People crave bonds with each other. Not just for comfort but for proof that we exist. Like a mirror. One that shows you who you really are…

  But bonds don’t stay the same. Sometimes we get closer. Sometimes we’re pulled apart. And no matter how strong they might seem, sometimes they can break, a thread pulled too hard.

  I used to be someone’s daughter, someone’s little girl. I thought love could fix things… A glue to hold me together.

  Then I broke everything, tore everyone apart. Did something that made people stop looking me in the eye.

  They called me an Errant Child. Not because I failed.

  Because… because I was the failure. Just something broken.

  I don’t remember the last time I saw my parents. I don’t know if they’re afraid of me, or if they were told to forget.

  Maybe both.

  That’s what the officials said. Training. Containment. I didn’t really understand, I just knew it meant no goodbyes.

  No letters. No names.

  A place for people like me, people who break things just by existing.

  I don’t know what I am. But I know what I’m not.

  I’m not safe, whole, wanted, or missed. Not anything really…

  And if I ever was a person, I think she disappeared the day they stopped calling me Mika.

  I didn’t know where we were going. The bus was quiet. Not like the ones at school, with shouting and fingerprints and the kind of noise that meant you weren’t alone. This one smelled like metal and dust.

  The seats were stiff and itchy.

  I sat near the front, but the driver didn’t look at me. He didn’t say anything, not even a glance.

  Outside, the buildings disappeared. Then the trees. Then everything: just dirt and rocks and weird hills that resembled sleeping giants.

  I pressed my face to the window. The sky was huge. The land was empty. I saw a sign once, but it was all bent and rusty.

  The road got bumpy. We went up and up a mountain. Not a pretty one with snow or trees. One brown and cracked, hiding secrets.

  I wanted to ask the driver if we were close, but he looked scary. His eyes didn’t blink much.

  Then the bus stopped.

  I looked out and saw a big gray building stuck into the side of the hill. No windows. Its walls looked poured, not built. Just a huge door and a crown of thorns twisted atop the fence.

  Two grown-ups stood outside. They wore black clothes and didn’t smile. They looked like guards, not teachers. I thought this was a school.

  I got off the bus, its door slamming shut behind me—too fast. My legs twitched, not to run, but to remember how. I forgot to breathe. But the air didn’t want me anyway.

  The bus drove away.

  Something shifted inside. The air was bending around me slightly as though it wanted to take me somewhere else. But I didn’t go. I stayed where I was.

  "You’re Mikaela Elias, right?" the woman asked, tapping her tablet.

  I nodded. She didn’t smile. Neither did the man beside her. They looked like guards, not teachers.

  "This way, kid," he said, waving me forward without even looking.

  I grabbed my suitcase and followed. They didn’t care if I kept up.

  The building outside looked boring, but the inside was weird. Metal gates, blinking cameras, everything shiny and cold.

  We passed through door after door until we reached a big room with lockers and little booths.

  The man grabbed my suitcase.

  My chest tightened. I desperately held on to the suitcase before I could think. “Hey! That’s mine!” I yelled.

  He didn’t even flinch, just kept pulling.

  I tried to hold on to it desperately until it slipped from my fingers.

  I watched as the man took what was left of my past away from me.

  And I just let him…

  "Don’t worry," the woman said, pulling me toward a locker. "He’ll take care of it."

  She handed me clothes. White shirt, white pants, even white socks. The kind they give you before tests. Not school clothes, not even close.

  I turned toward the mirror in the corner. The girl staring back wasn’t me. Not the cheerful one who used to sing in the car or make silly faces at breakfast. This one looked tired. Her eyes were puffy, her face pale. Or maybe the mirror didn’t want to show it.

  My stomach twisted. I wanted to run. I could teleport—I’d done it before. But Mom always said it was dangerous. That I could get stuck or hurt.

  And even if I got out... where would I go?

  So I changed.

  We got in the elevator. It was oddly metallic; its walls so polished that they warped my reflection. Stretching it, making it look too tall or too thin. As though I’d become something else.

  The walls hummed around us, low and steady. I sank into it.

  “You’re meeting the director,” the woman said. “Director Uriel,” she added, almost absently. The name felt wrong. Diluted. Familiar, but drained of meaning.

  Still, I didn’t ask questions; I just held onto the metal rail and tried not to disappear. But the walls already knew I wanted to.

  His office was quiet. Too quiet. No lights were on, except the ones from the hallway. No music, no hum of machines. Just him.

  He stood facing the wall. There was no screen… nor a window. Just blank concrete.

  “...No,” he said softly. “That would destabilize the third one.” I didn’t know what he was talking to. Or what that meant. For a moment, it seemed like he was talking to the wall, but then I remembered how Mom used to talk in her office, pacing with her headset on. That must have been it.

