The first thing Kian felt wasn’t the clinical chill of a hospital, but the phantom weight of four tons of steel crushing his ribcage. His lungs burned, desperate for oxygen that his brain insisted wasn't there anymore. With a jagged, rhythmic wheeze, he forced himself upright, his eyes snapping open to a blur of sterile white and sharp, neon blue."Whoa, easy there! Don't pop the seals, man!"Kian blinked, his vision clearing. A man in a high-tech white jumpsuit was hovering over him, holding a digital tablet that flickered with data."Where... where is this?" Kian croaked, his throat feeling like he’d swallowed a bag of glass. "I was on the highway. There was a delivery truck—""Yeah, yeah, truck-kun got you good, didn’t it?" the man said, not looking up from his screen. "You’ve been in the soup for six hours. You’re lucky the cleanup crew found you before you totally bled out into the asphalt."Kian looked down at his chest. Instead of mangled flesh, he saw a smooth, pale torso enca

"Stay back!" Kian yelled, his voice cracking as the red-eyed mechanical scavengers edged closer. "I’m warning you! I’ve got nothing left to lose!"The larger of the two scrap-hounds let out a series of rhythmic clicks, its metal joints groaning as it lowered its head. It didn’t care about his warnings. It smelled the copper tang of fresh blood on his gown and the residual mana clinging to his skin."Fine. You want a piece of this?" Kian shoved his hand forward, his fingers trembling. "Eat this! Embers... whatever! Burn!"A pathetic sputter of orange sparks jumped from his knuckles. It was barely enough to light a candle, but the sudden heat made the lead scavenger recoil. Its optical sensors whirred as it recalibrated."That’s right!" Kian gasped, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. "I’ll cook you both! Come on! Who’s first?"[SYSTEM ALERT: EMOTIONAL INSTABILITY DETECTED][SKILL 'EMBERS OF THE MADMAN' IS REACTING TO AGGRESSION]"I know it's reacting!" Kian screamed

Kian pressed his back into the damp, cold brick until the mortar bit into his spine. He looked at the woman’s red heel, then up the length of her sleek, tailored trousers to the sharp, glowing tip of a spear that was suddenly hovering inches from his bridge of his nose."Who are you?" Kian stammered, his voice jumping an octave. "I’m just... I was in a crash. I'm literally nobody.""A nobody who just triggered a high-priority anomaly alert in three different sectors?" Mei Ling tilted her head, her dark hair catching a sliver of neon from the street above. "Try again. You have about five seconds before I decide your presence down here is an active threat to the public.""I told you! I'm Kian!" he yelled, his hands held up in a defensive posture. "The convenience store... it was a mistake! The system wouldn't let me pay!""Your system ID flagged you as 'unassigned,' yet your mana signature is bleeding psycho-residue like a cracked battery," Mei Ling said, her voice dropping into a dange

Kian watched the dust settle in the hollowed-out metro entrance until Mei Ling’s silhouette finally vanished into the haze of flashlights and emergency responders. His legs felt like they were made of cooling wax, ready to snap if he shifted his weight too fast."Great," Kian whispered, his voice hitching in his throat. "No pressure. Just survive. Easy to say when your veins aren't currently hosting a bonfire."[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: PHYSIOLOGICAL STRESS AT 88%][ADVICE: PROCEED TO TARGET DESTINATION IMMEDIATELY.]"I'm going, I'm going," he muttered, turning away from the chaos.He kept to the narrowest gutters of the transit district, where the streetlights hummed with an uneven, dying rhythm. His mind was a scramble of two lives—one where he was a college kid worried about a mid-term, and the other where he was a man who enjoyed the sound of a roaring updraft. Every time he closed his eyes, the orange sparks behind his lids got brighter.He remembered the rumors from the hospital win