"Hey Leor, wake up or you'll be late!" Aaradhya roared.
"Five more minutes…" Leor mumbled, half-asleep.
Leor Karan Carter wasn't what anyone would call a normal teen. For fifteen years, he'd lived inside a lab—his parents were scientists working on a top-secret military project so dangerous that Dominic Kane, director of Kane Advanced Research Complex, built on-site living quarters for staff.
Most would suffocate in a life like this. Not Leor. He had cutting-edge PCs and custom gaming consoles built by the scientists, and growing up among geniuses made him smarter than most adults.
With a groan, he dragged himself from bed, shuffled to the restroom, and splashed water on his face. The cold shock kicked his drowsiness away. His reflection stared back: jet-black hair, pale blue eyes, skin so white it almost looked bloodless.
After brushing his teeth and showering, he headed to the kitchen.
The aroma of ghee-roasted parathas and cardamom coffee filled the hexagonal kitchen module as Aaradhya moved between holographic cooking interfaces. Her humming of an old Hindi film song mixed with the quiet beeps of the quantum computer in the corner - currently calculating both breakfast nutrition values and plasma containment algorithms.
James Carter, Director of Applied Physics, alternated between sipping his specially-engineered nootropic coffee and swiping through security reports on a floating display. The blue light reflected off his salt-and-pepper stubble, highlighting the faint scar across his eyebrow - a souvenir from "that incident" in Sector 12 last year.
The sound of stumbling footsteps announced Leor's arrival. James' face instantly morphed from intense concentration to mischievous delight as his son entered, looking like a disheveled anime protagonist with his wild black hair and sleep-crusted eyes.
"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty!" James crowed, spinning his chair dramatically. "Or should I say Sleeping Beast? That hair's looking particularly feral today."
Leor flipped him off with one hand while grabbing coffee with the other. "Says the man whose bedhead could scare security droids."
Aaradhya didn't turn from her cooking, but her shoulders shook with silent laughter. "He's always been like this," she said in her soft British-Indian accent. "At MIT, he once-"
"Ah-ah!" James interrupted, waving his hands. "No ancient history before caffeine." He leaned toward Leor with a shark-like grin. "Unlike some people making heart-eyes at present company."
Leor nearly spit out his coffee. "What the hell, old man?"
"Oh please," James scoffed. "You think we haven't noticed how you 'accidentally' schedule your gym time with a certain Kane heir? Or how you-"
A paratha suddenly smacked James square in the forehead with perfect precision. Aaradhya finally turned, wiping her hands on a towel. "Must you torment him before breakfast?"
Leor's pale skin burned crimson. "It's not-I don't-Lyra's just... ugh!" He buried his face in his hands, then peeked through his fingers. "Does... does everyone know?"
James and Aaradhya exchanged a look that said everything. James opened his mouth to deliver what would undoubtedly be another embarrassing revelation when the emergency klaxon blared.
"Code Indigo. All senior staff to Sector 7. Dominic Kane's voice crackled through the speakers, cold and authoritative. "Lyra, report to observation."
Leor's stomach dropped at the mention of her name. James was already on his feet, all traces of humor gone. "That's our cue." He paused at the door, turning back with uncharacteristic seriousness. "Leor... stay out of Sector 5 today."
As the heavy doors sealed behind them, Leor stood frozen, Lyra's name echoing in his mind. The same girl he'd known since childhood. The Director's daughter. The reason his pulse raced during combat drills. And now, apparently, part of whatever crisis was unfolding.
After his parents left, Leor finished his breakfast quickly, his mind already racing about the Code Indigo alert. He had a standing appointment with Dave McCullough, the gruff head of security, for combat training - though today he'd probably just go through the motions before retreating to his gaming rig.
As he navigated the sterile white corridors of Sector 3, a familiar voice called out: "Oi, Slowpoke! Are you planning to crawl to training?"
Leor turned to see Lucas Kane leaning against a biometric panel, his lanky frame draped in the standard-issue navy jumpsuit all junior staff wore. Even in the harsh fluorescent lighting, the Kane twins' distinctive features stood out - platinum blond hair that seemed to glow, those unsettling crimson eyes inherited from their mother, and sharp, angular faces that made them look perpetually amused.
"Shut up, Blondie," Leor shot back, falling into step with his friend. "Some of us don't have daddy's security clearance to bypass curfew."
Lucas smirked, tossing an energy bar at Leor. "Heard about Sector 5? They finally got the Sunforge working. Melted through three feet of tungsten like butter."
Leor nearly choked on his bite. The Orb Project was the most classified research in the facility - a mysterious artifact recovered from the Rajasthan dig site that supposedly predated human civilization. While Lucas had caught glimpses during his father's presentations, and Lyra had been briefed due to her scientific aptitude, Leor only knew rumors.
"Is it actually activated?" Leor whispered as they turned down a restricted corridor, their retinal scans granting passage.
