Aren ran.
He didn't know where he was going—only that his legs wouldn't stop moving.
The city tore past him in broken fragments. Streetlights stretched into molten lines. Walls bent. The air screamed as he cut through it, every step slamming shockwaves into the ground behind him.
His lungs burned.
Slow down.
His body ignored the thought.
Fear pushed him faster.
He leapt without thinking—and the ground never met him.
Wind rushed up, violent and cold, but it didn't throw him down. It held him. His feet skimmed the air like they were touching invisible stairs, each step sending him higher.
"No—no—no—!"
Aren flailed.
The city dropped away.
Buildings shrank. Sirens dulled. The noise of the world faded until there was only the howl of wind and the frantic pounding of his heart.
He was flying.
Not gracefully. Not heroically.
He was panicking.
His body tilted sideways. The sky spun. Clouds rushed toward him like walls. He screamed and twisted, arms thrown wide—
—and suddenly steadied.
The wind shifted.
It pressed against his back, his arms, his chest, like hands correcting his balance. His fall slowed. His spin stopped.
He hung there.
Breathing hard.
Alive.
Aren swallowed and looked down.
The city was far below now. Tiny. Fragile. Like a model someone could crush between their fingers.
"I'm… in the sky," he whispered.
The words felt illegal.
A laugh bubbled up—sharp and broken—then died before it could become real. His mother's face flashed in his mind. The bread bag. The collapsing tower.
I should be dead.
Something rippled through his chest.
He tried to move.
The moment he thought forward, the world lunged.
Air exploded past him. Clouds tore apart. Aren shot across the sky, barely keeping his eyes open as tears were ripped from them.
He slowed instinctively, arms spreading, body rising with the wind.
So that's how it worked.
Not muscles.
Intent.
"Don't… don't lose control," he muttered.
Below him, emergency lights flashed like dying stars. Fires burned where the tower had fallen.
People were trapped.
The thought struck harder than the wind.
I can reach them.
Fear twisted into something else—something heavier.
Responsibility.
Aren clenched his fists.
He dove.
The air roared as he fell, faster and faster, heat building along his skin. At the last second, he angled his body and ran across the air itself, slamming into the street in a thunderclap that cracked pavement.
People screamed.
Aren moved anyway.
He ran into smoke, into falling debris, into danger—pulling people free, dragging bodies away, his movements a blur of wind and force. Steel bent under his hands. Flames vanished behind him.
Then it was over.
He stood alone in the wreckage, chest heaving, hands shaking.
Someone stared at him.
Then another.
Phones came out.
Aren felt it then—that sharp, crawling sensation between his shoulders.
Being seen.
This wasn't the sky.
This was a cage.
Before anyone could speak, Aren turned and ran.
He didn't fly this time.
He stayed low, fast, vanishing into the night—leaving behind whispers, recordings, and a question the world would never stop asking.
What was that thing?
High above, the clouds rolled slowly together.
And the wind followed him.