I woke to the sour tang of antiseptic and a weight behind my eyes that felt like lead. For a second I couldn't place where I was—then the pale ceiling slid into focus and my pulse jumped. This was my room. But it looked wrong, smaller somehow, the air thick with an aftertaste of smoke and sand. As I looked around the room.
They were all here.
Medusa lounged in the far chair with that unreadable smile; David sat at the small table, fingers drumming; Mike—messy hair, arrogant grin—bounced on the bed's edge like he'd never been injured a day in his life. And Katara… she was the one who stopped my breath. Both her forearms were wrapped in bandages; the white cloth looked out of place on someone who usually never stayed still long enough to be hurt.
For a ridiculous moment I was only aware of that—her bandaged hands—until guilt dragged me upright. I started to speak, to say I was sorry, but Katara cut me off without looking at me.
"Don't be sorry," she said, voice soft but flat.
Mike exploded in laughter, loud and ugly. "Hah! The first time Katara takes real damage. Thought she was invincible." He tipped his head back, howling.
Katara's eyes snapped to him. The smile left her face in the instant; there was a hardness there I hadn't seen before. "Silence," she said, each syllable ice. Mike's grin flickered and died—he muttered something and sat down, the smirk refusing to vanish.
Medusa leaned forward, fingers steepled. Her voice was all curiosity and teeth. "How did you do it?" she asked me. "Was it instinct? Did you know how to trigger it? Did you feel it—before?"
Before I could answer, David cut across, dry and blunt. "Do you know how many people were hurt, Lena? One hundred and twenty." He said it like it was a statistic, not a catastrophe.
My stomach dropped. "One hundred and twenty?" I echoed, though it sounded wrong. The training field was huge—people were far away—how could that many be injured? My head spun. "I didn't mean—" The rest dissolved into static.
Katara scrubbed a hand over her face and, for the first time since I'd known her, looked genuinely unsettled. "I miscalculated," she admitted. The words were small, brittle. "I didn't expect your power to be…that destructive."
Mike tried to hide a snort and failed.
Katara's jaw tightened. "You kept up with me on the jog earlier. I sped up on purpose—pushed you harder—added extra sets of push-ups, sit-ups. The punishments were my mistake. You didn't need them. But once your power triggered—" She tapped her bandaged hands, the motion trembling a fraction. "It spread farther than we estimated."
Medusa's eyes were sharp as knives. She began to explain, almost clinical. "Everyone here has a kind of physical enhancement. It's not just powers like elemental control—there's an engineered edge." She turned that quick, assessing look to David. "David, start." thirty kilometers per hour—short bursts. Mike's rating is thirty—about forty kph sustained if he pushes. Katara and I—fifty." He shrugged, as if the numbers were nothing more than the weather. "That equates to top speeds around sixty kph in short sprints. You, Lena… you're not yet classified. Your output is inconsistent. The explosion activated something." He tapped his tablet, eyes intent. "We need data."
They spoke about numbers—speeds and ratings and outputs—while my stomach hollowed out with each word. The numbers meant nothing to the people who were sleeping in the ground that night.
Mike leaned forward, theatrically solemn. "So basically, you blew up the training ground and signed the boss." He nudged Katara in an attempt at levity. "Are you going to be okay, K? Or am I buying the next drink?"
Katara stood up like a spring release. Her voice snapped: "Quiet down." For a heartbeat she looked like she might rip him apart with words alone. Then she did something I didn't expect—she moved toward him like a predator closing the distance, and it suddenly felt very dangerous.
Mike's hand dipped to his belt. For a second I thought he would pull a weapon—then with a quick, practiced motion he snapped something in half, the sound sharp and clean. He smirked and said, "Relax. I won't die by words today." The room exhaled with a nervous, brittle laugh.
My mind rattled. All around me, they were talking like surgeons dissecting a concept: my power. My hands—my green-light hands—flickered in my memory. Katara's voice cut through the murmur. "When she uses it, her eyes glow green. It's the tell. We saw it—during the run, during the drills. It wasn't just the explosion. She's been channeling that energy—subconsciously—into her physical output. That's how she kept up earlier."
Medusa nodded. "It seems your baseline physical exertion—running, push-ups—activates the power. That's why it's dangerous. Physical stress sparks it. For most of us, training increases strength or speed; for you, it increases destructive output."
David tapped his tablet. "We'll need to run controlled tests. We need to know activation thresholds. If it was an uncontrolled release across the field today, next time could be worse." His eyes met mine. "We must measure. We must contain."
Contain. The word landed like an accusation.
At the edges of the conversation, my mind tried to stitch together what they were saying into something I could understand. Green glows in the eyes. Physical stress as a trigger. An absorption of the explosion that had somehow rewired me. The idea sat in my chest—immense, hot, and terrifying—like a fist clenching my ribs.
They finished their lectures as if they'd read a report. Then one by one they left, each taking their own quiet, clinical step away. The room shrank with the departure of their confidence. I was left propped against the pillow, raw, a tangle of shock and shame.
Part of me wanted to scream until someone answered. Part of me wanted to curl up and never move. Mostly, I felt hollow—like a glass that had once been full and now suddenly had a jagged empty space where the water should be.
Before they left, Medusa paused at the doorway and looked back at me with something almost like pity—or perhaps calculation. "You'll understand more as you go," she said. "We'll teach you how to manage it. Or you'll break."
The door clicked shut behind them.
