Rain tasted like rust that night.
Elias Darven stood beneath the broken streetlight, his hoodie soaked through. The world around him hummed with the low growl of the city cars, thunder, and the distant wail of a siren that no one listened to anymore.
He was sixteen.He was invisible.
Every day people walked past him. Vendors packing up their carts, exhausted workers dragging their feet home, students laughing beneath umbrellas from richer schools. None of them ever looked at him. Maybe that was the worst part of being alive in a place like this: not being hated, not being loved, just ignored.
That night he promised himself things would change. He did not know yet what that meant, only that something deep inside had started to tremble.
The call from his mother came just after sunset.Her voice was trembling, broken by static.
"Elias, go home and lock the doors. They found out—"
The words died in a burst of white noise. A muffled crash followed, then a man's voice shouting something he could not make out, and then silence.
He ran. He ran so hard his ribs burned. Sneakers slapped the pavement, breaths cutting short against the cold air. By the time he reached their apartment complex, flashing red and blue lights painted the street. Two ambulances. Three patrol cars. The smell of smoke and melted insulation hung in the rain.
Elias pushed through the crowd until someone grabbed his shoulder.
"You can't go in there, kid."
"That's my mom! Let me in! That's my mom!"
The officer's eyes flickered with pity before they turned away. That was worse than being stopped.
In that single moment, something moved inside Elias a pulse that did not belong to his heart. It beat once, sharp and cold, like thunder trapped beneath his skin.
They called it an accident. Gas leak, faulty wiring, poor building maintenance. It happens all the time in old neighborhoods, they said.
But Elias had seen the black van speeding away minutes before he arrived. He had seen the two men in dark suits standing at the corner, faces hidden beneath umbrellas, watching the flames.
When he told the police, they nodded politely and changed the subject.The next day they stopped answering his calls.
By nightfall he returned to the apartment, climbing over the yellow tape. The burned hallway smelled of chemicals and wet ash. He walked through what was left of the living room, each step crunching on broken glass and pieces of their life.
He found the picture frame on the floor half melted, half intact.A photo of him and his mother smiling at the beach three summers ago.He knelt down, brushing soot from the corner of her face.
His throat tightened until it hurt to breathe.
He pressed a hand against the blackened wall, and all the pain that had been buried under fear came rushing up.
"They took everything from me," he whispered. "Everything."
The world went silent.
Then the wall cracked.
At first it was a hairline fracture, then a sound like a gunshot.Concrete split outward as invisible pressure blasted from his palm. Dust exploded through the room, knocking him backward. For a heartbeat the air shimmered blue around his body, veins glowing faintly beneath the skin.
When he hit the floor the glow faded, but the echo of that power remained, thrumming in his bones.
He stared at his trembling hands, wide-eyed.
"What was that?"
There was no answer, only a vibration in the air a whisper without words, a promise written into his blood.
Power.
Elias rose slowly. His clothes were torn, his knuckles bleeding, but he felt no pain.Only clarity.
The city outside roared with sirens and thunder, yet for him the sound had changed. He could hear everything now the drip of water through broken pipes, the hum of electricity in the wires, the beating of his own heart like a war drum.
He understood nothing of what had just happened, but he understood one thing very clearly. Whoever had killed his mother believed they had erased another nameless woman in a forgotten neighborhood.
They were wrong.
He stepped out of the ruins and into the rain. Each drop struck his skin like sparks, cold and alive. In the reflection of a puddle he caught a glimpse of faint blue light flickering beneath his eyes, like lightning trapped behind glass.
Somewhere above the city skyline a real bolt of lightning tore through the clouds. Its glow mirrored in the cracked lenses of the security cameras that tracked his every step.
Elias Darven walked into the storm with empty hands and a heart full of fury.
The world had taken everything from him.Now it was his turn to take something back.
The storm had only just begun.