After the rooftop, there was no turning back.
I couldn't pretend anymore.
I didn't want to.
The creature I fried left no body—just a scorch mark and the smell of static in the air. But something else lingered too. A presence. A pull. Like the world had noticed me now. Like it was watching.
The weather changed after that.
Storms came more often. Harder. Angrier. It wasn't just in my head either—people on the news started asking questions. Freak weather. Lightning in clear skies. Wind tunnels forming over cities.
I could feel it was connected to me.
But I also knew I wasn't causing it.
Not all of it, anyway.
That same week, I started seeing symbols—the same kind from my dreams. Drawn in chalk on alley walls. Etched into rusted metal. Burned into the ground after lightning strikes.
Always the same shape: a circle split by jagged lines. The sky's heartbeat.
One day, I found one pulsing. Glowing.
I touched it without thinking.
The second I did, the sky split open again—and I was somewhere else.
Not physically. More like my mind was pulled through a tunnel of clouds, into a place above the world. A sky temple? A realm of storms?
There were towers made of wind, bridges of lightning, massive storm beasts circling like guardians.
And in the center stood a figure in armor made of clouds and silver.
I couldn't see his face, but his voice boomed like thunder inside my head.
"Orion Zephyr. You are chosen. You were born from the breath between bolts."
I stepped forward. "Chosen for what?"
His voice cracked the sky:
"To restore the balance. To fight those who twist the storm into chains."
"What if I don't want it?" I asked.
The figure extended a hand. "You already have it."
I snapped out of the vision gasping for breath.
The mark I touched was gone. My fingertips were singed. But something inside me felt clearer—like the static in my blood had a direction now.
Later that night, a storm rolled in.
I stood on the edge of the rooftop, arms out again. Lightning circled me, but didn't strike. The wind bowed around me, not against me.
And in the distance, I saw it.
Another storm creature—larger, armored in dark metal, flying low across the city.
But it wasn't looking for me.
It was chasing someone else.
A girl.
She was sprinting across a rooftop, flames trailing from her hands like a comet.
My jaw dropped.
I'm not the only one.
And just like that—I jumped from my rooftop to follow.