ARGHH!!!
Alex's scream tore through the ward, raw and ragged, vibrating against the cracked panels. Each contraction shredded her insides like fire coiling in steel. She clutched the rails of the gravi-lev bed, knuckles whitening, teeth clenched, jaw rigid—every push a battle against her own body.
The room reeked of antiseptic, sweat, and scorched circuits. Neon lights flickered erratically, casting jagged shadows that danced like predatory shapes across the walls. The low hum of failing gravity stabilizers vibrated her teeth, but she ignored it, focusing on the rhythm of pain and breath.
"Push! Harder! Now!" Dr. Han barked. His fingers skimmed the holo-panel, weak energy fields shimmering around her like fragile glass. Alex responded with a strangled, desperate cry, one that ricocheted off the walls and clawed through the sterile air.
Another contraction slammed into her, more violent than the last. Her back arched, legs trembling, arms on fire. Pain struck her ribs like molten knives. She swallowed a scream, forcing air past clenched teeth, her vision narrowing into white-hot focus.
The nurse adjusted a hovering drone, sending a gentle shimmer of warm energy across Alex's sweat-streaked face. The light caught in her wide, terrified eyes, reflecting the raw agony and determination etched there.
"Almost there! One more push!" Dr. Han's voice, tense but steady, cut through the haze of pain and panic.
Alex braced herself. Every fiber of her body screamed. She pushed, the scream tearing out primal and unbound, echoing as if the ward itself had lungs.
WAAAAH! WAAAAH!
A wet, piercing cry split the chaos. Alex gasped, disbelief and relief clashing violently in her chest. The nurse reached for the tiny bundle—but the wailing faltered. Crimson light burned from the infant's eyes. The baby lifted from her arms, spinning, twisting the air like liquid glass. Nurses froze, frozen mid-step, jaws slack, minds scrambling to comprehend what the laws of reality could not allow.
Pressure slammed the room. Breaths hitched, knees buckled. Walls groaned. Alex's eyes, wide and tear-filled, tracked the spectacle. Relief warred with pain. Wonder battled terror. And then her body betrayed her. Exhaustion, blood loss, and the finality of creation drained her strength. Her hands slackened, dropping from the rails. Her chest heaved once, twice—and then silence.
Outside, city spires trembled as if invisible hands were bending steel—Alarms screamed—Abyss gate detectors shrieking impossible extinction-level readings. Pulses of light fractured the night sky into jagged ribbons. Panic rippled through governments; citizens pointed skyward, faces lit with awe and terror.
Then time froze. From a shadowed corner, a figure emerged. Cosmic, silent, impossibly aware. It moved with deliberate grace, scanning the floating child with patience that made centuries feel instantaneous. Its gaze was piercing, knowing, as though it had already watched the world bend and snap under this very moment.
"Ah… so this is the one," it murmured, voice like silk over steel. "The bond succeeded. That is good… but this power is far too much for the world to bear now."
A polyhedral artifact hovered in its palm, alive with pulsing runes and circuits that seemed to breathe. With a deliberate gesture, it sank into the baby's chest, the golden light spreading as if it had always belonged there, reshaping reality in a soft, unbearable brilliance.
Time snapped. The room stilled. Pressure vanished. The baby rested quietly in the nurse's arms. The outside world seemed normal again. Screens monitoring Abyss gates blinked blank. Officials stared, dumbfounded. Citizens blinked at the night sky, wondering what impossible light had just danced above their heads. It was as if all that fiasco had never happened.
Inside, nurses rushed to Alex. Her body was cold, still. Silent. A single tear slid down one pale cheek, unnoticed as the wonder and horror of what had just occurred consumed everyone in the room.
The figure, unseen now by most, watched the child. Patient. Judging. Waiting. "Not yet," it whispered. "Not yet… the world is not ready. But one day… he will learn." Then it vanished into the shadows, leaving questions that would never be answered.