The Night the World Cracked Open
The city of Newhaven never slept.
It just pretended to.
Neon veins pulsed through rain-slick streets, skyscrapers stabbed the clouds like silver knives, and down below, twenty-three million souls hustled through the night, chasing money, love, escape—whatever kept the darkness from swallowing them whole.
Tonight, the darkness was about to bite back.
Saint Mercy Hospital, thirty-seventh floor maternity ward.
Room 3709.
Elara Bale gripped the bed rails so hard her knuckles turned bone-white. Sweat plastered her dark hair to her forehead. Her breath came in sharp, ragged bursts.
Another contraction hit like a freight train.
She screamed.
Not the scream of pain.
The scream of something *breaking loose*.
Marcus, her husband, hovered at her side, eyes wide, voice cracking.
"Almost there, baby. You've got this. Breathe. Just breathe."
The midwife froze mid-step.
The fetal monitor spiked—wild, impossible numbers flashing red.
Then the lights died.
Not flickered.
*Died*.
Every bulb in the room exploded in perfect unison. Shards of glass hung in the air for one impossible second, glittering like frozen stars, before they simply… vanished.
Gone.
A low, bone-deep hum rolled through the floor.
The walls trembled.
The air tasted like lightning and ozone and something ancient that had no name.
Elara's eyes flew wide.
She looked down at her swollen belly.
Violet light bloomed beneath her skin.
Not soft.
Not gentle.
A supernova trapped inside flesh.
The baby kicked.
Once.
The window shattered outward in a perfect circle of glittering dust.
Twice.
The ceiling peeled back like the lid of a sardine can.
Three times.
The entire thirty-seventh floor *detonated*.
A shockwave of raw, violet-black Chaos Force erupted from Elara's body.
It rolled outward like the breath of a newborn god—through walls, through steel beams, through concrete, through the night itself.
Glass, metal, brick—everything bowed, cracked, surrendered.
Outside, the city felt it.
Car alarms screamed in unison across twenty blocks.
Streetlights popped like fireworks.
Every Gifted within ten miles—cryokinetics freezing drinks in bars, telekinetics juggling coins on rooftops—clutched their skulls as something vast brushed their minds and whispered,
*Wake up.*
The shockwave kept climbing.
It punched through the roof, through the clouds, straight into the sky.
High above Newhaven, the heavens tore open.
A jagged rift of violet-black lightning without thunder ripped across the night.
Tendrils of shimmering energy snaked downward—questing, hungry, alive.
They weren't falling.
They were *reaching*.
Back in the ruined delivery room, plaster rained like snow.
The floor buckled into perfect spirals.
Every piece of metal in the ward—IV stands, monitors, surgical tools—lifted into the air and spun slowly, caught in a lazy, impossible dance.
Elara arched so hard the bed frame screamed metal.
Her scream cut off mid-breath.
In its place came a single, pure note.
Clear.
Impossible.
The sound of cathedrals falling and stars being born.
Then silence.
Horrible, ringing silence.
The violet light faded.
The shockwave died.
The sky scar lingered for three more heartbeats… then snapped shut.
In the wreckage of Room 3709, Elara lay panting, tears streaming, staring down at the tiny, perfect infant cradled against her chest.
The baby opened her eyes.
Violet.
Endless.
And they were *looking* at her mother like she already knew every secret the universe had ever tried to hide.
Elara whispered the name they'd chosen months ago, voice cracking with wonder and terror.
"Christna."
The baby smiled.
A real smile.
Too knowing.
Too bright.
Somewhere far below, in the sub-basement parking garage, three men in black tactical gear lowered their rifles.
The leader spoke into his comms, voice shaking for the first time in fifteen years.
"Control, this is Alpha-One.
We have a confirmed Chaosborn event.
Female. Newborn.
Power signature… biblical.
Recommend full containment protocol.
And tell the directors…
she's awake."
High above the city, the scar in the sky was already healing.
But the city would never forget.
Eighteen years later,
when Christna Bale finally opened those same violet eyes in a dark safehouse on the edge of a dying continent,
that scar would still be waiting.
Still hungry.
Still patient.
Still laughing.