I open my eyes.

  Darkness crushes me immediately. A pain pulses behind my forehead, slow, thick, like a heartbeat in the wrong place. I stay still. My breathing catches. One second. Two.

  Stay.

  My fingers tense before I tell them to. Nails scrape at nothing. My shoulders follow, then my legs. The muscles respond. No collapse—just that raw presence hanging in place, heavy, suspended.

  A smell hits. Leather, old and saturated. It fills my mouth and sits there. My jaw tightens.

  I take a step. The ground absorbs the motion. No echo. The air doesn’t move around me. I extend my hand slightly, palm open, as if I could touch the space itself. Nothing resists. Nothing yields.

  My hand slides to the back of my skull. Wet. My fingers stick. I bring them in front of me. Even without light, I know.

  Blood.

  My throat tightens. I swallow. The metallic taste follows. I keep it there. I breathe slower.

  An image crosses my mind without warning. A park. A branch. A yellow chrysalis hanging there. My hand stopping mid-gesture for no reason.

  I blink. The image remains. The rest is empty.

  A name rises. Heyo.

  That’s all.

  My chest lifts deeper. I inhale. I exhale.

  If everything stopped here, my body would simply drop.

  I tilt my head slightly.

  “Is anyone there?”

  My voice cracks a little more than I expected. The darkness swallows it.

  I stay standing.

  The silence doesn’t change. I will stay here. If something happens, it will show itself.

  My vision floods with brutal white. My body is yanked forward. The ground vanishes beneath me, air slams into my chest, and direction collapses—up and down stop meaning anything. There’s only a continuous pull, disorienting, brief.

  Something gives under my weight and absorbs part of the impact. The surface is uneven, soft. The smell shifts instantly, wetter, organic. Grass.

  Air moves around me and a light wind brushes the back of my neck. Heat presses in, too sharp. After that compact darkness, the light is almost unbearable; colors seem sharper than they should be. My eyelids stay half-closed for a few seconds. My eyes sting.

  I don’t move.

  A man stands over me. He holds an old leather bag open, shakes it, turns it over, and checks inside. Like inventory.

  He takes a drag from his cigarette, smoke escaping slowly.

  “Your Mots really lets you trap people in that old sack?”

  His voice is calm. He doesn’t look at me. He speaks to the filthy man a little farther off, nervous, unstable. The other snickers.

  “Exactly. I knocked him out, then locked the merchandise inside.”

  The word lands. I don’t resist it. Merchandise. A brief heat crosses my chest. Useless.

  Trees too far apart. Open sky. No immediate cover. Moving now would offer my back. I push myself up slowly, just enough not to remain on the ground, not enough to provoke.

  The shot fires without warning.

  The sound cracks sharp. My body tightens before my thoughts catch up. The gun is already raised. The filthy man’s head bursts with a short, wet noise. The shooter doesn’t lower his weapon. His hand remains perfectly steady. The barrel still smokes.

  The bag vanishes from his hand in a faint flicker, like it never existed. Here, value lasts one second. I’m still breathing because I represent money.

  He doesn’t even look at the body.

  “Just touching him disgusts me. His Mots, however, is useful. Mercenary contract.”

  A new bag appears at his side. One second there’s nothing. The next, it’s there. I stare at the exact point where it appeared. Mercenary contract. Not a phrase. A rule.

  He finally turns toward me. His gaze doesn’t try to understand me. It measures me—general condition, potential value, transportable. Nothing else.

  Ugly.

  The barrel settles against my forehead. The contact is precise. The metal is cold.

  My body freezes before I can command it. A violent heat rises in my chest as my heart slams too hard. My vision narrows slightly around the black circle in front of me.

  A twitch of his finger. End.

  Move.

  Darkness would make sense.

  Shoot.

  …

  No. Wait.

  What is a Mots. I want to understand.

  “Get in the bag.”

  The voice carries no anger. No threat.

  Resisting would be useless. For now. The bag buys time. I accept.

  I lower my eyes, slow my breathing deliberately, and lean toward the opening. I fold without abruptness. The darkness closes around me, tighter than the previous one.

  I’m not saved. Only moved. And as long as I’m carried, I remain alive. The pressure in my chest persists. I ignore it.

  The leather smell turns nauseating. But this calm is exact. Voices filter through the material, muffled, distant. The bag changes hands. I feel it in the shift of weight, in the rhythm of the swing.

  Light spits me back onto the ground. I roll in the grass before steadying myself on one knee.

  Someone stands in front of me. Young. White hood marked with a black hourglass symbol. Gray strands fall across his forehead. Blue eyes, clear, effortless. He looks at me for a second—just enough to assess what he’s carrying. The same empty gaze. He isn’t much older than me. That shouldn’t matter. It does.

  Two silhouettes emerge from the tree line. One wears a pink suit too loud to be innocent. The other a perfectly fitted black suit. Their stride is steady, unhurried, like they’re arriving at a long-planned meeting.

