The ceiling fan in the office spun lazily, its rhythmic drone a constant, grating irritation. Isha stared at a computer screen filled with meaningless rows of numbers, but her attention was fixed on the woman standing fifteen feet away. Sunita was slamming a folder onto Ji-hoon’s desk. Her face was flushed, the veins in her neck bulging, and her voice shattered the quiet of the late afternoon."This is garbage, Ji-hoon! I asked for next month’s project data, not some half-baked weather forecast!" Sunita screamed. She hurled the documents onto the floor. Ji-hoon simply lowered his head, not daring to offer a word of protest, while their colleagues pretended to be deeply absorbed in their own screens.Isha let out a long, weary sigh. She was well-acquainted with Sunita’s temper. The woman was ambition personified, a perfectionist who demanded nothing less than excellence. Isha was a perfectionist too, but in a different way. She was an expert at making herself invisible. She always ensu

Concrete dust flew like shrapnel as the garage ceiling collapsed onto the floor directly in front of the line of hunters. Isha pulled Sunita into a tight embrace. He forced the flow of time to swirl around the epicenter of the energy blast. The room seemed to fold in on itself. The blue light from the hunters' weapons hung suspended in mid-air, frozen into shimmering strands of light that crackled like static electricity. Isha felt every nerve in his body catch fire. Unleashing this much power without control was pure madness."Close your eyes!" Isha shouted.Sunita buried her face in Isha’s chest. Her heart hammered so hard it felt like it would burst through her skin. "What are you doing, Isha? Everything is falling apart!"Isha didn't answer. He leaped over the floating rubble, moving like a streak of lightning through a world standing still. Then, he saw Martix. The man stood at the entrance, his eyes scanning the parking lot with a sensor device in hand. Martix wasn't frozen. He

The woman Isha had called out to stood tall in the center of the ranks of armed men. Her hair was pulled back in a neat bun, and her gaze was as sharp as a dagger. She was the figure who had haunted Isha's nightmares every time she closed her eyes, someone who was supposed to have died in an anomaly incident twenty years ago. Isha felt her chest tighten, her breath catching in her throat. The world around the rooftop seemed to spin, creating a suffocating illusion."Isha?" Sunita gripped Isha's arm tightly, her fingernails digging into Isha's skin. "What do you mean, Mother? That woman? Is she their leader?"Isha could not find the words to answer. Her tongue felt heavy. She could only watch as the middle-aged woman below began to approach the rooftop stairs. Every step she took was punctuated by the rhythmic thud of boots from the dozens of agents following her. They surrounded the roof, cutting off every possible escape route. Martix emerged from the shadows, his face bruised and co

Isha stood paralyzed, the blood in his veins turning to ice. The man standing before him wasn’t just a lookalike, he was a broken reflection of Isha’s own future. His father, a man he had mourned for a decade, stood there with a smirk that made Isha’s skin crawl. Beside him, Sunita was shaking violently, though she kept her grip on his hand tight. They were surrounded by a dozen agents, their laser rifles locked onto their chests."Father?" Isha’s voice was a dry rasp, barely audible over the menacing hum of the weapons.The man gave a short, cold laugh. The burn scar on his face twisted as he took a slow breath. "Don’t call me that. Here, I am simply the Commander. And you, Isha, are the most precious anomaly we have ever created."Isha didn't wait for an order. He felt the energy surging through his veins. He had to move before they could activate the dimensional dampeners on their belts. Isha slammed his foot down, triggering a shockwave that shattered the floor beneath them. In a

Warm blood trickled from Sunita's temple, staining the concrete floor that was already fracturing under the reactor’s tremors. Above her stood a man in tactical gear, his face expressionless, holding the butt of the rifle he had just used to strike her head. He coldly touched the comms device in his ear."Target secured. Initiating evacuation to extraction point sector four," the man said flatly.Outside the building, the world had turned into a living hell. Isha stood in the middle of a rainstorm, her body torn by burns that hissed with steam. Thousands of armed agents had her surrounded from all sides. The silver light surrounding her was dimming, replaced by a stabbing pain that reached her very marrow. She looked toward the collapsing building, her heart shattering as black smoke billowed into the sky. Sunita was in there. She knew Sunita had been caught.Martix stepped forward from the line of agents, looking at Isha with a triumphant