For the next several weeks, Seraphina kept her distance.
Distance was safer.
She had learned that much.
There were things in the world that could not be explained by psychology, technology, or coincidence.
There were people who knew more than they should.
There were materials left behind by things that should not exist.
And there were people willing to kill for them.
So Seraphina changed the way she investigated.
She stopped chasing every rumor.
She stopped visiting suspicious locations alone.
She stopped following people simply because they behaved strangely.
Instead, she watched.
She collected information.
She waited.
Sometimes waiting was the only intelligent choice.
Then she heard about the child.
It was a message from the anonymous contact.
Only three lines.
There is a child in your region.
He says things about people before they happen.
Don’t go near him.
Seraphina stared at the screen.
She read the message again.
Then a third time.
Her first thought was that the warning itself was suspicious.
Her second was that the contact had never told her not to investigate anything before.
She typed.
What kind of things does he say?
The reply came several minutes later.
Deaths.
Accidents.
Things that haven’t happened yet.
Seraphina leaned back in her chair.
She didn’t believe it.
Not yet.
But she didn’t reject it either.
She opened a new file.
CASE: CHILD
Underneath it, she typed:
Don’t believe it.
Don’t reject it.
Investigate it.
The child was eleven.
His name was Arun.
At least, that was the name Seraphina found in the public records.
He lived with his mother in a small apartment building on the edge of the city.
There was nothing unusual about him.
No strange appearance.
No strange medical history.
No documented neurological condition.
His school described him as quiet.
His neighbors described him as polite.
His mother described him as frightened.
That last part interested Seraphina.
She watched him for three days.
Nothing happened.
On the fourth day, she saw him standing outside a convenience store.
He was looking at the road.
Not at the cars.
At the empty space between them.
A woman approached him.
Arun suddenly said,
“Don’t cross yet.”
The woman stopped.
She laughed.
“Why?”
Arun looked at her.
His expression changed.
He looked genuinely afraid.
“Because that car is going to lose its brakes.”
The woman glanced at the road.
A small electric vehicle came around the corner.
Everything happened quickly.
The vehicle swerved.
The driver fought the controls.
It hit a barrier instead of the pedestrian crossing.
Nobody died.
The woman stared at Arun.
He was already walking away.
Seraphina stood across the street.
Her heart was beating faster.
One prediction could be coincidence.
She followed him.
The second incident happened two days later.
Arun was sitting on a bench beside a public garden.
A man walked past him.
Arun looked up.
“Your brother shouldn’t take the train tomorrow.”
The man stopped.
“What?”
“Tell him not to.”
“How do you know my brother?”
Arun shook his head.
“I don’t.”
The man laughed nervously and walked away.
Seraphina wrote everything down.
The next evening, she found the man’s name through public records.
His brother had missed a train because of a sudden illness.
That train had later been involved in an accident.
Seraphina stopped writing.
She stared at the screen.
For the first time during her investigation, she felt something she hadn’t expected.
Fear.
Not fear of dying.
Fear of being right.
She approached Arun’s mother first.
She introduced herself as a university student researching unusual psychological experiences.
It was only partially a lie.
The mother was exhausted.
She told Seraphina that Arun had been like this for nearly a year.
Sometimes he predicted things.
Sometimes he talked about people he had never met.
Sometimes he woke up screaming about places he’d never visited.
Sometimes he said things that made no sense.
And sometimes—
He knew things that nobody had told him.
“What does he see?” Seraphina asked.
His mother shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Has anyone helped him?”
“Some people tried.”
“What people?”
The woman looked toward the door.
Then lowered her voice.
“People who weren’t doctors.”
Seraphina’s expression changed.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are they still coming?”
The woman didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
That night, Seraphina received another message.
You found him.
She stared at the screen.
You knew I would.
No response.
She waited.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Then:
Leave him alone.
Seraphina typed:
Why?
The reply came immediately.
Because other people are looking for him too.
She stopped.
Then typed:
How many?
There was a long pause.
At least two.
Seraphina looked toward the window.
The city was quiet.
Too quiet.
She closed her laptop.
For the first time, she considered leaving the investigation alone.
Then she remembered Arun’s face.
He wasn’t dangerous.
He was a child who was afraid of what he could see.
She decided to check on him one more time.
That was her mistake.
Or perhaps it was simply the moment when the world stopped giving her a choice.
It happened in less than three minutes.
Seraphina was two streets away when she heard the first gunshot.
Then another.
Then screaming.
She stopped.
Her first instinct was to run away.
Her second was to find Arun.
The second won.
She ran toward the apartment building.
Security vehicles had already surrounded the area.
Drones hovered above the rooftops.
Police officers were forcing civilians away from the building.
But the people inside were not ordinary criminals.
Seraphina knew that immediately.
