The world returned to Mani slowly, in fragments of sound and sensation. The beep of a machine. The sterile smell of antiseptic. The stiff, starched sheets of a hospital bed. He opened his eyes to the blurry, concerned face of his mother.
"Mani? Oh, thank goodness." Her voice was thick with relief. She squeezed his hand, her own trembling slightly.
He tried to speak, but his throat was raw, as if he'd been the one breathing smoke. "The... the Pattersons?" he croaked.
"They're fine, honey. Thanks to the firefighters. And thanks to you for raising the alarm so quickly." She smoothed his hair back from his forehead, her touch gentle. "The doctor says you have a concussion. You gave us such a scare."
He nodded weakly, closing his eyes again. He hadn't just raised the alarm. He had fought the fire with his mind. He had held back the flames. The memory was a phantom pain, a deep, resonant ache in his skull. But beneath the exhaustion, a new strength was settling in his bones. He had been tested, and he had not broken.
The days that followed were a strange, quiet interlude. He was a minor local hero, the boy who had bravely run for help. The Pattersons visited, their gratitude effusive and genuine. Lily, clutching a stuffed rabbit, had shyly given him a drawing of a house with a smiling sun above it. He accepted their thanks with a quiet humility that made the adults nod approvingly. They saw a brave boy. They didn't see the secret cost.
But something had shifted at home. His mother's worry, once a gentle, constant hum in the background of their lives, had sharpened into a piercing, sustained note of fear. He could hear it in her thoughts, clearer than ever, now that he knew how to listen without trying.
'He could have been killed. He just ran toward it. What if there's a next time?'
'This neighborhood... it's not safe anymore.'
'I can't lose him too.'
The last thought was always accompanied by a fleeting, painful image of his father—a smiling man in a faded photograph, a man Mani barely remembered.
The decision, when it came, was not a surprise. He felt it forming in her mind days before she sat him down at the kitchen table one evening, her hands wrapped tightly around a mug of tea.
"Mani, we need to talk," she began, her voice carefully neutral. "I've been offered a new job. A better one. In Brookhaven."
Brookhaven. It was a city two hours away. A place of strangers and unfamiliar streets.
"It's a quieter town. A good school district," she continued, not meeting his eyes. "And after the fire... I just think it would be a good change for us. A fresh start."
He heard the unspoken truth screaming in her mind: 'A place where my son won't be a hero. A place where he can be safe.'
He looked at her—at the new lines of stress around her eyes, at the way her knuckles were white as she gripped the mug. He saw the weight of single parenthood, the constant, grinding fear for his safety, the ghost of his father that haunted her. And he saw that this move, for her, was an act of love. A desperate, flawed, but deeply loving attempt to build a wall around him.
The old Mani, the boy from a month ago, would have protested. He would have cried about leaving his school, his few acquaintances, the familiar comfort of his own room.
But the new Mani, the one with a dragon in his chest and the memory of holding back fire in his mind, simply nodded.
"Okay, Mom," he said, his voice quiet but steady.
She looked up, surprised by his lack of resistance. "Okay? You're... you're sure?"
"It'll be a good change," he echoed her words, offering a small, reassuring smile. It felt like the first truly grown-up thing he had ever done—sacrificing a piece of his own world to ease the fear in hers.
The following weeks were a blur of cardboard boxes and goodbyes that weren't really goodbyes, because he had no one close enough to truly miss. He packed his life into taped-up cubes. He stood in his empty room, the crack in the headboard a final, secret scar on his childhood.
On their last night in the house, he went out into the backyard. The air was cool and still. He looked up at the stars, countless and remote. Somewhere out there, he knew, Bali's storm was gathering. He could feel it, a subtle pressure change in a part of his mind he was only just beginning to understand.
He wasn't moving to Brookhaven to hide. He was moving to train.
He needed space. He needed quiet. He needed to learn the full extent of what he could do, away from prying eyes and the constant mental chatter of a place he had outgrown. This "fresh start" was his training ground.He made a promise then, not to the stars, not to Bali's ghost, but to himself. He would grow strong. Not just strong enough to hold back a fire, but strong enough to face the coming storm. Strong enough to protect his mother from a world she didn't know was dangerous. Strong enough to carry the weight of the gift without stumbling.He was leaving behind the boy who was bullied, the boy who was afraid, the boy who hid. That boy had died in the alley with Bali, and his ashes had been scattered in the heat of the Patterson's fire.When he turned and walked back inside the empty house, his footsteps were sure. He was no longer just Mani.