The silence after the explosion did not feel like survival. It felt like something holding its breath. Marcus became aware of himself slowly, as if surfacing from deep water. The ringing in his ears came first, high and constant. Then the weight pressing across his ribs and shoulder. Then the smell of burning metal and melted wiring. He opened his eyes to a ceiling that no longer existed. Twisted steel beams framed a jagged tear in the night sky while smoke drifted upward in thick spirals. Small fires crawled across shattered consoles, and somewhere nearby a cable snapped and sparked like a living thing refusing to die.
He tried to move, expecting pain. The slab of concrete pinning him should have crushed bone and stolen breath. Instead, it felt distant, heavy but bearable. His heart beat once, hard and deliberate, and something answered inside his chest. A vibration began beneath his sternum and spread outward through muscle and bone like a second pulse syncing with the first. The slab trembled. Marcus froze, unsure whether the building was shifting again or if the tremor came from him. The vibration intensified. His fingers twitched instinctively. The concrete lifted.
Dust slid from its surface as the slab rose several inches above his body. Marcus stared at it hovering there, suspended against every law he understood. Dark strands curled from his hands, thin and fluid like smoke submerged in water. They wrapped around the debris and held it effortlessly. He pushed himself upright, and the slab drifted aside with the smallest motion of his wrist. Around him, smaller fragments of rubble shifted, lifting briefly before settling again as if awaiting instruction.
Across the ruined chamber, someone coughed violently. "Marcus?" Ethan's voice cut through the haze. "If you're dead, I'm not explaining this to your family." Marcus turned toward the sound. Through drifting smoke, a faint golden glow flickered. Ethan stood near what remained of the control platform, one arm raised reflexively. A curved barrier of pale kinetic light shimmered in front of him as falling debris struck it and bounced harmlessly away. Ethan blinked at the barrier in disbelief. "Okay," he muttered, staring at his own hand, "that's new."
A deep groan rolled through the facility as the reactor core below them destabilized further. The floor vibrated under their feet. A section of upper platform snapped loose and plummeted toward Ethan. Marcus reacted without thinking. He raised his hand, and the collapsing metal halted midair with a shriek of protest. The weight pressed against his mind like an invisible strain, but he pushed through it, sliding the wreckage sideways before it crashed against an empty section of wall. Ethan stared at him in stunned silence. "You're floating things," he said carefully. "You're blocking explosions," Marcus replied. The understanding between them was immediate and heavy.
The reactor roared again, louder this time, but the sound was wrong. It was not mechanical failure alone. It was something building. A pulse of deep crimson light burst upward from the shattered core beneath the chamber floor. The metal grating split apart as energy surged through it like blood through veins. Heat flooded the air instantly. Ethan took a step back. "That doesn't look stable," he said, voice tight.
The floor exploded.
Steel and concrete erupted outward as a column of red energy speared toward the ruined ceiling. At its center, a figure rose violently within the surge before being thrown clear and crashing onto the broken platform between them. The man hit hard, sliding across debris before forcing himself onto one knee. Red lightning crawled across his body in jagged arcs, snapping and hissing. The air around him shimmered from heat. His clothes were burned and torn, but his eyes glowed like embers pulled from a furnace.
Marcus felt it instantly. Same origin. Same fracture.
The man clutched his head and screamed. The sound was raw and unfiltered, more agony than anger. Crimson energy burst outward in a violent wave, carving scorch marks into the floor. A nearby wall disintegrated where lightning struck. Ethan reacted immediately, thrusting his hands forward and projecting a wide kinetic barrier that absorbed the blast before it could rip through the chamber. The impact rattled him, but he held firm. "We need to leave," Ethan shouted over the noise. "He's going to bring the whole place down."
"He doesn't know how to control it," Marcus replied. He stepped forward despite the heat rolling off the man in waves. The dark strands rose around him defensively, responding to his intent. The red-charged man tried to stand and stumbled, another surge detonating outward as if triggered by his panic. "I'm not trying to hurt anyone!" he shouted, his voice distorted by static and crackling energy. "It's inside me. I can't shut it off."
Marcus moved closer, ignoring Ethan's warning glance. He could feel the instability radiating from the man like a storm searching for ground. It was chaotic, violent, but not malicious. The difference mattered. Marcus raised his hand carefully, and debris near the man shifted, forming a loose containment barrier that prevented further collapse without trapping him. The red-charged man looked up sharply, eyes locking with Marcus's. Recognition flickered there, not of identity but of connection. "You," the man rasped. "You feel it too."
Another pulse surged, and Marcus absorbed part of it instinctively, his dark energy dispersing the force before it could expand further. Pain lanced up his arm, sharp but manageable. Ethan stepped closer as well, adjusting his barrier into a tighter field around the three of them. "If we're doing this," Ethan said through clenched teeth, "let's do it fast."
Marcus extended his hand toward the chaotic lightning. The dark strands reached forward, not attacking but stabilizing. When the energies touched, the collision sent a violent shock through him. For a second, it felt like gripping a live wire, like holding a thunderstorm in his palm. He forced himself not to pull away. "Focus," he said steadily. "There's a rhythm under it. Find it."
The man's breathing staggered. His eyes squeezed shut as he fought the surge within him. The lightning flared once more in a desperate arc, then flickered. Ethan tightened the kinetic field just enough to prevent stray discharge without suffocating the man's control. Slowly, the violent pulses began to shorten. The arcs snapped less wildly. The glow in the man's eyes dimmed from blinding crimson to a contained burn.
Minutes felt like hours, but eventually the storm weakened. The red energy shrank inward, crawling back across the man's skin before settling beneath it. He collapsed forward onto his hands, breathing hard but no longer erupting with power. The chamber fell into an uneasy quiet, broken only by distant fires and the groaning structure.
Ethan released his barrier first, exhaustion visible in his posture. Marcus lowered his hand slowly, the dark strands receding into nothingness. The man looked up at them, eyes now normal but haunted. "My name is Adrian Vale," he said hoarsely. "And I'm guessing that whatever happened to me… happened to you too."
Marcus and Ethan exchanged a look. "Something happened," Ethan replied cautiously.
Adrian gave a hollow laugh. "That's one way to put it."
Sirens wailed faintly in the distance, growing closer. The facility would soon be overrun with responders, authorities, cameras. Whatever they had become would not remain secret for long. Marcus studied Adrian carefully. The energy within him was still there, coiled and dangerous, but now restrained. "Can you control it?" Marcus asked.
Adrian looked down at his trembling hands. A faint red spark flickered between his fingers before vanishing. "Not well," he admitted. "But better than before."
Ethan exhaled slowly. "Then we figure it out. Together. Before someone else gets hurt."
Adrian's expression hardened slightly at that, though he nodded. "Together," he repeated.
As they made their way out of the ruined chamber, the night air struck them cold and sharp. Emergency vehicles surrounded the facility. Smoke billowed into the sky like a signal fire announcing a new era. Marcus could still feel the hum beneath his skin, steady and controlled. Ethan walked beside him, tension hidden behind determination. Adrian followed a step behind, quieter, his eyes scanning the chaos with something more calculating than fear.
Three survivors. Three fractures born from the same event. For now, they stood on the same side of survival. But Marcus could already sense it—the difference in how each of them felt their power. Ethan saw responsibility. Adrian felt injustice simmering beneath restraint. Marcus felt inevitability.
The world had changed in a single violent night. And though they walked away from the burning reactor together, the direction they would choose next would not remain aligned forever.