A man came running through the entrance.
At first glance, he looked completely ordinary.
Average height.
Normal build.
Nothing remarkable about him.
Then a security officer tried to stop him.
The man caught the officer’s arm.
He pulled.
The officer’s feet left the ground.
He was thrown several meters away.
Seraphina froze.
The man’s body didn’t look capable of producing that much force.
He wasn’t enormous.
He wasn’t even particularly muscular.
He was simply much stronger than he should have been.
Another officer attacked him.
The man blocked the strike with his forearm.
The impact made him take a step backward.
But he remained standing.
He grabbed the officer and pushed him aside.
Not effortlessly.
Not like a superhero.
Just with strength that was clearly beyond ordinary human limits.
Seraphina’s mind immediately began recording the details.
Subject: male.
Estimated strength: at least two to three times ordinary human capability.
Appearance: normal.
No visible external mutation.
She almost smiled despite the fear.
She was still thinking like an investigator.
Then something moved above her.
A figure jumped from one rooftop to another.
Seraphina looked up.
The person landed lightly.
Too lightly.
They were dressed in dark clothing.
A small object flew from their hand.
A drone exploded.
The figure moved again.
Fast.
Not impossibly fast.
Just extraordinarily agile.
They used the buildings, railings, and vehicles around them as if they had practiced moving through them thousands of times.
Then they drew a dagger.
The blade flashed beneath the streetlights.
The strong man noticed.
He raised his arm.
The dagger struck.
He grunted.
Blood appeared.
But he didn’t fall.
He grabbed toward the attacker.
The attacker twisted away.
Another dagger appeared.
Seraphina stared.
Two people.
Two completely different kinds of abnormality.
Neither looked like a monster.
Neither seemed to understand exactly what they were capable of.
And neither was fighting like someone who possessed some perfect supernatural technique.
They were simply people who had become unusually capable.
The rest were ordinary humans.
Security officers.
Armed men.
Drivers.
People running for their lives.
That somehow made the entire situation more frightening.
Because the people involved clearly didn’t understand what they were dealing with.
They were experimenting with something they barely understood.
And someone had decided that Arun was worth killing for.
Inside the building, everything was worse.
Seraphina reached the entrance.
Someone grabbed her.
She reacted immediately.
She drove her elbow backward.
The person released her.
She turned.
A man stood there, bleeding from his forehead.
“You’re not with them.”
“No.”
“Then get out.”
“Where’s the boy?”
The man’s expression changed.
“Why do you care?”
Before Seraphina could answer, another gunshot came from upstairs.
The man pushed her against the wall.
“Stay here.”
He ran.
Seraphina ignored him.
She went upstairs.
The hallway was filled with smoke.
Two men were fighting near the apartment.
Neither appeared supernatural.
One carried a metal rod.
The other had a pistol.
They were simply desperate.
A body lay on the floor.
Seraphina stepped over it.
Then she heard Arun crying.
She entered the room.
His mother was holding him.
Three people stood around them.
One was injured.
Another was watching the window.
The third was holding a strange object.
It looked like a piece of dark glass.
Except it wasn’t glass.
Something seemed to move inside it.
“You came for him,” Seraphina said.
The injured man looked at her.
“No.”
He looked at Arun.
“We came for what is inside him.”
Seraphina froze.
“What?”
The man didn’t answer.
Then Arun whispered:
“Mom…”
His eyes became unfocused.
“Don’t look behind you.”
Everyone turned.
Nothing was there.
Arun began trembling.
“It’s coming.”
The injured man swore.
“What is coming?”
Arun looked at Seraphina.
And for the first time, he seemed to see her clearly.
“You.”
The window shattered.
The agile attacker entered.
A dagger flashed.
The injured man raised his arm.
Blood sprayed across the wall.
Someone fired.
The attacker ducked.
The room erupted into chaos.
Arun’s mother screamed.
Seraphina dropped to the floor.
The strong man appeared in the doorway.
He grabbed one of the attackers and threw him aside.
The agile fighter moved toward Arun.
The strong man blocked the path.
For several seconds, the two stared at each other.
Then the smaller fighter moved.
A dagger came toward the strong man’s chest.
He stepped aside.
The blade cut his shirt.
He swung.
The agile fighter ducked underneath the punch.
The fist struck the wall.
Concrete cracked.
Seraphina stared at the damage.
The man wasn’t superhuman.
At least, not in the way she understood the word.
He could simply hit much harder than a normal human being.
The agile fighter moved again.
Another cut.
Another dodge.
Neither side had complete control.
Both could still be hurt.
Both could still die.
And neither seemed entirely sure what they had become.
Inside the apartment, Arun suddenly went still.
His mother screamed.
“ARUN!”
His body became completely motionless.
His eyes closed.
Something began to emerge above his chest.
