He landed hard on the asphalt, the shock of the impact rattling his teeth. The bus pulled away, its tail lights glowing like malevolent red eyes in the gathering gloom. Anakin didn't look back at the receding Warden; he simply merged with the crowd, becoming a ghost once more in a sea of strangers. The chaotic, pulsing din of the city was a jarring contrast to the silence of Silverwood, a cacophony of a thousand different Catalysts. He walked for what felt like hours, the unfamiliar neon signs of the city reflecting in his vacant eyes, each one a flashing reminder that he was lost.
The frantic energy of his escape had long since given way to a dazed, bone-weary exhaustion. His legs ached, his lungs burned, and his stomach was an empty, gnawing pit. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the profound, cold guilt that settled in his bones. He had killed him. That's what it felt like. Jax was a statue. A monument to his rage. He imagined the scene he had left behind, the shocked faces, the police tape, the unmoving figure of the bully, a permanent record of his mistake. What would the Wardens do to him? Would they turn him back into a statue, like in his past life, only this time for good? Would they lock him away in a cold, silent prison, a cage built for people who broke the rules? A familiar feeling of suffocating stillness rose in his chest. His past life had been a prison of stone, and he had just sentenced someone else to the same fate.
A powerful longing, a deep, pulling ache, began to well up inside him. A part of him, the old, terrified part, just wanted to go home. The foster home wasn't much, but it was predictable. There was a bed, a warm meal, and a quiet corner where he could be invisible. The thought of Mrs. Eleanor's weary but kind face, of the bland but comforting taste of her casserole, was a powerful lure. He just needed to get back, to pretend this day never happened. He could say he got lost. He could say anything. He turned onto a street he recognized, a silent promise to himself to walk all the way back to the familiar, unthreatening borders of Silverwood.
But as he walked, a different kind of fear, a colder, more rational dread, began to take hold. He remembered the soda can. The effortless, terrifying way his power had flared up, turning a flimsy piece of metal into solid rock just from a simple touch. What if the Wardens followed him? What if his power flared up again, without him even thinking about it, turning the house, or Mrs. Eleanor, or the other kids into stone? The image of her kind face, frozen and lifeless, was enough to stop him dead in his tracks. He couldn't risk it. He couldn't bring this chaos back to the only place he had ever felt safe.
He slumped onto a cold park bench, the streetlights buzzing a low, artificial hum above him. The tears came then, silent and hot, blurring the neon lights of the city into streaks of color. He had spent his entire new life trying to be invisible, trying to be a nobody, and in a single moment of pure, raw instinct, he had become the most conspicuous person in the city. The silence he had craved was now a weapon, and the safety he had found was an illusion. He was a fugitive, a walking paradox. He had escaped, but his power was a constant, ticking time bomb, and he had no idea how to stop it from going off. He was alone now, truly alone, with a broken moral compass that was torn between the desperate longing for home and the terrifying knowledge that he could never go back.
A bus rumbled past, its exterior screen displaying a news bulletin. The image was grainy, but unmistakable: a familiar park in Silverwood, cordoned off with bright yellow tape. In the center, a dark, bulky figure stood motionless. The anchor's voice was tinny and distant, but a few words cut through the city noise: "...unprecedented display of Chronolithization... bully named Jax... still no sign of the suspect, a teenage male with an unregistered Catalyst…" The image of the stone statue filled the screen, a perfect, detailed likeness of Jax's last moment of rage. Anakin felt a wave of nausea, the physical proof of his crime. He hadn't just petrified a bully; he had created a spectacle. The entire city would know what he was now. He was famous, but for all the wrong reasons.
He pushed himself up from the bench, his legs stiff. His hands, shoved deep into his pockets, felt like two blocks of solid granite. He had to be careful. Every touch was a potential disaster. He passed a street vendor's cart, his hand brushing against a stack of plastic containers, and a flicker of the cold, heavy feeling of his Catalyst made him pull his hand back as if burned. The containers remained plastic, but the close call was enough to make him shudder. His power wasn't a defense. It was a curse.
The thought of his foster parents, Mrs. Eleanor and her husband, filled his mind again. They were good people. They didn't deserve this. They didn't deserve to be a part of the story he had just created. He imagined the knock on their door, the questions from the Wardens, the shame in their eyes. He couldn't go back and bring that upon them. He was a walking time bomb, and the only safe place for him was far away from anyone he could hurt. He was a refugee from himself. The only way to survive was to keep moving, to find a way to silence the hum of his own power, and to disappear into the vast, indifferent noise of the city forever.