Why do I feel this way…?
The question came into Hana's mind like a jagged blade. Her breath came uneven. Her pulse thundered. Rage, pure, molten, and radioactive, boiled beneath her skin, rising faster than she could contain it.
What had Haazi said that triggered this?
Why did his words feel like a sharp threat to her existence, as if it was a dagger pointed at her heart?
She became painfully aware of everything around her. The straps digging into her limbs, the cold metal wall at her back, the holographic heart pulsing in front of her like a grotesque mirror of her own life. And Haazi… the boy she had almost trusted… the boy who now stood on the other side of a line she could never uncross.
Her vision blurred.
The room tilted.
A wave of dizziness crashed over her, and suddenly-
Her world shook.
A distant, fragmented flash burst behind her eyes. She saw lab scientists in white coats, their faces blurred. Tools glinting under harsh lights. A machine hovering above her, scanning her, dissecting her without ever cutting her open.
What? When…?
Has she been experimented on before?
Why didn't she remember?
What else had been done to her?
Her mind swarmed with fury, confusion, and a desperate hunger for answers. The storm inside her grew too large, too violent. It swallowed her judgment whole.
She lost touch with reality…-
It felt like a malfunction-
There.
Was.
No.
End.
To.
Her power…!
A silent yet devastating scream tore from her throat.
The tube in front of her exploded.
Glass shattered outward in a violent burst, shards scattering like deadly stars. The holographic heart inside flickered, glitched, and warped into static before dissolving entirely.
The straps binding her disintegrated, burned away by the radioactive surge erupting from her skin.
Radioactivity…
Was unstable.
Chaotic.
Destructive.
But Hana's radioactivity was hers.
It bent to her will.
And now, it lifted her.
She rose from the ground. Not floating, nor flying, but stepping onto something invisible. Semi‑solid atoms formed beneath her feet, shimmering like distorted air. Her power shaped them instinctively, creating a path for her.
Haazi stumbled back, eyes wide, breath caught in his throat. He had seen her angry before, but never like this. Not with something like the apocalypse burning in her veins.
Hana extended her hand.
Radioactivity surged outward, forming a glowing substance that stretched and twisted until it resembled a massive, translucent hand. It wrapped around Haazi in a single, fluid motion.
He gasped.
The radioactive hand tightened. Not enough to crush him, but enough to lift him off the ground. The substance shifted, swirling around him like a cyclone, pulling him upward until he hovered at eye level with her.
His hair whipped in the wind of her power, strands dancing wildly. His eyes were wide, lips parted in shock. Fear, something else he couldn't hide.
Hana's red hair flowed around her like living fire, weightless in the radioactive current. Her blue eyes glowed with a fury so intense it almost illuminated the room in a cold, electric light.
The air crackled.
The atoms beneath her feet pulsed… as if awaiting a storm made of her endless fury.