Rubble crushed my chest like a vice, dust clogging my throat with every desperate gasp. Another Ravena blackout—the third this month alone. I knew the drill: wait it out, scavenge what scraps survived, pray the corps got the grid back online before the air turned lethal.

  But this time, the voice wasn't distant thunder rolling across the dome. It echoed inside my skull, sharp and intimate.

  "Kai. WAKE."

  My body convulsed. A violet aura flared around me and the concrete slab pinning me pulverized—not cracked or shattered, but reduced to fine powder in an instant. A miniature dust devil swirled as I clawed into open air, gasping, heart hammering against my ribs. That power hadn't felt like mine. Or had it?

  The streetlights overhead flickered once and died for good. The dome fog glowed with a sickly yellow haze, Ravena's infamous 20km poison bubble sealing in the rotting corpse of the city below. Sirens had fallen silent hours ago. Project Nexus had blown—again. Standard blackout protocol kicked in: hunker down, scavenge, survive the 72 hours until the corporate overlords pumped fresh oxygen through the vents.

  Except now my entire body glowed. A faint violet aura pulsed beneath grime-blackened skin. I flexed experimentally, and a rusted rebar spear wrenched itself free from nearby debris, twisting and reshaping midair into a perfectly balanced serrated blade. The weight felt right in my grip, the edge honed to a lethal gleam. I'd never learned metalwork. This was born from nowhere.

  "Good. Use it." The voice rumbled through my teeth like gravel in a grinder, amusement lacing the words. It wasn't my voice. Panic clawed up my spine.

  I swung wildly at a toppled delivery drone half-buried in the rubble. The blade connected, and the machine vaporized into a cloud of red mist and sparking circuits. Clean. Efficient. Wrong.

  Footsteps crunched behind me through the dust. A scavenger's silhouette loomed thirty meters out, pipe raised like a club. His eyes locked on my glowing form, widening in greed or fear before narrowing to slits. He charged with a guttural scream about "glowie scraps."

  I froze, mind blank. But my body moved on its own, violet aura flaring brighter.

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  The air cracked like a rifle shot. His torso imploded, organs turning to dust before his legs crumpled to the pavement. Over in seconds. Too fast. Too clean.

  I doubled over and vomited bile onto the still-warm dust. "What the fuck—"

  "Necessary, Kai. More come." The voice approved, smug satisfaction dripping from every syllable. A golden aura flickered briefly around me, and crushed brick scraps reformed into a filter mask, straps weaving themselves to perfect fit. I shoved it over my face. The chemical tang muted instantly.

  In the distance, firelight flickered through the fog—a camp maybe half a klick east through the warehouse district. Organized shadows moved around barricades, not chaotic looters. Five figures huddled around fire barrels. Safety? Or just a bigger target for whatever possessed me?

  A tremor started in my limbs. Vision blackened at the edges. Not again.

  Light snapped back. Four more bodies lay in a perfect arc around me, pulped into unrecognizable meat. My boots were pristine—I hadn't moved. The blade was gone, melted back to slag. A maglite rested in my palm, circuits pristine, beam slicing fog like a laser.

  87 hours oxygen remaining, citywide.

  The voice chuckled low. "Run, little fracture. Or rule."

  I ran.

  The warehouse district swallowed me—twisted I-beams jutting like broken fingers, chain-link fences sagging under creep-vines thriving in Ravena's chemical soup. Fifteen, dome-native, parents long dust. Every blackout fractured the city further, domes nesting within domes as corps layered barrier fields over breaches.

  My feet pounded slick pavement. My aura pulsed warning—hearts beating, 200 meters north. Scavenger pack—they'd seen my flash.

  Golden aura hummed unasked. A dented hubcap transmuted mid-stride into a silenced rail-pistol, coils gleaming. I snatched it and fired three rounds. Muffled cracks—three silhouettes dropped.

  "Efficient," the voice approved. "But wasteful. Let me build better."

  "Shut up," I hissed, lungs burning, pushing toward distant firelight growing brighter through murk.

  Silhouettes sharpened: figures around twin fire barrels, barricades reinforced with scavenged metal. One tall shadow directed others. Another sparked faint electricity—arc-welding maybe? Powered survivors? Or better looters?

  I circled wide in fog. My aura transmuted gravel beneath me into soft, silenced footsteps, rubber soles muffling tread. Stealth came naturally now. A periscope fashioned itself—pipe and glass shard twisting into functional scope. Through it, they traded tech scraps for rations.

  A wall near camp rippled—bricks self-patching without hands. Someone else's power? Dome glitch?

  Join them? Or run solo forever? My own thoughts cut through the voice's haze.

  Tremor built worse. Vision blanked completely.

  Light returned. Six bodies total—pulped arc wider. Maglite beam swept clean across untouched boots. 87:14 O2 ticking down.

  Firelight called stronger. Organized. Alive. My only shot.

  Voices multiplied inside my head. "Run, little fracture. Or rule."

  I stumbled toward camp, violet aura flickering, dome closing in.