Chapter Five: Roots of Fear
That night, the city didn't sleep — and neither did Billy.
He sat on his bed, the room lit only by the faint green glow pulsing from the veins beneath his skin. He'd wrapped his arms with tape and bandages, desperate to hide it, but the light still shimmered through like something alive trying to escape.
On his phone, notifications exploded — hundreds of them.
Videos. Hashtags. Comments.
"That kid made the floor explode!"
"Midtown's got a mutant!"
"Whoever he is, he's dangerous."
Billy's face wasn't completely clear in the recordings, but anyone from school would know it was him. The sound of laughter, the terrified screams, the vines — everything was there. Every second.
He threw the phone across the room. It cracked against the wall and fell silent.
His mother knocked on the door. "Billy? Honey, what happened at school today? The principal called—"
"I'm fine!" His voice came out sharper than he meant.
A pause. Then, quietly: "You don't sound fine, sweetheart."
Billy pressed his forehead to his knees, forcing his breathing to slow. "Please, Mom," he whispered. "Just leave me alone tonight."
After a long silence, her footsteps faded.
The room was still again, but not quiet. Billy could hear the world — the trees outside whispering through the wind, the roots crawling under the city, the distant hum of the earth itself. It was all alive, and somehow, connected to him.
He closed his eyes, hoping for sleep.
He didn't get rest — he got visions.
The dream came like falling into deep water. Everything was dark, endless, and whispering.
He stood in a forest that looked familiar, yet wrong — the trees were twisted, their bark blackened, their roots bleeding green sap. The sky above was fractured like shattered glass, light leaking through.
And in the center of it all stood the ancient tree — the one that gave him its power. But now it was alive again… and angry.
"You let them see," the tree said, its voice booming like thunder.
Billy stumbled backward. "I didn't mean to— I couldn't control it!"
The roots shifted, coiling toward him. "Control is illusion. You are no longer a child of men. You are ours."
Billy shook his head. "No. I didn't ask for this."
The bark split open, revealing a hollow pulsing with sickly green light. "Power never asks. It only takes."
And then the forest moved.
Roots shot up from the ground, wrapping around his arms, his chest, his neck. He struggled, gasping for air.
From the shadows, another voice whispered — colder, mechanical.
"Even in dreams, he resists you. Pathetic."
Billy's head turned. There, standing beyond the dying tree, was a figure cloaked in darkness — a shape of metal and shadow, with a mask that shimmered like oil. The mask had no eyes, only a surface that rippled like liquid steel.
"Who are you?" Billy gasped.
The voice echoed, layered with distortion. "I am what comes when creation forgets mercy. I am what your power will destroy."
The roots tightened, the forest screaming around him.
Billy fought, light bursting from his body — the vines snapped, the tree shrieked, and suddenly he was falling—
He woke up screaming.
His sheets were tangled, soaked with sweat. The air in his room felt heavy — and wrong. The curtains fluttered even though the windows were closed.
He sat up, panting, and froze.
Vines had crept from under his bed — thick, green, alive. They'd grown out during his sleep, twisting across the floor, cracking the wood.
Billy's heart raced. "No… not again."
He tried to pull them back, focusing the way he had in the forest. Breathe. Focus.
The vines twitched… then slowly retracted, sinking into the ground like snakes retreating into their burrows.
Silence returned.
Billy fell back onto his bed, clutching his chest. "I'm losing control," he whispered. "I'm turning into a monster."
At the same time, across the city, lights flickered inside an abandoned subway tunnel.
Maskborn stood before a massive digital wall — a grid of flickering feeds, data readings, and energy scans. The city's map glowed with a single pulsing point of green — Billy's apartment.
He didn't need to ask what it was. He could feel it. The connection between their energies was growing stronger.
The mask whispered through his mind. "He dreams of you."
Draven — or whatever was left of him — tilted his head. "Then he's beginning to sense me."
"He carries the Root," the voice said. "It will either bind to you… or destroy you."
Maskborn smiled faintly beneath the living mask. "Then I'll make sure it chooses correctly."
He turned to his workbench, where something gleamed — a half-built gauntlet, humming with dark energy. Around it were shards of strange metal — pulsing faintly blue, stolen remnants of Chitauri tech.
The voice inside his mask purred. "The weapon grows. Soon, even gods will kneel."
Draven's human side, buried deep, whispered back weakly, You said we would protect the world.
The mask's surface rippled like a grin. "And we will — from itself."
The next morning, Billy dragged himself out of bed, pale and exhausted. The world outside had changed overnight.
As he walked down the street, he saw himself on phone screens, on news broadcasts through store windows — blurry clips of vines destroying the hallway, the words flashing beneath the footage:
"WHO IS THE GREEN BOY?"
"IS A NEW SUPERPOWER EMERGING IN NEW YORK?"
People whispered as he passed. Some stared. Some pointed. He could feel their eyes like daggers.
At school, everything was different. His locker was covered in notes — some mocking, some terrified.
"Freak."
"Monster."
"Stay away."
Jenna, one of the few classmates who hadn't run during the chaos, approached quietly. "Billy… what really happened that day?"
He stared at her, searching for words. "You wouldn't believe me."
She hesitated. "Try me."
He sighed. "It wasn't me, Jenna. It's something inside me. Something I can't control."
Her eyes softened, but there was fear there too. "Then you need help."
Billy looked away. "No one can help me. Not anymore."
As he turned to leave, a faint tremor rippled under his feet — subtle, but real. He froze.
Jenna frowned. "What was that?"
Billy didn't answer. Because he could feel it — not just in the ground, but inside his bones. A vibration. A pulse.
Someone — or something — was calling to him.
The same whisper from his dreams slithered through his thoughts:
"We are connected now, you and I. You cannot run from your roots."
Billy clenched his fists, breathing fast. "Get out of my head!"
But the voice only laughed.
That night, Billy sat on the roof of his apartment building, watching the city lights shimmer like stars. He felt like a ghost looking down at the world that no longer wanted him.
He whispered to the night, "I didn't ask for this."
The wind shifted — cool, gentle, carrying the smell of rain.
Then a single vine crept up from the rooftop garden, brushing against his hand like a living thing.
He didn't pull away. For the first time, it didn't feel like a curse — it felt like the earth trying to comfort him.
But deep beneath the streets, in his lair of shadows, Maskborn stood watching the same skyline through cracked glass, his mechanical drones rising into the air.
The mask whispered softly:
"He's learning control."
Draven nodded. "Good. Because when the time comes…"
He reached for the table, his hand closing around the mask.
"…I want him to fight back."