The silence of the woods felt heavier than the city air, burdened by the weight of Darma’s revelation. Bayu gripped the brass compass until his knuckles turned white, the needle still shivering in the north-pointing direction. Coach Darma—no, the man who had been his teacher, his tormentor, and his secret guardian—stood only a few feet away, his silhouette barely visible against the dense canopy."So, the whistle and the clipboard were just a disguise?" Bayu asked, his voice low. "You’ve been grading my papers while plotting how to turn me into a weapon?"Darma leaned against the trunk of a massive banyan tree, the moonlight cutting sharp lines across his tired face. "Grades were just a way to keep you grounded, kid. You have any idea how hard it is to watch a conduit walk around acting like a normal teenager when they're one bad day away from accidentally flooding an entire district?""You could have just told me," Aisyah interjected, stepping forward. Her eyes were hard, skeptical.

The locker room was a cavern of echoes, the air stagnant with the smell of damp towels and industrial-strength floor cleaner. I pushed the door open, the metal handle biting into my palm with a cold, unforgiving edge. Every muscle in my body felt like it was being pulled in two directions—one part of me desperate to collapse, the other part surging with the frantic, restless energy of the concentrate Coach Darma had forced into me."Hey, Bayu," a voice called out.I spun around, my heart leaping into my throat. It was just Leo, a guy from the varsity swim team, drying his hair with a towel. He gave me a casual, half-hearted nod."You really hit a new gear today, man," Leo said, tossing his towel into his bag. "I’ve never seen anyone run like that. You look like you’re trying to outrun a train."I leaned against the row of lockers, trying to keep my breathing shallow. "Just had a lot of energy to burn off, Leo. Didn't sleep much.""No kidding," he laughed, pulling his locker door shut

 The metal rungs of the maintenance ladder felt like they were vibrating, or maybe it was just Bayu’s hands. As his boots hit the gravel at the base of the municipal water tower, the world didn’t just tilt—it dissolved at the edges. The millions of gallons he had just “processed” weren't sitting in his stomach; they were screaming in his marrow, a pressurized ocean trying to fit into a boy-shaped container. "Bayu? Hey, look at me. You’re doing that thing again," Aisyah said, her voice tight with a fear she was trying to mask. "Your eyes... the blue isn’t just in your pupils anymore. It’s leaking." "I’m fine," Bayu rasped, but the word came out with a liquid gurgle. He gripped his own forearm, and his fingers sank into the flesh as if it were soft wax. "Okay, maybe I’m not fine. I feel... heavy. No, I feel like I’m about to explode and vanish at the same time."

"We’re not going to make it to the nursery," Aisyah said, her voice dropping to a panicked whisper as she yanked Bayu behind a stack of rusted oil drums near the school’s perimeter fence."Why not?" Bayu gasped, leaning heavily against her shoulder. His chest felt like a hollow cavern where an ocean was trying to force its way through a needle. "Bram said to go there.""Look at the main road," she said, pointing through the metal chain-links.A convoy of sleek, black SUVs swept around the corner, their high-beams cutting through the damp, misty darkness of the street."Who are they?" Bayu muttered, his eyes straining to focus through the haze. "More of Rama’s people?""No," Aisyah whispered, her grip tightening on his arm. "Rama doesn't have tactical gear. Look at those gold emblems on the doors. That’s the agency.""They're blocking the entire block," Bayu observed, his voice sounding like wet gravel. "And the water... look at the street."The knee-deep water that had flooded the asp

"We go north," Aisyah repeated, her voice a fragile thread in the heavy, suffocating dark of the fallout shelter."Yeah," Bayu muttered, his back pressed against the cold concrete. "But how far can we actually get like this?""As far as we need to," she said. "We don't have a choice, do we?""I guess not," he sighed, staring down at his palms in the dark. "My hands are still shaking.""Let me see," she said. She reached out, her fingers warm as they wrapped around his. "You’re still freezing, Bayu.""It's like my bones are hollow," he said, his chest hitching. "Like the cold is just sitting there, waiting to expand.""It'll pass," she said, though her voice lacked conviction. "We just need to wait out the sweep.""Do you think they found Pak Bram?" Bayu asked, looking up toward the ceiling where the muffled sounds of the tactical teams had finally faded."I don't know," Aisyah whispered. "But Bram is tough. He’s been doing this for a long time.""He's an old man, Aisyah," Bayu said, h