Lucas's usual playful demeanor faded. "Not just activated. Dad said it... responded. Like it recognized the energy signature." He lowered his voice further. "Lyra's been acting weird since last night's test. Kept muttering about 'patterns' and 'messages.'"
Before Leor could process this, the training room doors hissed open, revealing Dave's hulking silhouette. The ex-SAS operative crossed his arms, his augmented left eye glowing faintly in the dim light.
"Took you princesses long enough," Dave growled. Then, noticing their expressions, he sighed. "Let me guess - Lucas has been gossiping about Sector 5 again?"
As the boys exchanged glances, Dave's comm unit crackled to life with a distorted message: "All personnel... containment breach... Sector 5..."
The lights flickered. Somewhere deep in the facility, an alarm began to wail.
Dave's heavy boots echoed down the corridor as he disappeared around a corner, leaving the boys standing in the flickering emergency lights. The facility's usual hum had been replaced by an unsettling silence, punctuated only by distant alarms.
"Guess we're skipping leg day," Lucas joked weakly, but his crimson eyes betrayed his unease.
Leor was about to respond when movement caught his attention. Lyra sprinted toward them, her usually pristine lab coat flaring behind her like a cape. Strands of platinum hair had escaped her tight ponytail, sticking to her flushed cheeks.
"Shit. Shit. I knew this would happen," Lyra muttered, skidding to a stop before them. Her breathing came in sharp gasps as she clutched a tablet flashing warning symbols.
Lucas grabbed her shoulders. "Lyra, what the hell? Dad said you were—"
"They didn't listen!" Lyra snapped, shaking free. Her hands trembled as she pulled up schematics. "I warned them a localized thermal breach would destabilize the Orb's containment matrix, but they were so obsessed with proving their theory—"
Leor stepped closer, catching a whiff of ozone and burnt metal clinging to her. "Slow down. What exactly went wrong?"
Lyra's tablet flickered violently before she shoved it at them. The display showed a rendering of the Orb – normally a perfect sphere – now pulsing with jagged, lightning-like fractures across its surface.
"Instead of evenly heating the entire surface like we planned," Lyra explained through gritted teeth, "they focused everything on one point. Now there's a cascade failure." She tapped her glitching screen. "The energy leakage is disrupting all electronics. Comms are down, security systems are failing, and it's spreading."
Lucas paled. "Wait... you mean Dad's in Sector 5 right now?"
Lyra didn't answer. The way her jaw clenched told Leor everything.
A deep shudder ran through the facility. Somewhere, glass shattered. The lights died completely, plunging them into darkness save for the eerie glow of Lyra's malfunctioning tablet and the boys' own panicked breathing.
BOOOOM!
A shockwave ripped through the facility as blue fire erupted from Sector 5, melting steel like candle wax. The blast sent Leor stumbling back, his ears ringing.
"LUCAS, WAIT!" Lyra screamed.
But Lucas was already sprinting toward the inferno—toward where his father had last been.
"Come on, we have to follow him!" Leor grabbed Lyra's wrist, dragging her forward as personnel scrambled in panic. Alarms wailed, and the lockdown system engaged with a metallic CLANG, sealing exits behind them.
They barely slipped into Sector 4 before the bulkheads slammed shut.
"POWER WARNING!! SYSTEM SHUTTING DOWN!!"
Darkness swallowed the facility—except for the eerie blue flames of Sector 5, burning brighter than the sun.
Lyra froze. "Wait… something's wrong."
"No time! Lucas is right there—"
Then, the air itself twisted.
A violent suction yanked at them, pulling everything—debris, oxygen, light—toward Sector 5. Leor's feet skidded across the floor.
"What the hell is this?! A black hole?!"
Lyra's voice trembled. "No… it's worse. It's absorbing energy… and when it's done—"
Her words were drowned out by a sound like the sky tearing apart.
Then—
LIGHT.
Blinding, all-consuming, blue as the heart of a star.
Leor's last thought before the world vanished:
"We're all going to die."
PRESENT DAY
"AGHHHH!"
Leor jolted awake, his sheets drenched in sweat. The lights in his room flickered weakly.
The door burst open—Dave stood there, his scarred face tight with concern.
"Leor… you alright?"
Leor stared at his trembling hands, the ghost of blue fire still dancing behind his eyelids.
Dave sighed, leaning against the doorway. "Another nightmare, huh? It's been three years since the incident. Thought these would've stopped by now."
Three years.
Three years since the Kane Advanced Research Complex was reduced to a smoldering crater.
Three years since Lyra, Lucas, James, and Aaradhya vanished into that light.
Three years since everything he loved was taken from him.
Three Years After the Incident
The Kane Complex was gone.
Reduced to dust.
Dave had found me half-buried under the wreckage, my body scorched but alive. Most of the personnel were dead or missing—swallowed by that blue hellfire. The authorities arrived quickly, but Dave dragged me away before they could spot us.
"They'll silence anyone who survived," he growled. "That Orb wasn't just energy, kid. It was a weapon. And now the government's covering its tracks."
