The white walls of the recovery wing buzzed with a sterile kind of stillness. It wasn't silence, not really. There was always the faint hum of air vents, the distant chatter of nurses beyond the double doors, and the mechanical rhythm of fluorescent lights flickering overhead. But for the four of them—Brett, Jared (One of the twins), Carlo, and Layne (The other twin)—it may as well have been dead quiet.
Brett sat forward on the edge of his hospital bed, forearms resting on his knees. He hadn't moved in ten minutes, not since the last nurse left. His eyes were fixed on the blank white wall across from him, but it wasn't what he was seeing. It was what he felt—a burn that hadn't gone out since they left that cave.
Across the room, Jared paced. He was on his fifth lap. His restlessness had only increased since the final round of medical checks that morning. One hand tugged at the IV stuck in his arm.
"If one more person in a lab coat even looks at me wrong, I'm snapping," he muttered, yanking the IV free with a swift jerk. "I get it, we're anomalies. Doesn't mean they need to treat us like radioactive monkeys."
"You'll end up in surgery if you keep pulling things out of your veins like that," Layne said dryly without looking up from the leather-bound journal in his lap. he was perched cross-legged on his hospital bed, scribbling with the same intensity he had during the post-briefing debrief.
Jared groaned. "Better than being poked again. I swear, I've lost more blood this week than in my entire career."
"Considering how much you whined when you scraped your knee during training, I'd believe that," Layne replied, not even glancing his way.
"That's low."
Carlo chuckled from the far corner, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He hadn't said much all morning. Even now, wrapped in a government-issued blanket and leaned against the corner of the room like a brooding statue, he looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.
"Let him pull out his own blood," Carlo said, voice low and steady. "Natural selection'll handle it."
"Gee, thanks, Mom," Jared muttered. "What would I ever do without your support?"
"Bleed out on the floor, apparently," Layne said, smirking slightly as he turned a page.
Jared threw his arms up and flopped down on the foot of Brett's bed. "Unreal. I'm the life of this party and this is what I get. Disrespect."
Brett didn't respond right away. His gaze remained fixed, brows tight. Finally, after several long seconds, he spoke.
"You guys… do you feel it too?"
The room shifted instantly. Layne paused mid-stroke. Jared leaned forward. Even Carlo's eyes narrowed with sudden focus.
"Feel what?" Layne asked, his voice no longer teasing.
"The change," Brett said quietly. "Not just the physical stuff. I mean… something inside. I've been trying to keep it under control, but it's like I'm constantly two seconds from snapping. It's not anger like usual. It's deeper. Like it lives there now."
Jared's face grew more serious as he sat up straighter. "I've been feeling off too. Not the same way, but… like I'm too fast. My body's always ready for something. I don't get tired, not even a little. And earlier, when that nurse dropped her clipboard in the hallway? I could tell what brand it was by the sound."
"That's not off, that's supernatural," Layne said, frowning. "I've been writing everything down. For me, it's like… everything is connected. Conversations, body language, even medical charts—I look at them and I understand. Before the words finish leaving someone's mouth, I already know the conclusion."
"Sounds like a cheat code," Jared muttered.
"It's not like knowing the future," Layne corrected, "It's more like… having context no one else has. Like the universe is whispering footnotes in my ear."
Carlo finally spoke, his voice softer than usual. "Mine's different. I don't feel panic. Not anymore. Even when I woke up screaming last night—I felt it, but it couldn't touch me. It was like there was a wall between me and everything else. Something keeping me steady, no matter what I'm feeling."
"That's the Will fragment," Layne said, thoughtful. "And mine is Insight. Jared's Vitality. Brett's—"
"Wrath," Brett finished, voice flat. "Because of course it is."
There was a long pause.
"You okay with that?" Carlo asked carefully.
Brett didn't look at him. "Doesn't matter if I'm okay with it. It's not going away."
Jared leaned back on his hands. "Well, if we're handing out titles… guess that makes me Captain Immortal. Kinda badass."
"You're not immortal," Layne said with a raised brow.
"Tell that to my vitals chart. The nurse said my resting heart rate hasn't changed since I got here. Zero fatigue. Muscle recovery off the charts. I tried breaking a stress ball earlier. It popped."
Carlo gave a rare smirk. "Congratulations. You're a gym rat's wet dream."
"I'll take it."
Layne shut his journal softly. "You all heard what the briefing said. We're not the only ones. Others came back too, from other caves, other incidents. But none of them were out for more than a couple days. No voice. No void. No fragments."
"That can't be a coincidence," Brett said.
"It's not," Layne replied. "Whatever that thing in the void was… it chose us. Everyone else just… brushed against the surface. We drowned in it."
Carlo looked out the window. The sky was dull, streaked with gray clouds and faint smoke trails in the far city skyline. "Then we need to find out why."
"Yeah," Jared said. "Because if that thing in the cave was just the beginning… the world's gonna need more than us four to stop what's coming."
"Or maybe we're the only ones who can," Brett said, standing up slowly. "And that's why it chose us."
Outside, a siren wailed in the distance—long, haunting, and drawn out.
Inside, none of them said a word.
*Hope you guys are enjoying the series! more to come!*