The school library was colder than the rest of the building, tucked beneath the main stairwell like a forgotten tomb of knowledge and dusty chairs. Most students avoided it unless forced by assignment. Raj, however, had started coming here of his own will. Not because he liked the quiet, but because the quiet was starting to resemble him.
He settled into a corner booth beneath the tall windows, a soft afternoon sun casting warm amber across the spines of ancient textbooks. A library computer sat humming on the table. He logged in.
Search bar open.
He stared at it for a long while.
Then typed:
"Sudden strength gain in teens"
Click.
Fitness blogs. Supplements. Hormonal changes.
None applied.
He refined it:
"Body glowing in sunlight"
"Bones feel like iron"
"Hearing too sharp to be normal"
"I can smell emotions"
The results grew weirder, more fragmented. Conspiracy forums. Reddit threads titled "My cousin is an alien" and "I think I'm mutating." A few people mentioned radiation.
Raj's fingers froze.
Radiation?
He swallowed hard and clicked away.
His heart rate, which normally he could slow with just breath, suddenly fluttered.
Was this dangerous? To others?
He leaned back, staring at the ceiling's cracked paint. It was easy to pretend it was just a dream. A phase. That he'd wake up and everything would be dull again.
But deep down, he knew the truth.
He would never be normal again.
The reflection in the computer screen stared back at him.
Not in full detail—just a ghost of himself, overlaid on the browser window. He looked pale, almost too pale, eyes catching the sunlight and reflecting something unnatural. Almost golden.
He leaned in closer.
The screen flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then the reflection smiled.
But he didn't.
Raj shot back from the chair, heart hammering, eyes wide.
The computer froze on a single line of his last search.
"Not human anymore?"
The cursor blinked like a taunt.
And then—
The computer rebooted itself.
Raj stood frozen for several seconds.
This wasn't imagination. This wasn't fear playing tricks on him.
It was something else.
He looked down at his hands again. His veins pulsed faintly with light. It wasn't visible to anyone else—not unless they were really looking—but he could feel it now, always humming beneath the skin.
A vibration. A heat. A core.
He needed answers. But science wasn't giving them.
And worst of all—he couldn't talk to Peter. Not yet. Not until he understood it himself.
What if Peter saw him not as a friend—but as a problem?
What if he was one?
Raj exited the library in silence, walking past rows of quiet study tables and barely breathing.
And then, as he passed the tall mirror by the side shelf, he caught another glimpse.
His eyes.
For a fraction of a second—
They weren't his.
Not entirely.
They were older.
Slitted.
Something reptilian. Something sun-born.
And they vanished just as quickly.
He stopped in his tracks, barely resisting the urge to shatter the mirror with his fist.
Control, he whispered to himself. Control is survival.
Later, in his room, he sat cross-legged on the floor with the curtains drawn.
He placed a flashlight on the table in front of him. Simple yellow glow. He clicked it on.
Then stared at his palm and placed it under the beam.
Nothing.
Then he let his breath deepen. Slower. Focused.
The warmth began again. Low. Controlled.
He imagined himself holding it back.
Willing the glow to not come.
To hide.
And it listened.
His skin remained normal.
But the air shifted.
The walls seemed to bend inward, shadows flickering even without movement. His body wasn't glowing—but it wanted to.
Like a lion in a cage, pacing behind the ribs.
He stood and crossed to the mirror on his closet.
This time, when he looked—nothing odd.
Just a boy.
Just Raj.
He held the gaze for several seconds.
Then whispered, "I know you're there."
And something in the mirror twitched.
Not his face.
Just the space behind his eyes.
It's not a mutation, he thought.
It's not a trick.
This is something else. Something… ancient.
And he was starting to remember things that weren't his memories.
The warmth of twin suns. A name whispered in a language no human used. A throne made of gold and ash. The sound of a heart breaking across galaxies.
He didn't know why those things made sense.
But they did.
Somewhere deep down, he knew—
He wasn't evolving.
He was awakening.
He sat on his bed as night fell.
Not tired. Not hungry.
Just… charged.
Like he was plugged into something infinite and humming with age.
Outside, the sky was a navy blanket scattered with stars.
And one of them pulsed brighter than the others.
He didn't know why, but he knew—that one was calling to him.
Like it remembered him.
Like he had once fallen from it.