I was left with the numbers ringing in my head and the memory of the plants erupting from the sand—the way Katara had been caught off-guard, skin blistered, surprise wide in her face. The thought that my hands—the same hands that had clutched my friends as the world burned—could do that again made bile rise at the back of my throat.
I tried to own the pieces of their explanation, to make them fit into something that felt less monstrous. I managed partial comprehension—enough to know this was real, enough to know I was dangerous, enough to know I would be studied like a specimen.
But understanding did not ease the guilt, the grief, or the emptiness. If I'd absorbed the blast, then what did that say about the friends I'd held? About the parents whose faces still haunted me? If I'd carried their deaths inside me, I did not know whether to feel salvation or slaughter.
Outside, the desert wind scratched at the base's outer shells. Inside, my room hummed faintly with the machines that watched us all. I lay back, the pillow cold against my cheek, and tried to breathe through the nausea.
Part of me wanted to ask for forgiveness—at them, at myself—for something I hadn't chosen. Part of me wanted to learn to control this, to be useful, to maybe—if some impossible mercy existed—save someone else. Mostly, I wanted the right to grieve without a jury of children turning my pain into science.
All I could do was close my eyes and let the reality settle: I was no longer just Lena Noctelle. I was a variable. The world had counted, measured, and assigned me a function. Now I had to figure out what that function did—and whether I could survive being what I had become.
The next morning came faster than I wanted. My sleep had been shallow, broken by flashes of nightmares, and when the knock came at my door, it jarred me awake like a gunshot. I dragged myself off the bed, expecting Katara's voice on the other side, sharp and commanding as always.
But when the door slid open, it wasn't her.
Mike leaned lazily against the frame, arms crossed, his usual grin plastered across his face. "Up," he said, his tone casual but his eyes alight with something mischievous. "Get dressed. We're doing something unusual today."
That grin made me uneasy. With Katara, at least I knew where I stood—fear and punishment. But with Mike, his unpredictability felt almost worse.
I changed quickly, pulling on the standard black jogging pants and a fitted training shirt. I tied my hair back into a bun so it wouldn't get in the way. When I stepped out, Mike gave me an approving nod, like he'd been waiting for a soldier under his command.
We walked side by side down the corridor, the sterile white lights humming above us. At first, silence stretched between us, but soon the hallway opened into the training field—and I stopped cold.
The air here still smelled faintly of ash and scorched metal.
The once-flat sand was blackened and broken, great patches fused into jagged glass where the heat had been strongest. Twisted fencing sagged inward, melted into grotesque shapes. The destruction stretched farther than my eyes could follow, scars carved deep into the earth as if claws of fire had raked across it.
My chest tightened, shame knotting my breath. I did this.
Mike noticed my hesitation. He turned back, his grin widening. "Impressive, isn't it?" he said, sweeping his hand across the wreckage as if he were proud of it. "You've got amazing powers, Lena. Yesterday you proved yourself."
The words hit me wrong. He spoke as if devastation were a trophy, as if people's injuries and fear were something to celebrate. My throat burned, but no answer came. I lowered my gaze and kept walking.
Mike, of course, filled the silence himself. "You know what my ability is, right?" He didn't give me time to respond. "I can create things. Anything I can imagine. Guns, knives, gadgets, whole arsenals if I want. All it takes is a thought and—bam—it's in my hands." He snapped his fingers, his smirk widening.
"The catch?" He tilted his head, pretending to think. "I can't make living things. No people, no animals, no plants. And I can't make natural stuff like water or fire. But everything else?" He spread his arms wide, as if to embrace the whole world. "Fair game. They call it a 'tech' ability, but honestly, I think it's bigger than that."
He looked at me expectantly, like a child waiting for applause. I forced a polite smile so he wouldn't press me further, but my mind kept circling back to the wrecked field and the people I'd hurt.
"David tried explaining it to you yesterday, yeah?" Mike went on, rolling his eyes. "Classic David. Guy's like a walking textbook. He'll give you three different theories before you've even asked one question. Me? I usually just nod and pretend I get it. Keeps him happy." He chuckled, clearly amused with himself.
I gave him another small smile, just enough to show I was listening.
Finally, the hallway widened into a new chamber, and the change in atmosphere hit me instantly. The ceiling soared high above, lined with cold white spotlights that cast sharp shadows on the floor. Along the walls, racks of weapons gleamed under the lights: rifles, pistols, knives, grenades, even stranger devices I didn't recognize. The air smelled faintly of oil and metal.
At the center stood Medusa. Her arms were crossed, her eyes sharp as steel. She looked like she'd been waiting, patient but coiled, her presence filling the room more than the weapons around her.
Katara and David were absent, and their absence made the space feel both safer and more dangerous at once.
"Finally," Medusa said, her voice carrying effortlessly across the room. She gestured to the open floor. "Lena, stand there."
I obeyed, stepping into the middle, the weight of all those weapons pressing down on me like a thousand watching eyes.
"Here's how this will go," Medusa continued. "Mike will monitor your vitals—pulse, breathing, everything. I'll be evaluating your power output. For now, you're not forced to force anything. Just focus on activating your ability."
Her words made me feel less like a person and more like an experiment. A weapon on trial.
Medusa's eyes narrowed, her expression unreadable. "And later," she added, her tone sharpening like a blade unsheathed, "you'll fight me."
The silence that followed pressed against my ears, heavy and suffocating. My heart kicked harder in my chest, but I couldn't find my voice.
I swallowed hard. The chains of fear wrapped tighter.