  “Then reroute through the southern node,” he continued. “I’ll handle the anomaly. I always have.”

  The woman beside me cleared her throat. “Director, the new student-”

  He turned.

  He was Tall. Pale. He looked like someone had drawn him with a ruler. His hair was blonde, his eyes poured from frozen glass.

  “Ah,” he said. “You must be Miss Eliaz.”

  He didn’t smile. Didn’t blink. Just stared.

  “My name is Director Uriel.” I already knew his name. But hearing it in his voice made it real.

  He didn’t blink, I didn’t move. I looked at the buttons on his coat. Didn’t count all three of them. Just focused there.

  "I welcome you,” he said, smiling. But it was the kind of smile mirrors don’t show.

  He walked toward me slowly, hands clasped behind his back, his coat barely rustling.

  “Come,” he said. “I will show you the facility.”

  My shoulder flinched when the guard nudged me. I followed. Not because I trusted him. Not because I wanted to. I just didn’t know where else to go.

  The hallway lights flickered—something brushed the wires, testing for a spark. I felt it in my fingertips, as if the air was holding its breath, waiting to shift.

  Uriel didn’t react. He just kept walking.

  I wondered if he noticed. Or if he was the reason.

  Maybe both.

  We passed a series of glass-walled rooms. Inside, students performed exercises—some lifting objects with their minds, others staring at screens filled with shifting shapes.

  None of them spoke. None of them looked up. They were thought without flesh. A signal, suspended in function.

  In one room, a boy floated cross-legged in midair, surrounded by glowing symbols. His eyes were closed, but his lips moved, whispering something I couldn’t hear.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Uriel paused.

  “Observation chambers,” he said. “Each student is calibrated to their potential.”

  I’d heard that word before.

  Calibration.

  It felt too clean: hiding something beneath its shine. It made me think of cars, of my dad talking with a mechanic. But this place didn’t fix things. It calibrated what was left.

  In the last room, a girl hovered upside down, cross-legged and barefoot—her toes pointed toward the ceiling.

  Her hair fell the same way: straight, black, almost ruler-smooth. But a few strands had escaped, as if something inside her had stopped obeying.

  She looked a bit older than me. Her skin was porcelain. Smooth. Pale. the kind Mom kept in the cabinet, the kind I wasn’t allowed to touch. But this one had already cracked once, and someone just glued it back together.

  She didn’t look at the screen. She looked at me. Her head tilted slightly, still upside down. As if she was trying to decide if I was real, or just another rerun.

  Uriel didn’t say anything. He just kept walking.

  I followed.

  But her gaze stayed with me…

  ———

  The next room was colder. Rows of reclining chairs lined the walls; each fitted with a visor and a soft hum, as though the room was listening. Students sat quietly, heads tilted back, eyes hidden behind the glowing lenses.

  The director’s voice fades. ‘Cognitive calibration,’ It was that word again. it sounded like a game, but not the fun kind. The kind grown-ups play when they smile too much. I started rubbing my thumb against my palm.

  Uriel knelt beside me. “It’s standard procedure, Miss Eliaz.”

  But his eyes didn’t meet mine. His voice was too cheerful, too rehearsed.

  ”A quiet calibration. Clarifying. Precise.” He didn’t even bother to look at me, just glancing at the nearest monitor as it stuttered.

  The lights blinked unevenly.

  The director’s jaw tightened. Then he smiled again—quickly, too quickly, as if he was trying to forget what he saw. The hum sharpened, a whisper trying to become a scream. The room wasn’t peaceful; it just waited.

  I glanced at the boy closest to me. His head tilted, as though he’s hearing something I can’t, fingers twitching. I counted the chairs. One, two, three. My thumb pressed into my palm. I stepped forward. One of the visors flickered.

  The room twitched again. It didn’t want to touch me. Maybe it’s scared or it’s trying to run. A ripple moves through the room. A paper shivers, the light stutters and I keep walking.

  But something behind me is watching…

  ———

  We passed a wall of crystal vials, each labeled with a number and a name. Inside, I saw strands of hair, tiny vials of blood, even a fingernail.

  Thirty-seven vials, each with a name, even though some were smudged.

  Some vials were suspended in a lattice of thin metal arms, gently rotating. They made a soft clinking sound as they turned. Others were embedded in the wall itself, flush with the surface, lit from behind by a sterile glow. A few hovered in midair, held by nothing visible, their contents pulsing faintly.

  Uriel stopped.

  “Genetic archive,” His voice was just a breath. “We preserve…” But I felt it. “...potential.” As if that word could explain the blood, bone, and breath sealed in glass.

  I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth, a quiet brace against the rising unease.

  The air was thick and frigid—not only the kind that chills, but the kind that forgets. Uriel didn’t move. His eyes lingered on a vial near the end. I looked too. The name was smudged. The number was mine.

