Aiden couldn't hear anything at first.
Not because the world was quiet—because it wasn't. Sirens wailed, metal screamed, people shouted—but the sounds reached him late, warped, as if they had to fight their way through something thick before touching his ears.
He stood at the center of the ruined ground, chest heaving, lungs dragging in air too fast, too shallow.
He was alive.
That fact didn't settle in gently. It slammed into him, sharp and overwhelming, followed immediately by the second realization:
I should be dead.
His knees buckled.
The ground reacted.
Concrete groaned and fractured outward in a rough circle as he dropped to one knee, dust exploding up around him. Aiden gasped and threw his hands down instinctively, palms splayed, as if bracing himself.
The dust didn't touch him.
It curved away.
"What—" His voice cracked, barely audible to himself.
His skin burned—not with heat, but pressure, like something inside him was trying to expand past its limits. Veins along his arms glowed unevenly, blue-white light leaking through jagged cracks that hadn't been there moments ago.
He squeezed his fists shut.
The light flared brighter.
Panic surged.
"No—no, stop," he muttered, breath hitching. "Stop."
Nothing stopped.
The harder his heart raced, the worse it got. The air vibrated. Loose debris around the crater trembled, skittering across the ground as if pulled by invisible tides.
Someone screamed.
That sound cut through everything.
Aiden snapped his head up.
People stood frozen at the edge of the destruction—coworkers, firefighters who'd arrived too fast, a police officer half-hidden behind a truck door. Their faces were masks of disbelief and fear, eyes locked on him like he was a bomb waiting to decide.
Rick was there too.
"Aiden!" Rick shouted. "Don't move!"
"I'm trying," Aiden said, but his voice sounded wrong to his own ears—deeper, resonant, layered with something that didn't belong to him.
His hands shook. The glow along his forearms pulsed erratically, bright-dim-bright, completely out of rhythm.
He tried to stand.
The moment his weight shifted, the ground split again with a violent crack, a shockwave rippling outward that knocked several men off their feet. Aiden staggered back, eyes wide.
"I didn't— I didn't mean—"
Fear surged again.
The pressure spiked.
A ring of distorted air blasted outward, hurling dust, tools, and loose debris away from him like toys. A truck rocked violently on its suspension. Someone cried out in pain.
Aiden froze, horror flooding his face.
"Don't come closer!" he shouted, panic overriding thought. "Please—just stay back!"
He didn't know who he was begging.
Them—or whatever was happening to him.
His breathing went wild.
Each inhale made the glow worse. Each exhale sent another tremor through the ground. He clutched at his chest, fingers digging into fabric, as if he could rip whatever this was out of himself.
This is wrong.
This is wrong.
This is wrong.
He squeezed his eyes shut, images flashing uncontrollably—the fall, the rushing ground, the certainty of death. That moment replayed itself again and again, feeding the terror like fuel.
The light surged violently, cracks spreading further along his arms, his shoulders, creeping up his neck.
"Back away!" someone yelled.
A gun came up.
Aiden opened his eyes just in time to see it.
The sound of the shot was muffled, distorted—but the intent wasn't.
Pure fear ripped through him.
The bullet never reached him.
It flattened in midair, crushed by invisible force, then dropped harmlessly to the ground at his feet.
The sight of it—small, useless, proof that the rules no longer applied—snapped something in Aiden's mind.
"I can't—" His voice broke completely. "I can't stay here."
Before anyone could react, his body moved.
Not gracefully.
Not cleanly.
He pushed off the ground in a blind, desperate leap.
The air screamed.
Aiden shot upward far faster than he intended, spinning uncontrollably as the ground vanished beneath him. Panic exploded again, his arms flailing uselessly as the pressure surged to unbearable levels.
"No—no—no—!"
He crashed through scaffolding, steel bending like soft wire under the impact, sparks flying as he ricocheted off a crane arm and tumbled onto the roof of a nearby building.
The landing was brutal.
The rooftop caved in beneath him, concrete collapsing as he rolled and skidded to a stop near the edge. He lay there, stunned, chest heaving, glow flickering wildly across his skin like a failing power grid.
For a long moment, he didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't think.
Then pain registered—not sharp, but deep, echoing. He groaned and curled slightly, arms wrapped around himself.
"I didn't want this," he whispered hoarsely.
The glow pulsed again, responding instantly to the surge of emotion.
Aiden clenched his jaw.
"No," he said through his teeth. "You don't get to do that."
He didn't know who he was talking to.
But he forced himself to slow his breathing, shallow at first, then deeper. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. The way he'd learned years ago when stress threatened to overwhelm him.
The pressure fought him.
Then—reluctantly—it eased.
The glow dimmed, not disappearing, but quieting, retreating closer to his skin.
Aiden stayed perfectly still, afraid that even the smallest movement would set it off again.
Minutes passed.
The sirens grew distant.
The city noise crept back in, tentative, uncertain.
Only then did the tremors start.
His hands shook violently, adrenaline finally burning itself out. He rolled onto his side, retching, body convulsing with delayed shock.
When it passed, he lay there staring at the sky, eyes unfocused.
I lost control, he thought.
Not completely.
But enough.
Enough to hurt people.
Enough to prove the fear was justified.
Slowly, carefully, Aiden pushed himself upright. The rooftop groaned under his weight but held. He tested his footing, keeping his emotions flat, contained.
The glow stayed low.
"That's it," he murmured, more to himself than anything else. "Stay down. Just… stay down."
He didn't feel powerful.
He felt dangerous.
Below him, the city buzzed with confusion and sirens and questions no one could answer yet.
Aiden pulled himself to his feet and backed away from the edge, disappearing into the shadows between buildings—not as a hero fleeing pursuit, but as a frightened young man running from the damage he'd already caused.
Whatever this was inside him, he knew one thing for certain:
If he didn't learn to hold it together, someone else would get hurt.
And next time, it wouldn't stop on its own.