The stale, recycled air of Northwood High was a cocktail of my failures. Industrial cleaner, cloying perfume, and the faint, ever-present ozone that whispered of Power Cores—of awakening. It was the scent of a world I could observe but never join. I, Ark Greystone, sixteen-year-old null, moved through the crowded hallway like a ghost, my backpack straps gripped tight in sweaty palms. The din was a physical pressure, every burst of laughter a potential projectile aimed at my fragile ego.
Thump. Thump-thump.
My heart was a frantic, pathetic drum against my ribs. Tomorrow was the Entrance Exam for Valerium Hero Academy. The written test? A formality. A+ in Chemistry, A+ in Maths, A+ in Biology—my intellect was the lone fortress in a world determined to siege it. But the physical test… the biometric scan… that was the guillotine. It would measure my bio-electric field, my neural potential, and find nothing. A void. A null.
My two childhood friends, Isis McQueen and Jaxon Maximus, were living monuments to my inadequacy. Isis, with her hair of spun midnight and eyes like piercing emeralds, had awakened six months ago. She hadn't needed a spectacle; the air around her just shimmered sometimes, a heat-haze of psychic potential. When she was deep in thought, stray chalk pieces in class would orbit her fingers like tiny, dusty moons. A Telepath and Telekinetic. A definitive Alpha.
Jaxon was her opposite. Where she was subtlety and finesse, he was raw, uncontained power. Built like a young titan, his awakening had been anything but quiet. A burst of uncontrolled emotion had vaporized his family's swimming pool, leaving behind a crater of glass and steam. Pyrokinesis. Another Alpha, no question.
We'd been a trio since sandbox days. But a chasm had opened, invisible and vast. It was in their hushed, technical conversations, in the pitying glances Isis thought I didn't see, in the way Jaxon's reassuring claps on my shoulder now felt like a dismissal. They were being pulled into a world of light and power, and I was being left in the dimming twilight. I couldn't blame them. I blamed reality, a cruel evolutionary joke that had skipped my bloodline.
My morbid introspection was shattered by a voice that grated like broken glass.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the Null."
Brody. The name was a curse. He stood flanked by his cronies, Leo and Mark, a vicious smirk plastered on his face. His girlfriend, Chloe, looked on with detached amusement. He'd been my tormentor since kindergarten. And the universe, in its infinite wisdom, had gifted this bully with the power to manipulate sound.
"Not today, Brody," I muttered, trying to sidestep him.
"Did you say something?" he sneered, not moving. "Sound travels funny around me." He flicked his wrist. There was no visible blast, just a sudden, immense WHUMP of compressed air that hit my chest like a silent truck. I was flung backwards, my feet skidding uselessly, crashing into a group of students in a tangled mess of limbs, textbooks, and startled yelps.
Pain flared in my back. Laughter erupted from Brody's crew, a harsh, discordant sound he conducted for maximum effect.
"Oops," he said, voice dripping with false sympathy. "Clumsy me."
Tears of humiliation pricked my eyes. I blinked them back fiercely, scrambling to gather my books. As I stood, I saw Jaxon. He was leaning against lockers, surrounded by three girls, a small, controlled flame dancing like a living coin over his knuckles. Pyrokinesis as a parlor trick. His eyes met mine, and a flicker of something—guilt, pity—crossed his face before he offered a small, awkward wave.
Then, a presence materialized at my elbow, startling me so badly I nearly dropped my books again.
"Hey, Ark!"
Isis. I flinched, my whole body tensing. A coward, through and through. Maybe that's why the universe had denied me.
"You startled me, Isis," I stammered.
Her smile was warm but distant, a flame behind glass. "Sorry. You okay? I saw what happened." Her emerald eyes focused on me, and I felt it—a subtle, feather-light pressure against my mind. A psychic touch, her telepathy gently probing my emotional state, checking for damage.
"It's nothing new," I shrugged, the lie feeling flimsy under her gaze.
We fell into step, talking about nothing. It was stilted, forced. Jaxon extricated himself and joined us, his presence an electric charge that shifted the atmosphere.
"...been practicing my control," he was saying, the flame on his finger extinguished with a puff of smoke. "I can generate a plasma whip now. The physical exam tomorrow should be a breeze."
"Same," Isis said, a flicker of excitement in her voice. A textbook from a nearby locker twitched, its cover fluttering as if in a breeze only it could feel. "Telekinesis is all about finesse. It's not just moving things; it's feeling the space between molecules."
They both looked at me. I had nothing. I was a spectator.
"Uh, that's great. I'm just hoping for the Science and Tech track," I managed.
The silence was heavy. Jaxon clapped my shoulder, his hand radiating a comforting warmth. "You'll ace the written part, buddy. You're the smartest guy I know."
But not strong, hung unspoken in the air. Not like us.
We parted ways at the school gates. Their path led towards a future of glory and light. Mine led to an empty, silent house. The walk home was an eternity. Each step was a leaden weight, the cheerful chirping of birds and the distant sounds of the city a mockery of my inner turmoil. The world was a vibrant, dangerous place, threatened by Gateways to Otherworlds that disgorged monsters and mysteries. And humanity's only defence rested on the shoulders of kids like Jaxon and Isis. Kids with Power Cores. Kids who were leaving me behind.
