For a single moment, there was nothing. Just the sharp pinch of the needle. Jonah let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Maybe this was it. Maybe he was one of the eighty percent.
Pain.
The pain he felt wasn't normal, It was a violation. A white-hot fire erupted in his veins, a searing agony that felt like his very blood was boiling. He tried to scream, but his lungs seized. The fire was instantly followed by an invasive cold frost that spread from his bones outward, cracking him from the inside.
It felt less like an Awakening and more like an exorcism. Something was being violently scooped out of him, leaving a hollow, echoing chasm behind. His soul, his very essence, was being carved apart and remade into something new and terrible.
Through the roaring in his ears, he heard a distant, panicked shout. It was the bored medic; her voice now shrills with alarm.
"Anomalous reaction! Code red!!"
Then, the world dissolved into merciful blackness.
Jonah drifted back to consciousness slowly, like a swimmer rising from the deep sea. The first thing he registered was a low, rhythmic beeping. The second was the smell of antiseptic, cleaner and sharper than the cheap stuff they used at the school. He felt a rough blanket over him.
He slowly opened his eyes open. The ceiling was white and clean. He was on a narrow cot in what looked like a makeshift recovery room set up at the back of the auditorium.
A figure moved into his view. A nurse, dressed in the same crisp green as the soldiers, looked down at him. She had a calm, almost gentle smile, but her eyes… her eyes were something else. Not just red, but a deep, glowing crimson that seemed to shift with light. They were the most vibrant color Jonah had ever seen in his strange life.
"Ah, you're awake," she said, her voice calm and smooth. "That's good. We weren't sure you would be. Surviving a reaction of that intensity is a positive indicator."
Her words weren't reassuring.
She sounded more like someone poking at a weird gadget than someone trying to help.
Jonah tried to speak, but his throat was raw. All he could manage was a hoarse whisper.
"What… happened?"
"You had a stronger reaction than expected," the nurse said, making a note on a data pad. "A one in a million reaction. Congratulations, I suppose."
Congratulations? He felt like he'd been ripped in half and poorly stitched back together. But as he took stock of his body, he realized the searing pain was gone. He felt weak, hollowed out, but the agony had passed.
And then he felt it.
In his mind, where there had once been just… him, his thoughts, his memories… there was now something else. A space. It was vast, silent, and utterly empty. It felt like a dark, cavernous workshop had been built inside his head overnight. It had walls, a floor, a ceiling, but there was nothing in it. It was a silent, waiting void. It wasn't scary, just… strange. And overwhelmingly empty.
Something was pulsing in his arm. He slowly pushed up his sleeve with unsteady fingers.
The injection site wasn't just red and swollen. It was marked.
But it wasn't a mark he recognized from the government posters. It wasn't the crossed swords of a Warrior or the simple paw print of a Tamer.
On his bicep, burned into his skin in a deep, angry red, was a brand that looked like three sharp claws had slashed him. The lines were clean and precise, like a sigil. As he stared, the mark seemed to pulse with a faint, inner light, a soft glow that beat in time with his own heart. It looked less like a blessing and more like a wound.
A defect. The word slammed into his mind. They gave him the miracle cure, and it broke him.
The heavy door to the recovery area swung open, and the granite-jawed officer strode in. He paid no mind to Jonah or the two other kids waking up on nearby cots. He stood in the middle of the room, his voice booming over the quiet hum of the medical equipment.
"The Choosing is complete!" he announced. He gestured to his right. "Those who have been Blessed with a Mark, rise and gather on this side. You will be escorted to transport." He then gestured to the much larger crowd of students in the main auditorium, their faces pale and defeated. "The rest of you will be processed for your civic duty assignments. The Cinderfall Mining Collective thanks you for your service."
A wave of nausea rolled over Jonah. The mines. The shovel. The darkness.
A girl with a bright mark on her hand got to her feet, grinning like she didn't know where she was, but didn't care. A boy with a shield symbol on his forearm followed, looking like he'd just won the lottery. There were only about a dozen of them in total. The five percent. The winners.
Jonah's heart hammered against his ribs. He was trapped.
If he stayed here, they'd see his defective mark and send him to the mines anyway. Maybe it would be worse for him, a failed experiment they needed to dispose of.
If he joined the Blessed… what then? They would see his bizarre, three-clawed brand. Would they laugh? Disqualify him? Dissect him?
Panic, cold and familiar, wrapped around his throat. It was the same feeling he'd had in the tunnel, cornered by the Ant soldiers. And the same instinct took over.
Survive now. Ask questions later.
Jonah grunted as he got up from the cot. His legs felt shaky, barely able to hold him. He pulled his sleeve down hard, making sure the strange, pulsing mark was completely hidden. Without looking at the nurse with the red eyes, he lowered his head and moved toward the small group of Awoken.
He stood at the edge of the group, trying to make himself as small as possible. He had escaped the mines, but he hadn't found salvation. He had only traded a familiar cage for an unknown one.