Four teenagers ran through the makeshift obstacle course under the soft, forgiving light of the spring sun. The air smelled of damp earth and crushed grass, churned up by dozens of previous runs. What had once been a quiet clearing near the cabin had been transformed into something ugly, deliberate, and exhausting.
Jake stood off to the side with his prosthetic arm folded across his chest, watching every step, every stumble, every moment of hesitation. He had designed the course himself, pulling from memories he would rather forget. Uneven climbs over jagged stone. Crawling through thick mud that clung to clothes and skin alike. Narrow passages where balance mattered more than strength. None of it was elegant. All of it was meant to hurt.
Each run through the course was called a death run.
After some thought, Jake had limited it to one run per person per session. Any more than that, and the lesson would turn into punishment rather than preparation. He had learned the hard way that survival was not built through cruelty alone.
The course was not just physical. Ace oversaw the combat drills woven between obstacles. Blunted weapons, controlled strikes, and brutal honesty. Jake would have preferred to teach them himself, but his own fighting ability was difficult to explain, even to himself. His movements came naturally, instinctively, without conscious thought. He did not remember learning how to fight. He only remembered suddenly knowing how.
That alone made him uneasy.
More troubling was the fact that his so called clarity in battle had failed him more than once. Against the albino wolf, his mind had fractured under fear and loss. Whatever his gift truly was, it was not a calm, unshakable focus. If anything, it seemed to abandon him when he needed it most.
That suspicion only deepened after he gained magic.
When Marquis implanted the wolf's magic core into his body, he had described the process with visible confusion. Too smooth. That was the phrase he used. Normally, integrating a magic core required ritual circles, specialized tools, and a team of experienced mages. The body was meant to resist, to fight the foreign object, slowly adapting over weeks or months.
Jake's body had done none of that.
It had swallowed the core whole, absorbed it as if it had always belonged there. Marquis had gone pale when it happened. Jake still remembered sitting there, heart pounding, watching Marquis's eyes widen in shock. For a brief, absurd moment, Jake had been convinced something had gone horribly wrong and that he was about to die.
In hindsight, the panic was almost funny.
Now, Jake could use two spells reliably. A barrier, translucent and humming with faint energy, and small Aetherium bolts that cracked through the air like concentrated lightning. The devastating fire the wolf had wielded remained beyond his reach. Whether it was a matter of practice or limitation, he did not know.
The four teenagers staggered to the end of the course, breathing hard, clothes streaked with mud and sweat. Jake straightened and addressed them.
"Take twenty. Then head to Ace for practice," he said evenly. "Bruises are fine. Broken bones are not. I do not want to see any of you in a sling."
They nodded and shuffled toward the cabin. Evan lingered for a moment, shame written plainly across his face before he followed the others.
Of the four, Evan was the strongest, at least physically. His gift enhanced his strength, but not consistently. One moment he was no stronger than an average teenager. The next, he could strike with enough force to seriously injure a grown man. That unpredictability made him dangerous, especially to people he cared about.
Jake had not forgotten the sharp crack of bone when Evan had accidentally broken Aya's wrist during training. Evan had not forgotten it either.
Since then, Evan only trained directly with Ace, who could withstand mistakes without consequence. Around the others, Evan was careful, restrained. It explained why he had not fought back when Aya and Beatrice had ambushed him with pillows days earlier.
Beatrice's gift was gentler, though no less strange. Nature responded to her. Plants grew faster in her presence. Animals lingered nearby, curious rather than fearful. When she tried to explain her ability, she had shrugged and said it felt like speaking a language she barely understood.
"Like a white kid who took a couple Spanish classes trying to talk to someone who's lived in Veracruz their whole life," she had said.
Jake had nodded, pretending to understand. He did not know where Veracruz was, but he understood the feeling of inadequacy. He also privately acknowledged that he absolutely would have been that kid.
Aya's gift was simpler. Endurance. She could run for hours without slowing, her breathing steady, her muscles refusing to fail. Back on Earth, she had loved long distance running, talking excitedly about marathons and mountains Jake had never heard of. Whatever those races were, they sounded miserable.
Then there was Oliver.
Jake still did not know what Oliver's gift was.
When Jake had first explained this world to him, explained Beyonders and powers and survival, he had asked Oliver what he loved most back on Earth. Oliver's answer had been quiet, hollow.
"I didn't have anything. I hated my life."
That had stayed with Jake.
He had seen that emptiness before. He had lived it. After his mother died, after Bob's abuse hollowed him out, Jake had believed hope was a lie people told themselves to sleep better at night. Somehow, he had learned to live anyway. Not for meaning. Not for destiny. Just to keep going.
That was why he pushed Oliver to stay close to the others. Friendship was not a cure, but it was a start.
Jake headed inside the cabin, nodding to Lucy and Rowan curled together on the couch. Lucy had changed since the expedition. The cold edge she once carried had softened. She had confessed her feelings to Rowan without hesitation, and now they fit together as if they had always belonged that way.
Jake was glad for them.
Loss had a way of making happiness feel fragile.
Emily had not taken Lucas's death well. Neither had Jake. Grief had drawn them together in quiet conversations, sometimes joined by Marquis. Marquis rarely spoke during those moments. He listened, offered brief advice, then left. Jake suspected the silence hid wounds deeper than any of theirs. His closest friends, his partner, all lost during the fortress assault.
Jake still remembered Dave and Esther's bodies, torn apart. The memory refused to fade.
He forced himself to stop thinking about it.
The present mattered more.
Jake sat on his bed, opened his journal, and began writing about the day. The training. The progress. The small moments of normalcy.
Then pain erupted in his chest.
It was sudden and overwhelming, like something clawing outward from inside him. Jake gasped, the pen clattering to the floor as he clutched at his chest. His vision blurred. A scream tore from his throat before he could stop it.
The sickness was back.
And this time, it felt worse.