Merry Christmas and hope you guys enjoy this chapter!!
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Something stirs.
Not in the mortal world alone, but in the deeper place where rules are written, erased, and rewritten again. A place untouched by time, because time itself was born there.
A pause ripples through that endless expanse.
"Interesting…"
The voice does not echo, it asserts.
Ancient. Dominant. Carrying a weight that bends the void around it, as if reality itself listens before deciding whether it should respond.
Then....
A spark ignites.
Small. Unrefined. Barely coherent.
By all measurable standards, it should not endure.
And yet...
It remains.
Not borrowed. Not sustained. Not commanded.
Alive.
The void stills.
Such a thing should not exist.
Yet it does.
A lineage.
That is… inefficient.
Entities of his order do not leave descendants. They do not fracture authority. They do not dilute continuity. They select. They appoint. They discard.
This one did not.
The spark persists without command, without structure, without instruction.
"Why would an entity who refuses permanence allow something that can outlast him?"
"Why would he create something that could disobey him?"
The implication is… troublesome.
.
.
.
Far below, in a world that does not know it has been noticed.
A boy exhales shakily into the cold night air and presses a trembling hand against his chest, unaware that something older than gods has just acknowledged his existence.
He only knows one thing.
He survived.
[MC POV]
Morning came like a personal fuck you.
Sunlight slid through the gaps in broken concrete and half-installed glass, thin and pale, catching dust in the air like it was trying to make this place look peaceful. It failed. Miserably.
I woke up with my face pressed against cold cement and my arm twisted under my chest. For half a second, panic slammed into me hard enough to steal my breath. My body locked up, instincts screaming that something was about to jump me again.
Nothing did.
No claws. No screeching. No teeth snapping inches from my throat.
Just the city.
I groaned and pushed myself up onto my elbows. My back cracked softly and I hissed.
"Okay… okay. I'm alive. That's… that's good."
"I guess another normal day?" I said.
"Never mind… what else could possibly go wrong?" I snorted. "Yeah, sure. Maybe a god drops by next to tell me I'm their kid. That'd be on brand."
Somewhere below, traffic hummed. Someone yelled. A car horn blared like the world hadn't almost ended for me a few hours ago.
That pissed me off more than it should have.
"Of course," I muttered. "Everyone's just going to work. Cool. Meanwhile I almost died fighting demon crackheads in an alley."
I checked myself without really thinking. Shoulder first.
No pain.
Chest barely sore.
Legs felt fine.
"I guess whatever freaky power last night really healed me." I said. But the feel of it seems like a dream.
Then I lift my fingers and try to call that power again, but nothing happened.
I frowned and tried again. Focused harder. Held my breath.
Nothing.
It didn't answer.
That… bothered me more than if it had.
But then... A shimmer flickered. Blue-gold. Just a small spark and it suddenly disappeared again.
"What the fuck…? So it isn't a dream?" I whispered.
The realization hit hard, settling deep in my gut.
Power was one thing. People talked about superpowers all the time like the movies, comics, internet bullshit. But healing?
Fast healing?
That meant survival.
That meant longevity.
That meant attention.
I grabbed my jacket from where I'd used it as a pillow and shrugged it on, suddenly desperate to leave. Staying here felt wrong now.
As I headed for the stairs, sunlight caught my reflection in a shattered window. I stopped.
For half a second, my eyes looked… wrong.
Still amber. But brighter. Like they were reflecting something that wasn't there.
Then I blinked and it was just me again. Gone.
I exhaled slowly.
"Yeah," I muttered. "This day's already fucked."
.
.
.
I didn't like how quiet the rooftop felt once I started moving.
Not peaceful quiet. The wrong kind. The kind that makes your skin itch like you're being watched by something that doesn't blink.
I took the stairs two at a time, boots slapping against concrete with my heart still not fully settled. I felt every step that I took echoed too loud, like the building itself was paying attention to me now. I hated that thought.
"Get a grip," I muttered. "You're just tired."
Liar.
By the time I hit street level, the city swallowed me whole again. Noise. People. Smells. Exhaust, coffee, grease, piss. Normal. Comforting, in a fucked-up way.
I pulled my hood up and blended in.
Rule one of surviving out here: don't stand out.
Rule two: don't stay in one place too long.
And right now? I was doing both.
As I walked, I kept checking my reflection in windows, storefronts, cars, anywhere I could catch a glimpse of myself. My eyes stayed normal. Amber, sure, but no glow. No sparks. No freaky shit like before.
Good.
Still, every now and then, my chest felt… tight. Not painful. More like pressure. Like something inside me was awake and annoyed that I was pretending everything was fine.
I ducked into a convenience store, more instinct than hunger. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The cashier barely looked up. Perfect.
I grabbed a bottle of water and a cheap sandwich, slapped some coins on the counter, and left before anyone could decide to care.
Outside, I tore into the sandwich like I hadn't eaten in days.
Which, yeah. Fair.
As I chewed, my thoughts drifted back to last night. The alley. The monsters. The way time had bent just a little, for me.