  A flicker ran through the lights. I stepped back, a thin mist escaping from my mouth.

  Uriel’s voice was calm, but his hands weren’t. "It’s just a record," he said. "Nothing more."

  That vial was waiting for me to break. Its presence was quiet, but certain.

  ———

  At the end of the hallway was a sealed door. No label. No handle. Just a faint hum behind it. Uriel didn’t slow down. But I did.

  The woman stepped slightly between me and the door, her hand hovering near my shoulder.

  Uriel spoke without turning.

  “That area is not relevant to your education.” I didn’t know what he meant. But it felt like the kind of thing grown-ups said when they didn’t want you to ask. Like when they talked about the basement. Or the tests.

  Still, I didn’t ask and didn’t really want to know.

  But I felt it. The hum behind the door wasn’t just noise—it had shape. A pattern. Something that made my teeth clench, the kind of sound that used to keep me awake, even after I forgot how to name it.

  The air near the door was warmer, and the usual smell of a hospital gave way to something sharper. Like that gross combination of rotten eggs and pee…

  The woman’s hand didn’t touch me, but I could feel its presence like static. Her eyes flicked to the door, then back to me, and for a moment, I thought I saw pity.

  Uriel kept walking.

  I followed. But I looked back once. Something clung to my ear… thin, persistent. It tapped like it knew me, even if I didn’t want it to.

  That must have been where the sewers went.

  It must have.

  “Director, the subjects are ready,” said one of the staff, his voice flat, almost rehearsed.

  Uriel didn’t respond right away. He stood with his back to us, watching the monitors flicker with biometric data and heat maps. Then, without turning, he said, “Bring her.”

  I didn’t know who ‘her’ was until he turned and glanced at me.

  ———

  They called it the Psionic Arbitration Chamber.

  That was the official name—printed on the door in sterile lettering, logged in reports, whispered during staff briefings like it was just another piece of equipment.

  But later I would find out the students had a different name for it.

  The Coliseum.

  Easier to say. Easier to joke about. Easier to pretend it wasn’t sacred.

  The walk there was quiet. Uriel led, his coat barely moving, as if the air didn’t dare touch it. The deeper we went, the colder the air became. Pressure, not anticipation, something waiting to be sanctified.

  The chamber was buried beneath layers of alloy and psionic dampeners, its walls thick enough to swallow sound. Beyond that, nothing. Just a place that had forgotten how to heal.

  Above it, the observation deck hovered like a glass halo, sealed off from the violence below.

  “This space,” Uriel said softly, “was designed to preserve the integrity of the facility. Your powers can be volatile. Emotional. We give them a place to resolve disputes without risking structural collapse.”

  He turned to me, his eyes unreadable.

  “It’s also easier for us to understand. How all of it works.”

  I nodded, though I didn’t understand. Not yet.

  Inside, two students stood facing each other.

  One was a girl, older than me, maybe fourteen, with long brown hair that didn’t lie flat. It was frizzed. Not messy. Just... tense. As if it had tried to lie flat and gave up halfway. As though something inside her had sparked and never quite settled.

  The other was a boy with piercings and a stare that made my skin itch.

  “Queen’s emotional latency remains stable,” he murmured, glancing at a specific readout. “Her AT field is showing a strong, emergent signature, right on the verge of Collision with Zack's.”

  I didn’t know who Queen was. But the girl didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe wrong. Her eyes sealing something deep within.

  They didn’t speak. Just stared, still and taut. The space between them pulsed, charged with heat and static. Almost as though the room was caught between a spark and a scream.

  The fight began without warning.

  The boy’s gaze shimmered, and the air between them caught fire. The girl moved instantly, her body already anticipating the burn. Her hand glowed. A translucent shield bloomed, scattering the flames like dust.

  She didn’t retaliate right away. She waited. Calculated.

  When she did strike, it was with a beam of light so sharp it made my teeth ache.

  But the boy was ready. His fire collapsed the beam before it could form, and Queen staggered.

  Flames bloomed. Shields flared. The air twisted with pressure and light. I felt it in my spine, like a pulse brushing against something I couldn’t name.

  I watched from behind the glass, surrounded by silent technicians and glowing monitors. But something in me leaned forward, pulled toward the fight below.

  Fire. Shield. Beam. Collapse. The pattern continued, a rhythm carved into their bones.

  Again and again. Like a liturgy, only they understood.

  There was a hum that sang beneath it all. Not in the walls, in the undercurrent. The room didn’t resist. It remembered; waited.

  Then a sudden explosion snapped me out of it—out of the vertigo, the trance.

  Uriel didn’t flinch.

  “They learn,” he murmured. “They adapt. Pain is a powerful teacher.”

  The pulse resumed. Fire. Shield. Beam. Collapse.

  I didn’t know who was winning. I didn’t know if winning mattered.

