A long blade, dark as midnight, weaved through the pale blue sky.
There was no storm on the forecast for the city of Bridgeport.
It was supposed to be clear—no clouds, no wind, just another boring school morning stuck behind glass windows and painfully bright fluorescent lights.
It started with a flicker, just a faint arc across my skin. No one noticed. Not the teacher scribbling formulas on the board, nor my classmates half-asleep in their seats.
I tapped my pencil.
Tiny sparks leapt from the eraser to my desk, vanishing before anyone else looked up. My heart beat faster, but I forced my face to stay blank. Bored, even. The kind of expression that says:
"I'm just a normal kid, please continue ignoring me."
I don't think it was working.
Across the room, my friend Soren turned his head.
He didn't say anything. Just stared. Sharp jaw, dark brown eyes, and that weird permanent scowl like the world owed him answers. If anyone could tell something was wrong, it was him.
I looked away first.
"Cael."
I blinked up.
Mr. Hale, our homeroom teacher, frowned from the whiteboard. He tapped it once with his marker like that'd draw my focus back to whatever math hell we were in.
"Care to solve this since you seem to be the only one still with us?" he said dryly.
A few chuckles. I laughed too, weakly, just to play along.
"Uh, sure," I said, standing before my legs could talk me out of it.
The spark happened again. Stronger this time. The lights overhead flickered.
No.
Not now—
And that's when my desk combusted.
There was no explosion. Just a loud pulse—like the air had been clenched in a fist and suddenly released. Heat and a flash of blinding light. Then fire.
Actual fire.
Books blackened in seconds, desks warped and melted. The floor cracked beneath my feet.
Then came the boom.
I stood frozen as chaos broke loose around me. Students screamed, Mr. Hale yelled at everyone to leave, fire alarms blared, but the only sound I could hear was electricity crackling in my bones.
That wasn't lightning. That was me.
Ceiling panels crashed to the floor as students stumbled over each other. In the chaos, I caught one last glimpse of Soren.
He stared at me in utter disbelief.
Then he ran.
I turned—slowly.
Next to me sat the charred body of a girl I once knew.
No.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
This isn't real.
An icy panic seized my chest, while my heart continued to beat faster and faster.
Plip.
The first drop of rain landed on my nose. A second later, a downpour roared through the jagged hole I had made in the ceiling.
And that, my friends,
was how it all began.