Seth’s POVI woke up on a metal table. Again.At this point, I was starting to think these scientists kept the tables cold on purpose—like they wanted us to feel like corpses before we even opened our eyes. Maybe to make their jobs easier. Maybe to remind us we weren't fully human anymore. Or maybe they were just freaks. Hard to tell.The first thing I saw was a ceiling with those white square lights… the same type you only see in places that smell like disinfectant and fear. My head throbbed—deep, heavy, uncomfortable, like something had been rewired behind my skull.Which… apparently… it had.Because the moment I sat up, five scientists jumped back like I was a wild lion who just remembered he wasn’t vegan.One of them dropped his tablet.“Subject—Seth—don’t move too fast,” a doctor stuttered.“I’m literally just sitting up,” I said. “Relax. If I wanted to kill you, I’d have done it before breakfast.”Yeah, maybe not the best thing to say in that moment. The poor man’s soul nearly l

Alex’s POVThe room was dark enough that it felt like it was swallowing me whole. Not pitch black because there was always that dim blue glow humming from the containment tube in the center of the lab... but everything else was coated in heavy shadows. Quiet ones cold ones. I sat in a metal chair beside the tube, elbows on my knees, fingers laced tightly like I needed to keep myself from shaking. I’d probably been here for hours again, maybe days. Time didn’t behave normally here. Everything was too still, too slow, like the world was holding its breath, waiting for something to either be fixed or break completely.And inside the tube…Rose slept.My little sister, my best friend, my only family left in this twisted world that I actually cared about.Her eyelashes barely fluttered. Her chest rose and fell too gently. If not for the soft, steady rhythm on the monitor beside her, anyone would think she wasn’t alive at all.She wasn’t in danger, that’s what the doctors kept telling me,

Seth’s POVWhen the door slid open, I honestly expected another scientist trying to poke me with needles or ask me to show a small sample of my power. Instead, I saw the President’s aide walk in, hands folded behind his back like usual, looking like he had not smiled in twenty years.He never came down to the training room unless something big had happened. That alone already made my chest tighten. I wiped my forehead, breathed out, and braced myself for some new horrible assignment.But nothing could have prepared me for what came next.Because he stepped aside.And behind him... walked Alex?For a moment, everything around me froze, the sound of machines humming, the lights flickering above me, the slow rhythm of my breathing. I just stared at him. My brain refused to believe what my eyes were seeing.Alex was alive?His hair was messy, and his face looked like he had seen ten different levels of hell. His shoulders were tense, and there were dark circles under his eyes, almost like

Seth’s POVDistrict 4 was chaos. The streets were empty, buildings partially shattered, and a sharp metallic tang lingered in the air. Astrasite crystals had sprouted from concrete, cars, and even walls. I kept my eyes sharp as we drove closer to the epicenter. The red zone on the map was like a pulsing wound on the city, and I had the sinking feeling that stepping into it would change everything.Alex sat beside me in tense silence, hands clenching and unclenching, like he was trying to keep himself tethered to reality. I couldn’t fault him. Seeing Rose in that condition… anyone would feel raw, fragile, like the world had ripped their chest open and stuffed a fire inside. I tried not to think about it, but I couldn’t help it. She was always there, haunting the edges of my mind.The armored vehicle came to a stop in front of a collapsed building. Smoke curled from the ruins, reflecting the faint blue light of the astrasite crystals scattered around. That’s when we saw him.A young man

Noel’s POVI ran. My legs screamed, lungs burned, and every instinct in me shouted to stop, to give up, but I couldn’t. Not now or ever. Blood dripped from my hand, a warm, sticky reminder that I was hurt but I didn’t care. Pain was nothing while survival was everything.Behind me, I could feel them. Three evolveds. I didn’t know their names, didn’t need to. I could feel their presence like a shadow pressing on my back, a weight on my chest, a chill crawling up my spine. I thought I could outrun them. I always thought I could outrun danger. But not this time and especially not these ones.I swallowed the bitter taste of iron in my mouth, my heartbeat thundering so loud it felt like it might burst from my chest. My hand throbbed violently with each step, but I ignored it, gritting my teeth. I’d spent the last few weeks hiding the ability that now burned beneath my skin. Hiding it from everyone. From friends, from strangers, from the world. My shadow like abilities, it was my secret, my