A sudden ripple from the back seat, a shift that caused the cold air to turn warm.
A presence that hadn't been there a second ago, made Leon jolt after he turned and saw a man in a dark hoodie sitting in silence.
When Mr. Lee saw the alarm on Leon's face, he gestured calmly. "This is my nephew, Feng." He turned slightly. "Feng, this is Leon."
Feng sat there smiling, his white teeth brightening like a torch. "I know," he uttered, narrowing his eyes as he leaned forward.
Even in the small car, his presence felt dense, powerful, like the air before a thunderclap.
Through the rearview mirror, Leon saw a strange, cold light flickering in the depths of Feng's gaze. They scanned him, not like a lion judging prey, but like a locksmith assessing a broken, complicated lock.
"The energy around you…" Feng murmured, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in Leon's sternum.
"It's not just unstable. It's mourning. Like a locked vault whose key was just thrown into the ocean. Dangerous." His flickering eyes paused. "And the vessel… is frail."
The words, a flat judgment that was worse than any insult, landed on Leon's raw nerves. Frail. Vessel.
"We're here," Leon whispered as Mr. Lee slowed near the crumbling outskirts of Dusthollow.
"Here?" Mr. Lee and Feng said in unison, their heads pivoting to take in the squalor.
"I… I didn't want to say I lived in the Dusthollow," Leon admitted, his face burning.
Mr. Lee's face shifted, carrying something heavier than pity, but closer to a grieving understanding. His voice dropped to a near whisper. "This is where they throw away the broken."
Feng grunted. "Let's hope the boy has some fight left in him."
Leon got out, the weight of their stares pulling him down more than the basket he respectfully took from an old woman.
"To my door, son," she hissed, her eyes like chips of flint.
He carried it, the reek of old herbs and damp cloth filling his nose.
"Thank you," she said, snatching the basket back at her threshold. As she untied her knot of keys, her voice sliced into him. "Don't be too generous; people aren't what they seem. Remember."
The word cut deep in Leon's mind, his nails raked his palms without his notice.
He turned once and saw her there, watching with a grin. He turned twice, saw her grin widened. But on his third turn, he froze.
The woman, the basket he saw her place on the door's front, and her entire house, gone. Only a damp patch on the cobblestones and a smell of ozone and wet earth remained.
Then, a sound lanced through the humid air, not a piercing tone, but a whisper that seemed to come from the walls themselves.
It didn't fade as he walked; it settled into his inner ear, a phantom resonance that hummed in tune with the strange energy Feng had named. 'Remember.'
A few meters from his own house, a different sound shredded the air. His mother's wailing.
The cry shattered his fragile composure. His legs moved on instinct, sprinting and making dusty air spiral behind him.
He barely registered his sister Lily, curled and racked with sobs on the doorstep. Inside, his mother's grief poured out in a raw, endless keen. Seeing them alone broke the last wall inside him.
For two days, the house was a tomb of silence. He moved through it like a ghost, brewing tea his mother never touched, holding Lily until her tears ran dry.
Sleep didn't come. His eyes stayed open, staring at the ceiling where his father's laughter once lived.
Upon returning to school, whispers clung to him like smoke. He moved through the halls like a specter of grief. And everywhere, Zoe's steady glance found him, a silent anchor in the storm.
On the second evening, Mr. Lee returned. He didn't offer comfort. He simply sat in their one good chair and handed Leon a thick, black envelope sealed with wax the color of clotted blood.
For good ten minutes, Mr. Lee sat there, tilting his gaze at the manner at which the room was arranged, swallowing when he saw cockroaches moving beside the chair he was in.
"The results from your first exam are in…" he said quietly. "…You didn't qualify for the standard track."
Leon's heart plunged. All his hope seemed to evaporate.
"But," Mr. Lee continued, his voice intensifying, "…your written score was off the charts. It flagged you for this."
He tapped the envelope. "A second exam. A different kind of test. This isn't about grades, it's about your awakening."
Leon clutched the envelope, his fingers trembling. A second exam? My awakening? A memory surfaced: his father's paint-stained hands on his shoulders.
"Your strength will show itself when the time is right." It had sounded like a hopeful lie. Now, it felt like a prophecy sealed in black wax.
The next day, the world felt edged and hostile. Tiger's gang shadowed him, pelting him with jeers and stones before vanishing in a storm of laughter, both on his way to school and back home.
Leon's fragile resolve hardened into something cold and sharp. He would take this exam. He would change this.
His route took him past an overflowing trash bin. A scuffle sounded from a side alley. Instinctively, Leon shrank behind a collapsed wall.
A man in a suit worth five times more than Leon's entire home stood over a crumpled figure in Dusthollow rags. Each strike was slow, deliberate.
"Please… no more…" the poor man begged, his voice a wet gurgle.
"You don't need it," the elite sneered. "A waste of a decent telekinetic flicker on garbage like you."
Ability-stealing. The theoretical horror from Mr. Lee's warnings was now ten feet away.
The elite placed a ring on his finger, its gemstone glowing a sickly green, and pressed it to the victim's forehead.
The man's scream was one of pure, spiritual violation. A visible wisp of light, a trapped will-o'-the-wisp, was torn from his body and sucked into the ring. The light in his eyes died.
The elite stood, brushing dust from his trousers. "You should be grateful I let you live," he said and spat on the motionless man.
As he walked away, Leon's fear twisted into something incandescent. 'So this is the world's truth?'
His father's words pounded in his skull. Your strength will show itself at the right time.
Without thinking, his fists curled. The air didn't just crackle - it thinned, pulling taut around his knuckles.
The taste in his mouth erupted from ozone into the searing, metallic tang of a lightning strike.
The ground at his feet didn't just tremble; a single, jagged crack sprinted through the concrete, fleeing the point beneath him.
In the grimy reflection of a puddle, he saw it – his eyes, blazing with a liquid, solar gold that swallowed the iris whole.
The fury vanished. It left a void, cold and empty, and a terrifying hunger to fill it again. The taste faded back to dust. He stared at his hands, then at the broken man in the alley. 'What… was I?'
Panic surged, hotter and stranger than before. He turned and sprinted home.
His heart wasn't just slamming; it was beating a new, jarring rhythm that felt less like fear and more like a war drum.
He scrambled up to his door, his hands – still faintly buzzing, as if asleep - outstretched. The terror wasn't just about being seen. It was a deeper, chilling realization: The power had felt good. Righteous. And it had wanted more.
He fumbled for the key, the black envelope a heavy weight in his bag, a promise and a threat all at once.