I should've felt something—grief, rage, fear. But there was nothing. Just a hollow void where my emotions used to be.
As we fled, I finally saw the truth: the complex wasn't nestled in some forest like I'd always imagined. It stood alone in a desert, a false oasis of steel and tech. The trees? Holograms. The sunlight? Filtered. Our entire lives had been a cage disguised as paradise.
Present Day
The shower's scalding water pounded against my skin, steaming up the cramped bathroom. Droplets traced old scars—some from training, others from that day.
I caught my reflection in the fogged mirror and paused.
Hair shorter, jagged. Eyes faintly glowing blue if the light hits just right. Body leaner, harder—living with Dave meant daily combat drills and no excuses.
But the biggest change? My height. Before the Incident, I'd been 1.7 meters—now I towered at 1.9 meters, as if the explosion had stretched me into someone else.
With a sigh, I threw on a shirt and headed downstairs.
"Hey kid, you ready?" Dave's gravelly voice cut through the morning quiet as he tossed a protein bar onto the kitchen counter.
Leor caught it without looking, his fingers leaving faint blue static marks on the wrapper. He gave a terse nod.
Dave stretched, his massive shoulders cracking like gunshots. "Today we're integrating abilities into combat drills." He flexed his hand, the skin briefly taking on a metallic sheen—a remnant of whatever the Orb's energy had done to them. "Three years running, and we still don't know half of what we can do."
Leor's jaw tightened. The Incident had rewritten their DNA in ways science couldn't explain. Dave had become a walking tank—50-ton strength, skin that could shrug off tank rounds. Leor got the speed package (150km/h bursts), 20-ton strength, and the problem child of his powers: electrokinesis.
"You sure about this?" Leor eyed the backyard training area warily. "Last time I—"
"Burned down a duplex? Yeah, I remember." Dave lobbed three D-cell batteries at him. "New approach. Just use what's in these."
The batteries hovered between Leor's palms as crackling blue energy arced across his knuckles. The air smelled of ozone. "You know how this goes. Once I start—"
Lights flickered. The fridge's motor whined.
"Focus, kid." Dave crouched in a defensive stance, concrete cracking under his boots. "Like taming a live wire."
Leor exhaled—then pulled.
The batteries exploded into dust as raw current surged up his arms. Every bulb in the house shattered. The microwave blept violently before its door flew off.
"Told you," Leor growled through gritted teeth, veins glowing electric blue.
Dave just grinned. "Now hit me."
The Sparring Match
Leor moved.
Time seemed to slow as he crossed the distance in a blur, his fist crashing into Dave's chest with enough force to launch him through the open door. The impact sent Dave plowing through a pine tree, wood splintering like gunshots.
Leor didn't let up. He blitzed forward again, driving another punch into Dave's ribs—but this time, his knuckles clanged against dark metal.
Dave's skin had transformed, his body now encased in an obsidian-like exoskeleton, neon-green energy pulsing through the seams. He smirked.
"Speed's got one fatal flaw, kid." His metal fingers clamped around Leor's fist. "Momentum's a bitch when you're stopped cold."
With a grunt, he slammed Leor face-first into the dirt, then reared back for another strike.
Leor barely twisted his head in time—Dave's fist obliterated the ground where his skull had been.
No time to think.
Leor summoned the battery's leftover charge, letting crackling blue lightning coil around his fist. He jammed it upward, connecting with Dave's jaw in a starburst of sparks. The force knocked Dave back just enough for Leor to scramble free.
Assess. Adapt.
His eyes darted—broken house, dense forest, uneven terrain. If he couldn't overpower Dave, he'd outmaneuver him.
"Overthinking again," Dave snorted, cracking his neck. "You pause, you lose. Should've kicked me when you had the—"
Leor never heard the rest.
Dave blitzed him, a meteor of muscle and metal. Leor deflected the first punch, then sprinted for the shattered door, ripping it off its hinges. With a grunt, he hurled it like a discus.
Dave swatted it aside, grinning. "Desperate moves for desperate men."
Worth a shot.
Leor dashed in again—only for Dave to fling dirt into his eyes.
Shit.
Blinded, Leor felt the air displace a second before Dave's arms locked around him. The world upended as Dave pile-drived him through three oaks, trunks snapping like twigs.
Vision swimming, ribs screaming, Leor forced his eyes open—just in time to see Dave charging for the knockout.
No choice.
BOOOOM!
Leor unleashed everything.
The air imploded as every volt in his body detonated outward. Power lines snapped, appliances exploded, and their house vaporized in a storm of blue lightning.
Dave, mid-lunge, took a fulgurite kick to the ribs—the impact catapulting him 30 meters through the forest.
Leor couldn't stop it now.
With a guttural roar, he wrenched the surging energy skyward, firing a lightning spear so violent it punched a hole through the clouds, the sonic boom shaking the earth.
Then—collapse.
His body smoked, muscles locked in agony, as the last blue embers flickered out on his fingertips.
Somewhere in the wreckage, Dave groaned. "Well… shit."