On her rooftop, Radha felt the strange energy around her disappear.
The air felt lighter. "Finally," she whispered, relieved to be free from the strange force that had been pushing her and Krishna together.
But a small part of her was secretly thankful. The interference had given her a moment close to him, a reminder of the warmth she missed.
The thought made her blush, and she frowned to hide it.
Scene Shift: Krishna
Krishna walked through the city, but he wasn't really there.
His mind kept replaying the moment in the hallway: the falling books, his arms around Radha, the jolt of electricity when their fingers touched.
Her shy smile made his heart beat in a way he didn't understand.
His thoughts were cut short by a loud noise. Sirens. Lots of them, getting closer.
He looked up and saw a thick column of black smoke rising into the sky just a few blocks away.
Without thinking, he started running towards it.The scene was in chaos.
A tall apartment building was on fire. Flames shot out of the windows. Fire trucks and ambulances were everywhere, but the fire was too strong.
A crowd of people, their faces lit by the orange glow, watched in horror from behind police lines.
As Krishna got closer, the blue box of the System appeared in front of his eyes.
EMERGENCY MISSION TRIGGERED:
[Objective: Save as many people from the burning building as possible.]
Reward:
1. +500 Karma Points per life saved
2. One Divine skill
He saw a firefighter get blown back by an explosion. He heard a woman near him crying, screaming that her child was still inside on the third floor.
He was just a high school student. He had no powers. Running into that building was crazy.
But as he stared at the fire, he felt something warm stir inside him.
A deep feeling, like a forgotten power waking up. He felt like he could sense the people trapped inside, their lives flickering like candles in the wind.
The System was forcing him, but his own heart was screaming at him to act.
He couldn't just stand by and watch people die.
Ignoring the shouts of the police, Krishna ducked under the barricade.
He pulled his jacket up over his nose and mouth , face hidden and ran straight into the fire.
The moment Krishna crossed the threshold, the heat hit him like a physical punch.
It was a living thing, a monster that clawed at his skin and stole the air from his lungs. The thick, black smoke was blinding, and the roar of the flames was deafening. For a second, pure, mortal terror seized him.
What am I doing? This is insane.
But then, the System's interface flickered in his vision, cutting through the chaos.
A simple 3D map of the building appeared, glowing dots of light pulsing within it.
[Life Signs Detected: Floor 3, Room 304. Critical Condition.]
The map overlaid itself onto his vision, showing him a path through the burning hallway.
The woman's screams echoed in his mind. Her child.His fear was still there, a cold knot in his stomach, but now it had a direction.
He took off, his school shoes slipping on the wet floor.
He dodged a falling, flaming piece of the ceiling, the heat searing the sleeve of his jacket.
The smoke burned his throat, and every breath was a struggle.He burst into Room 304. The fire was everywhere. A woman was on the floor, trying to shield a small boy who was coughing violently, his face pale.
"My son... he can't breathe!" she choked out, her eyes wide with terror and a sliver of hope at seeing him.
Krishna knelt beside them. The boy's breaths were shallow, ragged gasps.
He didn't know what to do, but he acted on pure instinct. He reached out a trembling hand and gently placed it on the boy's small chest.The moment his fingers made contact, something inside him clicked into place. A warm, golden energy flowed from his palm, invisible to the eye but overwhelmingly real. It was a feeling of pure peace, of life. The energy flowed from him into the child.
The boy's violent coughing immediately softened. His breathing, which had been a desperate struggle, eased into a steady rhythm. Color returned to his face.
The mother stared, her jaw slack.
"What... what did you do?"
Krishna didn't have an answer. He just looked at his own hand, then back at the boy.
thinking that this healing skill is very powerfull.
"We have to go. Now," Krishna said, his voice firm.
He helped the mother and child up and guided them back the way he came.
He handed them off to a firefighter at the entrance, who looked at him with stunned disbelief before rushing the family toward the paramedics.
Krishna didn't wait for thanks. He turned and ran back into the inferno.
He felt different now. The fear was still there, but it was smaller, drowned out by the warm, humming power he could now feel in his veins. He wasn't just a kid in a burning building anymore.
He was the only one who could help.The System's map lit up with more dots.
He found an elderly man trapped under a fallen bookshelf, his leg clearly broken.
Krishna placed his hands on the man's leg, and the strange, warm energy flowed again.
The pain in the man's eyes faded, replaced by shock. Krishna has healed her leg completely . With the pain gone, the man was able to help Krishna move the bookshelf and limp his way to safety.
One after another, guided by the System, he found them.
A panicked teenager in a smoke-filled room. A family of four huddled in a bathroom.
With each person he guided out, with each use of his strange healing power, the warm energy in his hands grew a little stronger, a little more confident.
The building groaned, a deep, terrible sound of twisting metal and cracking concrete.[SYSTEM WARNING: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY AT 15%. BUILDING CAN COLLAPSE.]
He had to get out. But the map showed one last life sign, faint and flickering, on the top floor.
He raced up the final flight of stairs just as the floor below him gave way. He burst onto the top floor and saw a young girl pinned under a heavy wooden beam. He rushed to her, but the beam wouldn't budge. With a final, desperate roar, he put every ounce of his being into one last push. The beam moved. He pulled the girl free and threw her over his shoulder just as the ceiling above them began to crumble.
He ran, his lungs on fire. He burst out of the building's entrance and into the night air just as the entire structure collapsed behind him in a deafening, apocalyptic crash.
He stumbled to his knees, gently setting the girl down as paramedics rushed toward them. He was exhausted, covered in soot, and his arm was bleeding.
He looked up and saw the faces of the people he had saved staring at him with awe. Someone in the crowd pointed.
"It's him! The kid who ran in!"Suddenly, a different kind of fear, colder and sharper than the fire, seized him.
Cameras flashed. People were shouting his name, calling him a hero. Police officers were starting to move in his direction.
This was what he feared. The attention. The questions. The spotlight. He wasn't a hero. He was a ghost. He had survived by being invisible. He have to hide system.
Before the first paramedic could reach him, before the first reporter could get a clear shot, Krishna moved. Using the smoke and chaos as cover, he scrambled to his feet.
He darted away from the lights, away from the shouts, away from the title of "hero" they were trying to give him.
His heart pounded, not from the fire, but from the terror of being seen.
He had saved them. But in doing so, he may have just destroyed the one thing that had kept him safe: his anonymity and his system.
He didn't look back. The shouts of the crowd, the frantic calls of the paramedics, the authoritative voices of the police—they all melted into a single, chaotic roar behind him.
He slipped into a dark, narrow alley, his back sliding down the cool, damp brick wall until he was hidden from the world.
His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat not from the fire, but from the raw, primal terror of being seen.
For a long moment, he stayed there, his head in his hands, just breathing. In. Out.
The only sound was the ragged rasp of his own breath and the distant, fading wail of sirens.
He listened. He waited. No footsteps followed. He was alone.
The relief was so intense it almost brought him to his knees.
As the frantic energy began to leave him, the familiar blue light of the System bloomed in the darkness, calm and steady.
[Congratulations Host: Mission Completed.]