The house was exactly as I'd left it: quiet, still, and filled with ghosts. I'd lived with my Grandpa since I was five, after the car accident that took my parents. He'd been a quiet, kind man, an engineer at the high-tech conglomerate, Galaxy Corp. Like me, like my parents, he'd never developed a power. A year ago, a quiet heart attack had taken him too, leaving me alone with a modest inheritance that would see me through school. The silence was my only constant companion.
I'd turned sixteen yesterday. Isis and Jaxon had taken me out for pizza. It had been nice, a fleeting echo of the old days, but the undercurrent was still there—the chasm.
I had just slumped onto the worn sofa, the day's humiliation a fresh wound, when a sharp, precise knock echoed through the silent house. My heart leaped into my throat. No one ever visited.
Cautiously, I peered through the peephole. A man in a severe black business suit stood on the porch, his posture ramrod straight. A lawyer? Had I done something wrong?
I opened the door a crack. "Yes?"
"Ark Greystone?" he asked, his voice as crisp and impersonal as his suit.
"That's me."
He produced a small, polished wooden box, no bigger than my hand. "My name is Mr. Sterling. I was your grandfather's attorney. He left very specific instructions. This was to be delivered to you on your sixteenth birthday."
He handed me the box. It was heavier than it looked, the wood smooth and cool under my fingertips. "What is it?"
"My duty was only to deliver it," he said with a curt nod. "Good day." And with that, he turned and walked away, his shoes clicking a sharp rhythm on the pavement until he disappeared around the corner.
I stood in the doorway for a long moment, just staring at the box. My grandfather had been gone for a year. What could this possibly be? A final birthday present from beyond the grave? A nervous curiosity bubbled up inside me, momentarily eclipsing my self-pity.
Back inside, I placed the box on the coffee table. The lid was sealed with a simple, brass clasp. I took a deep breath and opened it.
Nestled within a bed of black velvet was a single object: a USB drive. But it was unlike any I had ever seen. It was sleek, obsidian-black, and seemed to drink the light from the room. Its surface was etched with faint, silvery lines that resembled a circuit board, but the pattern was alien, impossibly complex.
My grandpa had worked for Galaxy Corp. He'd always been tinkering, building things. Was this some kind of prototype? A final project?
My eyes drifted to my laptop, sitting on the desk. It, too, had been a gift from him two years ago. A custom-built machine, he'd said, "for a brilliant mind." It felt like a sign.
With trembling hands, I picked up the mysterious drive. It was cold, unnaturally so. I plugged it into a USB port on the laptop.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, the screen went black. Not a sleep-mode black, but a deep, absolute void. The hum of the laptop's fan died, and the room fell into an eerie silence.
"Great. It crashed my system," I muttered, reaching for the power button.
Before my finger could touch it, the screen flickered back to life. But it was wrong. Instead of my familiar desktop, the screen was a deep, star-flecked blackness, like a window into deep space. In the centre, lines of luminous, cyan code began to scroll, faster and faster, a waterfall of light and information. It wasn't a language I recognized—a mix of binary, hexadecimal, and symbols that looked almost… arcane.
The code began to pulse, the light from the screen casting the entire room in a cold, blue glow. A low, mechanical beeping started, soft at first, then growing in volume and urgency. Beep. Beep-beep. BEEP.
A sudden, searing pain erupted behind my eyes. I cried out, clutching my head as it felt like a hot needle was being driven directly into my brain. The lines of code weren't just on the screen anymore; they were behind my eyelids, searing themselves onto my optic nerves, flooding my mind. It was a data stream, a torrent of pure information—schematics, combat forms, chemical formulae, energy matrices—all of it pouring into my consciousness, a firehose of knowledge that my mind was too small to contain.
The world spun. The mechanical beeping was inside my skull now, a countdown to my own destruction. I screamed, a raw, terrified sound, before the pressure became too much, and everything went black.
---
Sunlight, warm and intrusive, stabbed at my eyelids. I groaned, my head throbbing with a dull, persistent ache. I was on the floor, my limbs stiff and cold. I had been out all night. The exam! Panic jolted me fully awake. I scrambled to my feet, my body protesting.
The laptop screen was dark, the mysterious USB drive sitting beside it, inert and seemingly ordinary. Had it all been a bizarre, stress-induced dream? A hallucination?
I stumbled towards the bathroom to splash water on my face, the events of the previous night a chaotic, painful blur. As I stared at my pale, wide-eyed reflection in the mirror, it happened.
A soft, digital chime sounded, not in the room, but inside my head. My vision flickered, the edges turning to static. Then, directly in the centre of my field of view, text materialized, crisp and luminous, superimposed over my own startled face.
[BIOMETRIC SCAN INITIATED...]
[HOST VITALS: STABLE.]
[NEURAL INTERFACE: SYNCHRONIZED.]
[POWER CORE DETECTED... ANALYZING...]
I stumbled back from the mirror, my heart hammering against my ribs. This wasn't a dream. The words hung in the air, transparent yet perfectly legible. I waved a hand in front of my face; the text remained, fixed in place.
[ANALYSIS COMPLETE.]
[CORE DESIGNATION: ASSASSIN.]
[CORE RANK: **ALPHA**.]