That wasn't adrenaline.
I'd been in fights before. Bad ones. Hunger-fueled ones. Desperate ones.
None of them felt like that.
I stopped walking.
A prickling sensation crawled up my spine.
Not fear.
Recognition.
I slowly turned.
Across the street, leaning against a lamppost, was a guy who absolutely feels like something that did not belong or even exist.
Too clean. Too still. Wearing sunglasses even though the sun was barely out. His posture was relaxed, but his attention was razor-focused, locked straight on me.
On instinct, I stepped back.
He smiled.
Not friendly. Not threatening.
Evaluating.
"Fuck," I whispered.
I moved.
Not running yet. Just weaving through pedestrians, cutting corners, letting the crowd swallow me again. I ducked into an alley, jumped a fence, crossed another street.
When I glanced back
He was still there.
Closer.
My pulse spiked.
"Okay," I muttered, breaking into a jog. "So this is happening."
The pressure in my chest flared. Warm. Irritating. Like something was tapping on the inside of my ribs.
I turned sharply into a construction site and vaulted over a barrier. Pain flared briefly in my palms and vanished.
I didn't even slow down.
That scared me more than the chase.
I burst out onto another street and finally risked a full sprint. People shouted. Someone cursed. I didn't look back.
The city blurred.
And then...
Everything tilted.
Not the world.
Me.
The air thickened, like I'd run straight into invisible resistance. My steps faltered. My breath hitched.
Blue-gold light flared across my arms.
"Shit—shit—no, not now—"
The light vanished just as fast as it appeared, leaving me stumbling forward and crashing into a stack of crates.
I hit the ground hard.
Pain sparked and faded again just like before.
Footsteps approached.
Slow. Unhurried.
"Well," a voice said calmly. "That confirms it."
I pushed myself up, heart hammering, every instinct screaming danger.
The man stood a few feet away now, sunglasses off.
His eyes weren't human.
Not monstrous.
Just… wrong. Too old. Too knowing.
"You don't know what you are yet," he continued, tilting his head. "But others will. Soon."
I clenched my fists.
"Back off," I said. My voice shook, but I didn't step back. "I don't know who you think I am, but—"
"Oh, I know exactly who you aren't," he interrupted. "And that's the problem."
The pressure in my chest surged.
He noticed.
His smile widened.
"Run," he advised softly. "You're not ready for the ones who'll come next."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
But he was already stepping away, fading into the crowd like he'd never been there at all.
Just like that.
Gone.
I stood there, shaking, fists clenched, lungs burning.
People walked past me like nothing had happened.
Like my world hadn't just cracked a little wider.
I swallowed hard.
"Yeah," I muttered. "This is officially fucked."
Whatever I was—
Whatever I'd become—
It wasn't a secret anymore. I didn't move for a long time. Just stood there.
That guy or whatever the fuck he was, was gone. And yet… he left a taste in my mind, like cold metal against my teeth. A warning. Or a marker. Something that said, you're being watched.
I rubbed my face with both hands. "Goddamn it… what now? Seriously? Who the hell even notices me?" I tried to shake it off. "Okay, okay. Calm the shit down. Think. Think."
I crouched behind a dumpster, scanning the street. Perfect cover.
Except it wasn't.
I felt it again, the spark in my chest, low, insistent. The power. My power. And it was loud.
Not loud to ears. Loud to something else.
A flicker of heat ran along my veins, blue-gold sparks pulsing faintly under my skin. I clenched my fists, trying to tamp it down.
"Shit… this isn't just healing…" I muttered. "It's fucking alive."
I leaned against the dumpster, knees drawn up. The thought gnawed at me... Last night wasn't random. The alley, the monsters, they knew something too about me. They weren't dumb. They were hunting.
And now?
So was the guy in the street.
I shook my head, frustrated, muttering under my breath. "I can't even survive one damn day without shit hitting the fan."
I tried to focus on anything else. Movement. Sounds. Patterns. Anything to calm the chest pressure.
And then it happened.
A low, almost imperceptible vibration under my feet. Like the city itself was breathing. The alleys, the streets, the lights… something was moving. Something bigger than last night's freaks.
My stomach dropped.
Instinct screamed at me, warning and urging me to run at the same time.
I took a deep breath, muttering, "Okay… survive first. Figure the rest out later."
I moved. Fast. Too fast, maybe. Blue-gold sparks flickered along my arms again, responding to stress, to fear, to the awareness that I wasn't alone.
I rounded a corner and froze.
Shadows stretched unnaturally across the street. Nothing human.
Not quite monsters either.
They were… watching. Not hunting yet. Just… assessing.
And I knew.
They could sense me.
I swallowed hard. "Oh, I'm so cooked." I don't like this. It's like a prey being hunted by a very dangerous predator. Waiting for the perfect time to strike me.
I didn't know what came next. I didn't know who would come next.
All I knew?
The world was watching.
And it was about to make me fight again.
"Fuck… alright," I muttered, pushing off the wall. "Then let's see what the hell you want."