The silence pressed on Kieran even after the angels and the fallen were gone.
The street lay cracked and scorched, the blacktop split like old bone. It might as well have been his chest torn open.
Their words still echoed.
You are one of us. Free. Unbound.
You are chosen. You will stand as light against the dark.
Kieran shoved his hands deep into his hoodie pocket, teeth clenched until his jaw ached. Both sides had spoken like they knew him. Both sides had stared into him like they'd seen what he didn't dare name.
Freedom or purpose. Fallen or chosen.
He didn't trust either.
And then the angel's voice cut through his memory, cold and final:"Your eighteenth birthday is one week away. That is when you will awaken into your true self."
One week. Seven days until whatever he was ripped out of him.
Kieran let out a laugh, cracked and bitter.
"Yeah. Right. Humanity awakening People getting superpowers? That's not real. This isn't some comic book."
But the words tasted hollow.
When he looked toward the skyline, he thought he could still see the faint shimmer of the golden dome that had hung above the city hours ago. A scar in the air. A reminder he couldn't scrub out.
...….
The next morning, the city looked unchanged. Dogs tugged at leashes. Cars honked. Shops flicked neon signs from closedto open.
Normal. Ordinary.
Except not for him.
Kieran's eyes tracked every corner, every face, desperate for something to prove the night before had been a hallucination.
Instead, he found proof the other way.
On the corner, a man shouted into his phone. His shadow lagged behind him, twisting like it belonged to someone else, before snapping back into place.
Kieran froze mid-step. His stomach dropped. But the man just kept walking, oblivious.
Further down, two kids sprinted across a crosswalk, laughing. One blurred forward, his sneakers scuffing the ground in a smear of speed. The other's eyes gleamed sharp green when the sun caught them—animal-bright, predatory.
Kieran swallowed hard. No one else reacted.
Later, in a convenience store, a woman dropped her basket. It should have shattered across the tiles. Instead, it hovered an inch above the floor, frozen midair like the laws of physics had forgotten her.
She caught it, fingers trembling, and stared down at her hands in horror.
Kieran's throat tightened. That fear—the disbelief, the terror of being wrong in your own skin—was a mirror of his own.
He left the store quickly, heart hammering, gripping the silver cross at his neck until the edges dug into his palm.
The angels hadn't lied.
The world was shifting. Powers weren't trickling in—they were breaking loose. Raw. Messy. Pouring through ordinary people like water through cracked stone.
...….
A siren wailed somewhere nearby. Not unusual for the city. But this one didn't fade. It cut sharp and endless, joined by shouting voices.
Kieran followed the sound into a small plaza where a crowd had gathered. At the center, a man crouched beside an overturned car. His face was pale, streaked with sweat.
The car itself… floated. A two-ton hulk of steel suspended a foot above the ground.
The man's hands shook violently as he tried to lower it. The metal groaned. The crowd screamed.
"Somebody call the cops!"
"Get back—he's losing control!"
The car slammed down at last, tires shrieking against the pavement. People scattered, some filming, some crying.
Kieran couldn't move. He felt the man's fear in his own chest, like it was contagious.
This is happening everywhere, he realized. It's not just me. The whole city's cracking open.
The man fell to his knees, clutching his head, whispering something over and over. Kieran caught only a single word: why.
The word echoed in his skull long after the crowd dragged the man away.
By afternoon, the city buzzed with rumors. In the corner of a café window, a muted TV played shaky phone footage of a woman with glowing hands holding back a fire. The newscaster's mouth moved beneath a bright headline: "Unexplained Incidents or Mass Hoax?"
A boy at the next table laughed. "Fake. All of it. CGI."His friend shushed him. "Then why'd the cops seal off Main Street last night?"
Kieran left before they could notice the way his hands shook.
He needed to believe this wasn't real. Needed to pretend life could go back to how it was.
But the city wouldn't let him.
On the walk home, a bus roared too close, tires screeching as it swerved into the curb. Kieran threw up an arm instinctively—
—and the streetlight above him exploded.
Glass rained down in a glittering spray. People screamed and ducked.
On the walk home, a bus roared too close, tires screeching as it swerved into the curb. Kieran threw up an arm instinctively—
—and the streetlight above him exploded.
Glass rained down in a glittering spray. People screamed and ducked.
Kieran stared at his hand. His skin tingled, heat crawling up his arm. The light pole sparked once, then died.
Nobody looked at him. Their eyes were on the driver, shouting blame, demanding answers.
Nobody noticed the way his shadow stretched unnaturally long across the sidewalk before snapping back into place.
Kieran shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and walked faster, heart slamming against his ribs.
It had only lasted a second. It could have been nothing. A coincidence.
But deep down, he knew it wasn't.
The fallen promised freedom. The angels promised destiny. Both pulled like they already owned him.
But what if I don't want either?
What if, when the week ends, I'm not one or the other?
What if I'm both?
The thought seared through him like fire. His breath stuttered, jaw clenched until it hurt.
And yet the choice wouldn't wait for him.
Every glimpse, every spark, every shadow told him the same truth.
The storm was already breaking.
And when it did, he wouldn't be able to stay on the sidelines.