  Then something changed.

  The girl didn’t fire. She ran.

  Straight at him.

  He hesitated, just for a second, but it was enough. Her kick landed with a crack, and he stumbled.

  Then he looked up. Her beam was already charged. Their eyes met. He smiled, she glared.

  And then it was over.

  The light was too bright to see what happened. But I heard the silence afterward.

  Felt it settle into my bones.

  Uriel placed a hand on my shoulder.

  I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. Not yet. The tears didn’t come. Maybe they were used up. Maybe they were waiting for something worse.

  He turned to me, his expression soft. Almost kind. ”This is how we resolve conflict here, Miss Eliaz. Cleanly. Without resentment.” But not quite.

  I nodded, because I didn’t know what else to do.

  But something inside me had shifted. And I knew I’d never forget the way the light looked before it hit him.

  “Well then,” said Director Uriel, his voice smooth and even, “let me show you to your room.”

  Something in me had already started to crack. My hands were trembling before I noticed. I went, even though I didn’t want to. Because standing still felt worse. Because the silence behind me was heavier than the steps ahead.

  The west wing felt less like a dormitory and more like a containment wing. Long white corridors. Barred windows. Doors that locked from the outside.

  “You’ll be staying with our first candidate, Holloway” Uriel said. “The only one who crossed the threshold without rupture.” Uriel said it like a title. Not a name. As if the name Holloway wasn’t a person, just something they’d built.

  His voice was smooth and even.

  My fingers curled inward, pressing against each other like they were trying to hide. I didn’t respond, just kept staring forward as I walked. I wanted to say no. But my body already knew better.

  We passed room after room. All empty. The silence didn’t feel normal—it felt like it was hiding something. Not a school. Not even close. A place for monsters. That’s what it felt like. And if this was where they kept the monsters.

  Then maybe I belonged here.

  Uriel stopped at the final door.

  Inside, the room was identical to the others. Two beds. A desk, lamp, bookstand, and mirror. But the boy sitting on the far bed was anything but ordinary.

  He looked several years older than me. Pale skin. Too pale, like paper left out in the moonlight. His hair was white, not old-white, but the kind that doesn’t belong to any age. And his eyes… they weren’t red like in some scary movies. Instead, they were the color of molten gold.

  He didn’t blink. Just kept his gaze on me, steady, unreadable. His posture was relaxed, but it felt wrong… as though a blade lying flat, waiting to be lifted.

  There were sketchbooks and magazines on the bookstand behind his bed. The mirror was angled toward the wall. The space around him felt stretched. As though the room had been stitched around him and the seams were starting to pull.

  I didn’t want to look. But I couldn’t stop.

  Uriel didn’t have to introduce me. He didn’t need to. I had seen him on TV. He was the Midwich Ripper, even though I didn’t remember what he did, only that he was the kind of bad person my parents told me to stay away from.

  “Holloway,” he said. “She’s nearing the edge. Assist her with Grounding if she destabilizes.”

  Uriel called him Holloway. But the air around him didn’t feel like a Holloway. It felt sharper. As if the name Ripper wasn’t just something they called him—it was something he became.

  The boy’s gaze flicked to me. Then to Uriel. His voice was low, almost bored. “You brought me another one? What’s the lesson this time? Don’t get attached?”

  Uriel’s expression didn’t change. “She’s here to feel. You’re here to remind her what pain is.”

  Ripper stood, slow and deliberate. “You put her in here; she’s your responsibility when she breaks.”

  “She won’t break,” Uriel said. “She’s already broken. That’s why she matters.”

  My jaw tightened. I stepped back, thumb pressing into my palm. The words felt sharp. Even though I didn’t understand them.

  Ripper’s presence was suffocating. Not loud, not wild. just heavy. As though the air had learned to brace itself.

  Uriel turned to leave.

  “Don’t leave me here!”

  He paused at the door. Just for a moment.

  “You’ll understand soon,” he said. “This is when the reflection starts matching the shape.”

  Then the door clicked shut.

  There was no hum here. Just silence, the walls not wanting to listen.

  Something inside me gave way. The air folded—briefly. My body pulled sideways, as though it was trying to leave without me. But I stayed. It was just a pulse. A warning.

  Ripper’s head shimmered slightly. “You can scream if you want,” he said, eyes flashing bright for an instant. “I won’t stop you.” The air near him split quietly, as though it forgot how to stay whole.

  “But no one’s coming.”

  My heart pounded. I clenched my jaw, backing into the corner. I watched as the boy walked to the bookstand behind his bed. silence warped, memory folding in on itself.

  “You’re not the first,” He said, picking up the magazine and flipping it open without looking. “Just the newest.” He turned the page slowly, the paper barely rustling.

  And maybe not the last. But that wasn’t something I wanted to know.