Caelum woke up with a sense of emptiness that didn't resemble hunger.
It wasn't his stomach that was protesting.
It was himself.
When he opened his eyes, panic hit him immediately.
His right arm.
From the elbow down to his fingertips, his skin had changed.
It was no longer fully solid.
It was an unstable mixture of flesh and a vibrant violet-and-white mist, as if his body was losing cohesion. Small silver sparks drifted off his limb and evaporated into the air.
—No… no… no… —he whispered.
He tried to move his fingers.
They didn't respond properly.
He couldn't feel the weight of his arm.
It was as if part of him was starting to stop existing as stable matter.
The terror was immediate.
It wasn't pain.
It was something worse.
The sensation of dissolving.
With effort, he clenched his teeth and closed his eyes.
He forced himself to focus.
To "pull back" that dispersed energy.
He didn't know what he was doing.
Only that if he lost control… he would stop being whole.
Minute after minute, the mist slowly condensed again.
His skin regained form.
But it stayed pale.
Damp.
Trembling.
Caelum lay still, breathing heavily.
That afternoon, driven by the need to clean his wounds, Caelum walked toward the shore.
He didn't think.
Didn't analyze.
He just moved.
His bare feet touched the tide.
Up to his ankles.
And then…
The world shut off.
There was no pain.
No shock.
There was nothing.
It felt like something inside him was suddenly cut off.
The unstable energy he carried within extinguished like a flame drowned under water.
His legs turned heavy instantly.
As if they were made of stone.
—What…?
He tried to step back.
He couldn't.
He collapsed face-first into the wet sand.
The contact with saltwater left him completely useless.
No strength.
No control.
No strange energy inside him.
He felt trapped.
Not by the sea…
But by it.
He dragged his body backward in desperation, digging his nails into dry sand until he escaped the tide's reach.
When he finally did, he was breathing like he had escaped death itself.
The sensation slowly returned to his body.
The energy inside him reignited… with something like internal resentment.
—The sea… shuts me off… —he whispered.
He stared at the horizon with a mix of fear and incomplete understanding.
The following days became a series of failed experiments.
Caelum didn't understand what was happening to him.
It wasn't fire.
It wasn't normal electricity.
It was something more fundamental… more internal.
As if his body now generated and controlled a type of energy that didn't fully belong to physical matter.
When he focused, his body vibrated with a faint violet mist.
When he lost control, that same mist threatened to expand uncontrollably.
He didn't know its name.
Didn't know its origin.
Only that it was dangerous.
He tried using it to hunt.
He aimed at a branch where a strange bird rested.
Extended his hand.
Focused.
The energy responded… but violently.
An unstable whip of light shot from his arm, striking the tree.
It wasn't a normal physical impact.
The trunk fractured from the inside, as if something had overloaded it.
The leaves withered instantly.
The air smelled like burned metal.
Caelum stepped back.
—Too much… —he whispered—. It's like trying to write with a hammer.
His hand slowly returned to normal, but it kept trembling.
The problem wasn't just the power.
It was everything else.
Caelum began to perceive the world differently.
The wind wasn't air.
It was pressure against his skin.
Humidity wasn't weather.
It was a constant weight in his chest.
Even the air itself felt "charged."
And his body reacted to everything.
If he felt fear… it sparked.If he felt frustration… the mist returned.If he panicked… he destabilized.
It wasn't control.
It was response.
Too much response.
He spent hours trying to stay still.
To breathe.
To think of nothing.
But his mind wasn't built for that.
It had spent years reacting to emails, deadlines, orders.
Now it reacted to everything else.
One day he found his old employee ID card lying in the dirt.
He picked it up.
Stared at it in silence.
Then let out a dry laugh.
—If my boss could see me now…
But the laugh faded quickly.
This wasn't a power.
It wasn't an advantage.
It was an unstable condition inside his own body.
A system he still didn't understand.
And one that could fail at any moment.
Caelum clenched his fist.
The energy inside him vibrated slightly… then stabilized.
For the first time in days…
It didn't explode.
It just obeyed.
Barely.
The office worker hadn't received a gift.
He had received an error.
And now…
He had to learn how to live inside it.