulse. The seed was too refined, too precise—as if sculpted rather than grown.

A sudden vibration against the wooden desk jolted him from his trance. His phone. His father’s name flashed insistently on the screen.

Balancing the phone against his shoulder, Gabriel carefully placed the seed in an empty petri dish.

"Son, we won’t be back this week." His father’s voice crackled through the line, the background filled with howling wind and the crisp percussion of rock against steel. Gabriel could picture him standing in some desolate plateau, his hair tousled by gusts, a familiar, weary smile tugging at his lips.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Field sampling extended again?" Gabriel asked, absently nudging the seed with his tweezers. At that moment, a metallic glint flickered across its surface. His breath hitched.

"Something far more thrilling." His mother’s voice cut in, brimming with unchecked excitement. She always did this—commandeered the satellite phone whenever a discovery was too exhilarating to contain. "We’ve uncovered what appears to be a plant seed fossil from the Silurian strata—but the micro-CT scan reveals an internal structure so intact, it defies all logic..."

Gabriel’s grip faltered. The tweezers nearly slipped from his grasp. His gaze locked onto the petri dish. Before his eyes, the seed shuddered—then, a delicate seam split its surface. A pale tendril of root unfurled, expanding at an impossible rate, as though the very fabric of time had loosened its hold.

"Wait—what?" His voice spiked with disbelief. "True seeds hadn’t evolved in the Silurian! You must mean the Devonian, or—"

"Which is why we need to run carbon isotope tests!" His father’s laughter carried through the static, rich with elation. "If this is truly a Silurian seed, it would rewrite everything we know. Your mother is about to lose her mind with excitement."

Gabriel clenched the tweezers until his knuckles whitened. The seed had, in mere minutes, sprouted a tender shoot. Its embryonic stem curled in a graceful spiral, unnervingly intricate.

"Dad, I—" His throat tightened, words snagging on an inexplicable dread.

"Oh, and—your application to Princeton’s paleoecology program? They responded." His father’s tone dropped, laced with intrigue. "Your mother pulled an all-nighter writing your recommendation. She even dug out that old feathered dinosaur fossil paper."

A forgotten quarrel resurfaced, vivid as a fresh wound. Last Christmas Eve—his mother’s voice sharp as steel, frustration carving deep into the candlelit dinner: *Paleontology holds the key to life’s secrets! Yet you insist on modern ecology—*

"I don’t need—" He exhaled sharply, rubbing his thumb along the petri dish’s edge.

"Need what?" His mother’s voice interjected, quick as ever. "Your Venus flytrap hasn’t been watered in three days. A true scientist must honor all life with responsibility."

Gabriel’s grip tightened. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Inside the dish, the seedling suddenly lurched, its stalk stretching another two centimeters in the blink of an eye. The spirals upon its stem gleamed—ancient, deliberate.

Without hesitation, he seized a piece of blackout cloth and cast it over the petri dish, his voice taut. "I’m conducting a symbiotic microbiome experiment. We’ll talk next time."

By the time he ended the call, his palms were clammy with cold sweat. The dove had vanished, leaving only the damp clothesline swaying gently in the dusk, whispering of unseen omens.

Seven days later, when the plant bore its first fruit, Gabriel could no longer deny the impossible. In a mere week, the seed had completed a life cycle that should have spanned months. The fruit, deep red and adorned with twisting golden filigree, exuded an unnatural allure—beauty edged with something nameless, something that defied reason.

He took up his scalpel, slicing through the skin. A heady sweetness burst forth, so potent it nearly suffocated him. The juices seeped onto his desk, staining the yellowed pages of "The North American Ferns: 1914 Edition"—and before his eyes, the book smoldered, its parchment curling, revealing beneath the charred edges an unfamiliar constellation.

"Hallucinogenic alkaloids?" The thought surfaced like a distant whisper, a final flicker of reason before his teeth sank into the fruit’s flesh.

Darkness bloomed. A slow descent overtook him, as if unseen hands were pulling him into an abyss without end. His consciousness wavered, a candle guttering in the wind—

—and then, there was nothing.