Not blood.
Not smoke.
Something else.
A faint, translucent mass slowly condensed in the air.
It seemed to contain both light and shadow.
Nobody spoke.
The fighting stopped.
Everyone stared.
The injured man whispered:
“That’s what they wanted.”
The strong man took a step forward.
The agile fighter did the same.
Then the security forces stormed the room.
“DROP YOUR WEAPONS!”
Everyone moved at once.
Someone fired.
Someone ducked.
Someone tackled another person.
The strange material continued to form.
One man reached for it.
Another grabbed his arm.
“Don’t touch it!”
“Why?”
“You don’t know what it’ll do!”
“That’s why we’re here!”
Seraphina backed away.
She didn’t understand.
But she understood one thing.
Nobody knew what they were doing.
They were fighting over something that might kill them.
They didn’t have formulas.
They didn’t have certainty.
They had rumors.
Experiments.
A few successful cases.
And dead people.
Then someone grabbed Seraphina.
She struggled.
“Let go!”
The man dragged her backward.
“Take her!”
Another man shouted:
“What?”
“Use the girl!”
The first man hesitated.
“Why?”
“Because we need a distraction!”
“She’s ordinary!”
“Exactly!”
Seraphina’s blood ran cold.
The man looked toward the strange material.
Then toward her.
“People survive sometimes.”
Another man shouted:
“And sometimes they become monsters!”
“Then we’ll see which one she becomes!”
“No!”
The man holding her shook his head.
“We don’t know what this thing does.”
“Neither does anyone else!”
A gunshot echoed through the room.
The man flinched.
Then made his decision.
“Sorry.”
Seraphina understood.
“No.”
He forced her mouth open.
She struggled violently.
“No!”
He grabbed the strange material.
It was cold.
Almost weightless.
Then he shoved it inside her.
Seraphina screamed.
The moment it touched her tongue—
Everything disappeared.
Pain.
That was the first thing.
Not burning.
Not freezing.
Something worse.
It felt as though every nerve in her body had suddenly become aware of itself.
Her heart stopped.
Then beat twice.
Her vision shattered into fragments.
She saw the room.
Then another room.
Then a street.
Then a woman falling.
Then a child laughing.
Then a man dying.
Then the same man alive.
Then another version of him running.
Possibilities.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Her mind couldn’t process them.
Someone shouted:
“Leave her!”
“Move!”
“Security is coming!”
“Forget her!”
“No, take it!”
“She’s changing!”
Seraphina couldn’t understand the voices.
She couldn’t understand anything.
Her body was no longer listening to her.
Then she heard something.
A quiet voice.
Not from outside.
Inside.
Left.
She moved.
A bullet passed through the space beside her head.
She froze.
Another voice.
Down.
She dropped.
A man stumbled over her.
Seraphina rolled away.
She didn’t know how she was doing it.
She wasn’t predicting the future.
Not exactly.
It was more like—
She could feel where things were about to go.
Like standing beside an enormous river and suddenly sensing the currents beneath its surface.
She didn’t understand them.
She could only feel them.
She crawled toward the broken window.
Someone shouted behind her.
“Stop her!”
Another voice answered:
“Forget her!”
“Why?”
“She’s already contaminated!”
That word stayed with her.
Contaminated.
Seraphina reached the window.
She jumped.
She landed hard on the roof below.
Pain shot through her legs.
She rolled onto her back.
For several seconds, she couldn’t breathe.
Then she vomited.
Nothing came out.
She looked at her hands.
They were shaking.
Her veins seemed darker than before.
She waited.
For something terrible.
For her body to twist.
For her mind to disappear.
For the monster they had warned about.
Nothing happened.
She slowly stood.
The city stretched before her.
Sirens echoed through the streets.
Drones moved across the sky.
People were running.
And suddenly—
She knew someone was about to turn the corner behind her.
She didn’t know how she knew.
She simply did.
Seraphina turned.
Nobody was there.
Three seconds later, a man appeared.
He looked around.
Then continued walking.
Seraphina stared at him.
Her breathing became shallow.
She looked toward the burning building.
She thought of Arun.
She thought of his mother.
She thought of the thing they had forced into her.
She thought of the man’s words.
She’ll become a monster.
Seraphina closed her eyes.
For two years, she had tried to understand the hidden world from a safe distance.
She had believed information would protect her.
She had believed caution would keep her untouched.
She had been wrong.
The hidden world had finally reached her.
And it had left something inside her.
Something she did not understand.
Something that had already begun to change the way she saw the world.
Seraphina opened her eyes.
For the first time, she looked at the city—
And saw that every ordinary moment seemed to have countless possible endings.
She whispered:
“I don’t understand what happened to me.”
The night gave her no answer.
But somewhere deep inside her—
Something was awake.