His tears threatened to fall, but he forced himself to hold them back.
The assistant's words kept replaying in his mind — a dull echo that wouldn't fade.
"You are blank."
Ben didn't need an explanation. He knew what that meant. It meant nothing good. He couldn't believe it. Was it real?
Everything he had ever hoped for... gone in a second.
He had even begged them to run another test. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe the system glitched. If both his mother and father had Aethers, it would only make sense that he would too.
But no. The results were the same.
The son was a failure.
Ben stepped out of the testing room. The hallway was already buzzing. Laughter. Whispers. The kind that spreads fast.
They already knew.
"Ben, aren't you the special one? The guy with no Aether?"
"When we defend the Earth, you'll be the one carrying our luggage!"
"Don't worry, Ben. We'll protect you from your disease."
"So, which Aether were you hoping for, Ben?"
Each voice hit him like a hammer strike. He tried to smile, but it faltered and died almost immediately.
He walked out of the building. The air was clear, the sky stretched wide and blue. The sun poured down in golden light, the kind of day most people would call beautiful.
But for Ben, it might as well have been ash and shadow.
At the edge of the park, he looked down at the grass — the same place from his dream that morning. That nightmare where he'd also been blank.
"So dreams really do come true," he murmured, letting out a dry, humorless chuckle.
It wasn't joy that escaped him. Maybe it was sadness. Maybe it was anger. Maybe both.
___
People like him had a place in the world.
Just not the one he wanted.
Those without Aethers — the Blanks — were the ones who opened bakeries, fixed cars, or worked construction.
Never the military. Never the front lines.
They didn't take people like them.
"Damn," Ben muttered under his breath.
For the first time, the future he had imagined for himself felt completely out of reach.
Then—
The ground shook.
"An earthquake?" Ben glanced around, eyes narrowing toward the distant rumble. The sound grew louder, deeper, until the earth and the air itself seemed to roar.
Behind him, the building started to shake. Glasses shattered. Concrete split. Then, slowly, terribly, the entire structure collapsed inward.
The sound was deafening. Dust exploded into the air. Screams were cut off almost instantly.
From the smoking crater, the earth swelled and split open. Something enormous forced its way up from below. A monstrous machine bursting through the ground with a violent roar.
Three enormous legs slammed into the ground, stabilizing it.
The upper body rotated with a grinding, mechanical shriek. Then it rose higher, towering over the ruins like a god made of steel and hate.
Its head, a twisted fusion of copper and iron. Swiveled with a deep metallic groan. The thing stood upon the wreckage, a sentinel of dominance and destruction.
Ben froze, his charcoal-black eyes wide. "What the hell…?" he whispered.
A red light blinked to life on the machine's head, growing brighter by the second.
In an instant, a beam lanced outward —a burning streak that turned the yard, the people, everything around him into ash and silence.
Ben's breath hitched. His mind screamed.
"Have I seen this…? " The thought came too late.
Then the red light reached him.
Ben's eyes snapped open.
A white ceiling. Anime posters on the walls. His room.
He sat up fast, heart hammering. "Damn… what a horrible dream."
"Ben! Wake up, or you're gonna be late!" came a soft voice from downstairs.
"Alright, Mom," he called back, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Man.. I hate school."
Ben looked at himself in the mirror. Charcoal eyes stared back at him from under the mess of smooth black hair sticking out in every direction.
Then — crack! — the mirror slipped and shattered on the floor.
"What the—?" He froze.
His dream started replaying in his mind. The broken glass, the same morning, the same voice calling him to wake up.
This was the third time it happened.
And his mom's words. Every one of them, were identical.
He swallowed hard. "This can't be real," he whispered, but it all felt too familiar. It was like he was trapped in a memory he couldn't escape.
He cleaned up the shards, showered quickly, and soon the rhythm of his morning continued like a script:
His mom serving pancakes, his dad reading the paper, sipping coffee,.. the same scene all over again.
"So, which Aether are you hoping for, Ben?" his mother asked, smiling, exactly like before.
He blinked. The words echoed in his head. The same question. The same smile.
"Mom…" he asked slowly, "what if I turn out blank?"
Her expression softened. "Don't worry, son. That won't happen. It only happens when both parents have no Aether, or only one doesn't,...and your father and I both have ours. But even if you were blank, you'd still be our son."
"Yeah, kiddo. Always," his father added, without lowering his newspaper.
Ben's stomach turned. He could already see how the rest of the day would unfold. Every moment, every sound.
The bus arrived, filled with laughter and chatter, everyone excited about discovering their destinies. But Ben stayed quiet. He already knew what was coming.
They arrived at the Aether Assessment Center. The same glass tower. The same circular testing room.
It was all happening again.
The same woman entered — neat ponytail, glasses, clipboard pressed tight to her chest.
She began reading names.
"Sophia Aron."
"Cia Baker."
Ben's lips moved before hers could. "And… Ben Black."
Heads turned. She looked at him, startled, but he didn't wait for her to finish.
He stepped forward into the testing chamber. His blood was drawn. His hand pressed against the crystal, glowing faintly blue, then fading to white.
"Sorry, Mr. Black," the assistant began softly. "It seems you're—"
"Blank," Ben finished flatly. "Yeah. I already know."
He turned and walked out, pulse rushing in his ears. But as he reached the corridor, a cold thought struck him.
The dream hadn't ended here.
In it, the building collapsed.
A giant machine had risen from the ground.
And everyone had died.
His eyes widened. He spun toward the exit.
"I need to warn the others," he whispered.
Then the floor trembled.