Aarav fell.
The city rushed up in a blur of light and shadow. Wind tore the breath from his lungs. His mind went blank except for one stupid, useless thought—
Riya will hate me if I die owing her samosas.
The storm inside his chest surged in panic.
Cold and heat twisted together, not waiting for his permission this time. The pressure detonated outward—not as an explosion, but as a refusal of gravity. The air beneath him thickened, warping into something solid enough to catch him like invisible hands.
He hit it hard, the impact knocking a grunt from his chest, but he didn't keep falling.
For a heartbeat, he hung suspended over the street.
Cars screeched below. People pointed upward, shouting in confusion. Drones swerved, their sensors scrambling to recalibrate around the distortion.
Aarav gasped, clinging to nothing.
Above him, the rooftop edge loomed. The wound in space yawned wider, its darkness drinking in the city's glow. From within it, something vast shifted—an outline that refused to settle into any one shape, like a thought too big to fit inside a skull.
Mira leapt.
She didn't fall. The air folded beneath her boots in precise, controlled steps as she ran down the empty space toward him. She grabbed his collar and yanked him upward, hurling him back onto the rooftop with a grunt of effort.
"Idiot," she snapped. "If you're going to manifest reality-warping abilities, at least learn to use them on purpose."
Aarav rolled, coughing, the taste of ozone sharp on his tongue. "That thing—what is it?"
"A Hunter," Mira said. "One of many. They follow anomalies like sharks follow blood."
The seam pulsed. The Hunter's presence pressed against the barrier, testing it. The darkness within rippled with a suggestion of eyes—too many, in the wrong places.
Aarav's vision tunneled. The pressure in his chest was climbing, spiraling out of control. He felt himself slipping, the edges of his thoughts blurring as the Zero-Point Contrast demanded more space inside him.
"I can't—" he started.
Mira grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her. Her gold eyes were fierce, unflinching. "Listen to me. You don't fight it. You set a boundary. You tell reality what you will allow."
"How?" he choked.
"Like this."
She turned toward the seam and raised her hand. The silver lines on her skin flared brighter, forming intricate sigils in the air. The barrier around the rooftop thickened, layering space over itself like folded glass.
"I draw the line here," she said, voice steady. "You do the same. Focus on one thing: containment. Not destruction."
The Hunter pressed harder. The seam widened, its edges screaming in silent protest. The rooftop trembled. Cracks spiderwebbed across concrete.
Aarav staggered to his feet. His knees shook. Sweat poured down his spine despite the cold biting into his bones.
Containment.
He pictured the alley where it had all begun. The way the world had folded inward, how the pressure had felt like holding two suns in his chest. He remembered Riya's voice, the warmth of it cutting through the terror.
Don't let this touch her.
The storm inside him twisted—and then, slowly, bent to his will.
Cold and heat compressed into a thin, shimmering plane that spread outward from his hands like invisible glass. The air around the seam stiffened, reality thickening, resisting the wound's pull.
The Hunter recoiled.
Not in pain.
In irritation.
Mira's eyes widened. "You're learning too fast."
The seam began to close, inch by agonizing inch. The pressure in Aarav's skull spiked, a migraine blooming behind his eyes. Blood trickled from his nose, warm against the cold air.
The Hunter surged once more, a silent scream of intent—and then the wound snapped shut like a healed scar.
The barrier dissolved.
Sound rushed back in. The city's noise crashed over them—sirens, horns, distant shouts. The rooftop lights flickered, then steadied.
Aarav collapsed to his knees.
Mira exhaled slowly, the silver glow on her skin fading. "You just scared off a Hunter. Do you have any idea how rare that is?"
Aarav laughed weakly. "Feels… great."
Then his phone buzzed.
Riya.
The world tilted.
Mira's gaze sharpened. "Who is that?"
"Someone I shouldn't have involved," Aarav said. He answered.
"Aarav?" Riya's voice was thin, stretched tight with fear. "There are ARA drones outside my building. They're asking questions. They said your name."
His blood ran cold.
"I told you to stay home," he whispered.
"I did!" she said. "But they came anyway. They said there was a… reality spike near where you were last seen. Aarav, what did you do?"
The rooftop seemed to recede, the city's lights blurring. The pressure in his chest stirred again, responding to the spike of panic.
Mira moved closer, her voice low and urgent. "Hunters track anomalies. ARA tracks you. If they're at her place, it means someone tipped them off."
Aarav's thoughts raced. The three men in the alley. Their boss. The black-market networks that fed information to both criminals and regulators.
"I'll fix it," he said into the phone. "I promise."
"Aarav, I'm scared," Riya whispered. "They're coming up the stairs."
The words punched the air from his lungs.
"Don't open the door," he said. "Lock yourself in. I'm on my way."
He turned to Mira, desperation clawing at his chest. "You said you clean messes. Help me."
Mira hesitated.
For the first time since she'd appeared, uncertainty cracked her composure.
"If I step in," she said slowly, "ARA will notice. And Hunters will notice me noticing you. This stops being a small mess."
"I don't care," Aarav said. "She's not part of this world. She doesn't deserve this."
Mira searched his face, reading the lines of his resolve, the raw edge of his fear. Finally, she nodded once.
"Then this is where you learn the real rule," she said. "Power saves no one without a price."
They moved.
The city blurred as Mira folded space beneath their feet, the world skipping like a scratched record. In heartbeats, they were standing across the street from Riya's building.
ARA drones hovered near the balconies, scanning windows with pale light. Two officers stood at the entrance, their sigils glowing.
From an upper floor, a scream cut through the night.
Riya's.
Aarav's heart shattered.
The storm inside him surged, wild and furious, straining against the boundaries he'd just learned to draw.
Mira's hand tightened on his shoulder. "If you unleash that here, you'll tear this building out of the world."
"I don't care," he said, stepping forward.
And as he did, the first crack of his carefully held reality spread across the street—
—straight toward the one person he was trying to save.