  “We’re here to retrieve our property. Ka?ro, right?”

  The young man tilts his head slightly.

  “Yes.”

  Flat.

  I shift my eyes slightly. Farther away, the man in the coat lies motionless. Dead. No one slows. The body no longer matters.

  Ka?ro’s hand clamps onto my collar and before I understand what’s happening, the ground disappears beneath my feet. My body cuts through the air without resistance, then the impact tears the breath from me, my palms scraping dirt with a dry burn. He moved me as if I weighed nothing.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Delivery completed. I want my money.”

  His voice matches his gaze.

  I remain on my knees, breath uneven, fingers digging into the soil without noticing. Pressure forms behind my ribs, slow, compact, and the more it settles, the faster my thoughts run. I stay there, still, docile despite myself.

  Anger can wait. Survival can’t. I slow my breathing deliberately. I maintain control with difficulty.

  “He awakened his Mots?” the man in pink asks.

  “No,” Ka?ro answers.

  “Perfect.”

  Awaken a Mots. This world works differently. A Mots… an ability. Something you activate. And I don’t have it. If a Mots exists, then maybe it’s in me. They speak of me like an object waiting to be switched on. If I awaken mine, it could give me an exit.

  I try to rise slowly. My body protests, but I force it anyway, enough to regain a semblance of height without drawing attention.

  “Mato.”

  The impact hits my stomach before I register the motion. Air vanishes. My body folds on its own, knees slamming into the ground, and a metallic taste floods my mouth before I vomit into the dirt. When I lift my head, vision unstable, the man in black glasses is already turning away. One strike. Enough.

  “Don’t bother.”

  A wad of bills appears in the pink-suited man’s hand. Money changes hands without discussion. Ka?ro takes the bills without counting them. He doesn’t look at me.

  I remain on my knees. Pain drills through my gut but I lift my head anyway. I search for his eyes without knowing why. One second would be enough.

  Nothing.

  Break his neck.

  My body takes a step before I understand.

  Too late.

  I freeze.

  Fuck.

  My hand clamps around my own forearm without choosing the movement. Fingers dig in. Skin gives slightly. I squeeze harder. A dry crack runs up my elbow. The joint protests. I squeeze again.

  He turns his back.

  It’s useless. Moving now is dying. Dying for him without him even having to see me. I force my fingers to loosen. Slowly. The hand still trembles.

  I lock onto his silhouette until it dissolves between the trees. The name remains.

  Ka?ro.

  Projection. Him facing me. Unable to look away this time.

  It’s the first time my mind moves beyond the instant. The first time I think of an after.

  One day, he will see me.

  “Hi.”

  The voice comes from behind me and my body locks before thought catches up. My breathing stops. My shoulders tense. I turn slowly.

  She’s there.

  Impeccable silver uniform. Three stars sewn at the collar. Black beret marked with the same insignia. Upright posture. Perfectly stable. No wasted movement. Nothing misplaced. Her amber eyes settle on me with precise, almost clinical attention. She seems certain.

  “Leave.”

  The tone is low.

  And yet the others vanish immediately. In seconds, it’s just her and me.

  My voice trembles despite me.

  “Thank you for saving me.”

  Her smile widens slightly.

  “Saved?”

  Wrong assumption.

  “You’re with the government, right?”

  If she confirms, there may be structure. A rule. A procedure.

  “Yes. I’m évra.”

  She tilts her head slightly.

  “And you. Do you know what you are?”

  My throat tightens instantly. The question sounds simple, almost casual, but it strikes where nothing exists. What I am? I remain still one beat too long. The absence of an answer is an answer.

  “What I am…?”

  She steps closer, unhurried. Her gaze doesn’t leave mine.

  “An anomaly.”

  Anomaly?

  A pause.

  “An anomaly that will be executed.”

  This world doesn’t want me dead out of hatred. It wants me dead for coherence.

  And if coherence vanished?

  Her hand closes around my neck. Air cuts off clean. My body struggles by reflex, uselessly, before being thrown forward. Branches explode. My back slams into a trunk with dry violence. Legs don’t respond anymore. Arms neither.

  Blood runs down my face. Breathing becomes an assault. Disappearing slowly wouldn’t be unpleasant. It hurts. I could stop. Just stop. It would be calm.

  Let go.

  No.

  I still don’t know what a Mots is. That thought burns more than the pain.

  I want it to stop.

  But I’m going to die ignorant. Unacceptable. Vision blurs. The body lightens. Pain fades.

  Let go.

  Shut up.

  I want to know. Now. Not later. Not in another world. Here.

  I want to understand what stands above me.

  Give me the answer.

  Now.

  I strike.

  My fist shoots forward without a target. It hits nothing. It tears through empty air. My shoulder nearly rips under the effort. The gesture is useless.

  A brutal pressure floods my skull. Not physical pain. Deeper. As if something is compressing my thoughts directly.

