Morning arrived without ceremony.
There was no sunrise the way Aren remembered it—no clean line of gold spilling over rooftops, no warmth easing into the bones. Instead, light bled slowly into the fractured city, seeping through clouds that never fully decided what color they wanted to be. Some patches glowed faintly red, scars left behind by the sky's wound. Others reflected strange hues cast by abilities still learning how to exist.
Aren Vale woke before the generators hummed to life.
He lay still on his narrow bed, listening to the distant sounds of a city that no longer slept the way it used to. Footsteps echoed at irregular intervals. Somewhere, glass shattered, followed by hurried voices and the crackle of power being restrained.
The world was awake.
And it was tired.
Aren swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a while, elbows resting on his thighs, hands clasped loosely together. His knuckles were scraped, palms still raw from the day before. He hadn't noticed when it happened. Pain had become… negotiable lately.
He stared at his hands.
They looked ordinary. No glow. No sigils beneath the skin. No sign that they had pressed against something that wasn't supposed to yield.
"You look like you're expecting them to change," Lysa said from the doorway.
Aren glanced up. She stood there with a blanket draped over one arm and a ration bar half-unwrapped in the other. Her hair was pulled back more loosely today, exhaustion softening the sharp edges of her expression.
"Maybe I am," Aren replied.
She stepped inside and tossed the blanket at him. "Don't. That's how it starts."
"How what starts?"
"Waiting for yourself to become someone else."
He caught the blanket and folded it slowly over his lap. "What if I already have?"
Lysa paused, studying him. "Then the question is whether you had a choice."
They sat together in the quiet for a few moments, the kind of silence that wasn't empty but careful.
"I heard what happened last night," Lysa said eventually.
Aren frowned. "The ration line thing?"
"The fire-man," she corrected. "Executors are nervous."
Aren sighed. "I didn't do anything."
"That's the problem," she said. "You never do, and yet things keep changing."
He leaned back against the wall, eyes drifting to the cracked ceiling. "People were scared. He was going to lose control."
"And you stepped in."
"Yes."
"Why?"
The question wasn't accusatory. It was tired. Curious.
Aren closed his eyes.
Because if I don't, who will?
He didn't say it out loud.
Instead, he said, "Because he asked."
Lysa absorbed that, nodding slowly. "You're not wrong," she said. "You're just… dangerous."
Aren smiled faintly. "That makes two of us."
—
By midday, the relief center was buzzing with controlled chaos.
Aren worked alongside others clearing a partially collapsed residential block near the perimeter of District Nine. The building leaned at an angle that made everyone nervous, its structural integrity held together by a combination of old engineering and someone's gravity-altering Scripture.
Aren didn't ask whose.
He carried what needed carrying. Lifted what needed lifting. Crawled into spaces others couldn't or wouldn't, because he didn't glow and didn't destabilize the air around him.
People trusted him with their backs.
That realization hit him harder than any fear.
A woman sat on the curb nearby, cradling a child whose eyes glimmered faintly with uncontrolled light. The boy whimpered, clutching at his mother's jacket, power flickering around his small frame like static.
"He won't stop," she said when Aren approached. Her voice shook. "They said it would settle, but it's getting worse."
Aren knelt in front of the boy, ignoring the way the light prickled against his skin.
"Hey," he said softly. "What's your name?"
The boy sniffed. "T—Tomas."
"That's a good name," Aren said. "Do you know what's happening to you?"
Tomas shook his head, eyes wide with fear. "It hurts."
Aren nodded. "Yeah. New things usually do."
He glanced at the mother. "May I?"
She hesitated, then nodded.
Aren sat cross-legged in front of Tomas, meeting his gaze. "I want you to do something for me," he said. "Can you tell me what you feel right now? Not the light. You."
The boy frowned, thinking hard. "I'm… scared."
"That makes sense," Aren said. "Anyone would be."
The light flickered, dimming slightly.
"And I don't want to break things."
"Good," Aren said gently. "Then don't fight it. Just… sit with it. I'll stay."
Minutes passed.
Slowly, the light settled into a faint glow beneath the boy's skin, no longer lashing outward.
Tomas slumped forward, exhausted but calm.
The mother covered her mouth, tears spilling freely. "Thank you," she whispered.
Aren stood, heart heavy and warm all at once.
Behind him, an Executor watched silently, eyes narrowed—not in suspicion, but calculation.
—
That night, the city mourned.
Not officially. There were no sirens or announcements. Just quiet conversations, lowered voices, and the subtle way people avoided certain names.
The trainee who had vanished during the Correction had left behind a brother.
Aren found him sitting alone near the edge of the complex, staring at a patch of warped concrete where the world still hadn't quite decided what shape it wanted to be.
"I heard you were there," the man said without looking up.
Aren swallowed. "I was."
"You stopped it," he said.
"I tried," Aren replied. "I wasn't fast enough."
The man's jaw tightened. "They told me he exceeded acceptable growth. That he destabilized the narrative."
Aren flinched at the word.
"He was just trying to be useful," the man continued. "He always was. Even before all this."
Aren sat beside him.
For a long time, neither spoke.
Finally, the man said, "If you can interfere… why didn't you save him?"
The question landed softly.
And broke something anyway.
"I don't know how," Aren said honestly. "I only know how to step forward."
The man laughed bitterly. "Figures."
Aren stared at the warped ground. "I'm sorry," he said. "That's not enough. But it's all I have."
The man stood abruptly. "Keep it."
He walked away, shoulders stiff, grief heavy and unresolved.
Aren stayed where he was, the weight of that moment pressing down on him harder than any distortion.
Heroism, he realized, wasn't about stopping tragedy.
It was about choosing to carry it.
—
Later, on the roof, Lysa joined him again.
"You didn't eat," she said.
"I'm not hungry."
She sat anyway. "That's what people say when they're drowning."
Aren stared out at the city. "He asked me why I didn't save his brother."
"And?"
"I didn't have an answer."
Lysa folded her arms around her knees. "There isn't one that satisfies."
"Then why keep doing this?" Aren asked quietly. "Why keep stepping in if it's never enough?"
She looked at him, really looked at him, and her voice softened.
"Because someone has to try," she said. "Because the world is learning a new cruelty, and if no one resists it, that cruelty becomes law."
Aren closed his eyes.
He thought of the pressure. The silence. The way reality hesitated when he refused to move aside.
"I don't think the world wants me," he said.
"No," Lysa agreed. "It doesn't."
He laughed softly. "Then why does it keep watching?"
She didn't answer.
Above them, the scar in the sky pulsed faintly, almost imperceptibly.
Aren felt it again—that subtle attention, neither hostile nor kind. Curious.
"You know," he said slowly, "if this system is built on meaning… then people like me—like you—"
"We're noise," Lysa finished.
"No," Aren said. "We're choice."
She looked at him, something like pride flickering in her eyes.
The city stretched out before them—broken, frightened, stubbornly alive.
Aren exhaled, the weight of exhaustion and resolve settling into something steadier.
The world had turned its back on him.
But people hadn't.
And for now, that was enough.
Somewhere deep within the structures that governed reality, unseen metrics shifted. Not alarms. Not Corrections.
Records.
The world, reluctantly, continued to take note.
And Aren Vale sat at the edge of it all, a man without a story—becoming one anyway.