  What is that. A yellow chrysalis hangs from a branch.

  Open it completely.

  I reach for the branch. I tear it down. Wood splits in my palm.

  A sentence rises. I speak it aloud.

  “I… will… be… free… to… possess… all… the… objects… in… the… world.”

  The sentence doesn’t feel foreign. As if I once thought it and forgot.

  Something gives.

  Total darkness.

  That’s it. It’s over. The pressure withdraws all at once and my body stops demanding anything, pain switches off like a light cut, and I float inside a thick softness that wraps around me completely. It feels wrong that it feels good. My chest is light. My head too. Everything slows. Thoughts dissolve before they fully form and I let myself drift without resisting.

  It’s comfortable. Too comfortable. We could stay here. Forever. No need to understand. No need to choose. Just this diffuse warmth absorbing me while I stretch mentally into something vast and without edges, as if I could dissolve into it without effort, without tension, without resistance.

  I’m elsewhere.

  I stand in a strange world… on the summit of a dark stone spike piercing a sea of gray clouds, still, compact, suspended. No wind moves through them. No sound circulates. Space remains stable. That stability feels familiar.

  I crouch and press my hand against the rock. It doesn’t shift under pressure. My presence introduces no difference. The place functions without me.

  A word imposes itself without a voice. LIBRE.

  It lands like fact.

  My arm lifts toward the covered sky. The gesture is controlled. The clouds don’t react. I refine the intention. Grasp. Bring forth. Possess. The motion crosses space but always stops at the same point. As long as I designate something, I remain contained.

  Then stop being contained.

  I let my arm fall.

  I stop aiming. I no longer direct my intention toward a defined point. The space doesn’t change. But the pressure that accompanies every attempt begins to break apart. Without a target, the frame has no hold. Absence offers no resistance.

  The summit loses consistency. Space folds. Not gently. It twists around me. A thin fissure slices through the gray mass above. It pulls inward.

  I’m lying in the pool of blood.

  Energy overflows. I give it no command. It acts anyway. My bones realign without care. Fibers reconnect. It sticks, welds, seals without finesse. Every junction burns. I removed no limit. It makes sense it has none.

  évra is there. Another woman stands at her side. I register them. That’s it.

  évra smiles. Her excitement is visible.

  “Perfect, kid. That’s what an anomaly looks like.”

  She leans forward slightly.

  “Let me test your power.”

  She disappears. A colossal force hits me and, in the same instant, the energy responds. Impact and response arrive together. Faster than thought. évra is thrown back. So am I.

  Light doesn’t emerge from a single point. It erupts everywhere and slices through everything in its path. I don’t strike anyone. The world gives.

  I crash, roll, slide, then everything stops. I didn’t ask for anything.

  But I could.

  This power doesn’t intoxicate me. It observes me as much as I observe it.

  évra’s gaze shifts. She understood before I did. The excitement fades. Something darker replaces it.

  She turns to the other woman.

  “Célia.”

  Her voice tight.

  “Prepare the sealing. We don’t have time.”

  Célia pales. Her fingers tremble.

  “Buy a little more time. Just a little.”

  évra inhales slowly. A bead of sweat slides down her temple. She wipes it away without taking her eyes off me.

  “Fine.”

  She straightens. Her posture changes. Her silhouette densifies. Her legs take the form of a cheetah’s, long and taut, ready to spring. Her arms grow massive, heavy, powerful like a gorilla’s. Her amber eyes ignite with something older. The transformation is contained. That’s her Mots.

  évra faces me.

  My arm extends.

  Hundreds. Then thousands. Refrigerators. Cars. Blades. Weapons. They appear without origin.

  Shadow covers the ground. Everything floats above us in unstable balance. I’m not selecting anything.

  Select everything.

  The objects align toward évra.

  She swallows. For the first time, her certainty fractures. Célia loses focus for a fraction of a second, just enough for the energy around her to waver.

  The objects tremble in the air. Something slips. My body gives out. One knee hits the ground. My arm falls heavy at my side.

  The next instant, every object vanishes. They simply stop existing, as if they were never there. The sky empties.

  Célia regains control. évra stares at me.

  And I collapse.

  I scream. My throat tears from the strain. Skin splits into luminous lines, white veins surfacing beneath it. Every heartbeat strikes too violently.

  Control slips.

  Let it go.

  I clamp down on everything I can. Every second is torture. One thought remains. Hold long enough.

  Or erase everything.

  The world closes around that single idea.

  A cold object drives through my chest. There is no immediate pain. évra stands behind me. The object protrudes from my torso, soaked in blood.

  Death is stable. This Mots isn’t.

  A second motion follows. She twists it inside my chest. This time pain detonates, rips the air from my lungs. Weight crashes down. Breath shatters. Vision fades.

  It’s strange to notice now, but I still haven’t said anything. Dying without a word. That bothers me.

  In one last surge, a whisper escapes.

  I look at her.

  “Thank you.”