Zayn's eyes opened to darkness.
Not the peaceful kind that comes with sleep, but the mechanical blackness of power restraints and sealed containment. A faint whir echoed through the space, followed by a subtle hiss-compressed air through hydraulic clamps. His wrists were magnetically locked to his sides, his ankles held tight in reinforced brackets. The seat beneath him vibrated faintly as the vehicle moved, heavy treads crunching over uneven terrain.
The walls of the transport were gray steel, windowless, sterile, with thin lines of blue light pulsing in programmed intervals. Across from him sat four soldiers, each clad in matte black armor, faces hidden behind visors that reflected nothing.
Zayn's body still ached. His ribs throbbed in sync with the vehicle's movement, and his right shoulder burned every time he breathed. But he didn't groan. He didn't move.
The words of Instructor Rhys echoed in his skull:
"Nullborn."
Only now, the word felt different. It no longer stung the same way. It was a label, yes... but one that had begun to peel away at the edges. Something had changed in that arena. Something inside him had shattered and then filled itself with something colder, heavier.
He stared at the soldier across from him. No insignia. No eyes. No emotion. They weren't there to comfort or speak. They were there to make sure he didn't become a problem.
But he was a problem now.
And someone, somewhere, had realized it.
The transport jerked suddenly, and Zayn's head smacked the back of the seat. The magnetic cuffs buzzed faintly as the restraints adjusted.
From a speaker above, a woman's voice echoed, clipped and mechanical:
"Checkpoint Four cleared. ETA to Section 14: nine minutes."
Zayn's breath caught.
Section 14.
He'd heard that name whispered in the slums. A blacksite. A place where broken Ascendants went to die or disappear. Rumors claimed the military conducted illegal Aether experiments there, blending CoreTech with nullfield generators. Others said it was just a graveyard for mistakes.
Zayn wasn't sure which was worse.
---
The vehicle finally came to a halt. A sharp hiss, then silence. One by one, the soldiers stood. One reached forward, tapped a sequence on a panel embedded in the wall, and the restraints on Zayn's body disengaged with a hiss of pressure.
He slumped forward slightly, his muscles weak, but hands quickly gripped his arms and lifted him to his feet. They didn't speak. They didn't need to. They moved like a single machine.
The rear doors split open vertically, revealing a massive underground hangar. The ceiling stretched high above them, webbed with power cables and piping, glowing faintly with shifting blue light. Everything hummed with quiet energy. Drones hovered near the ceiling, scanning, recording, adjusting.
Zayn was marched down a narrow metal walkway, flanked on both sides by bottomless black. Below, more vehicles sat idle. A vast subterranean network.
This place wasn't just hidden... it was alive.
Ahead stood a man in a white overcoat with a long streak of silver in his hair. His hands were clasped behind his back. Cold blue eyes examined Zayn like he was a specimen on a slide.
Dr. Velon.
Zayn had never met him, but his face had graced countless underground newsfeeds. Aether physicist. Lead CoreTech pioneer. The man credited with perfecting the artificial Aether generator.
Velon smiled without warmth.
"You're awake. Excellent," he said. His voice was smooth, deliberate. "Come. We have much to learn."
Zayn didn't move.
"Where am I?" he demanded, voice hoarse.
Velon raised a brow. "Exactly where you need to be."
The guards shoved him forward.
---
They took him through corridors lined with reinforced glass and alloy. The walls were etched with containment runes, glyphs powered by embedded Core crystals. Some glowed red. Others flickered faintly, as if struggling to stay active.
Behind the glass, Zayn saw things he couldn't name. Creatures suspended in fluid, bodies made of light and smoke. Machines fused to human spines. One chamber held a woman floating mid-air, her skin pale, hair whipping wildly despite the lack of wind. Her eyes were glowing completely white.
And when Zayn passed her cell, she turned to stare directly at him.
Her mouth moved.
"Null."
He shivered.
They moved deeper into the compound.
Finally, they reached a large chamber, spherical, with rotating rings suspended in the air. In the center stood a vertical harness surrounded by glass tubes and diagnostic arms. It looked more like an execution device than a medical rig.
Velon gestured. "Place him."
Zayn was strapped into the rig. Cold metal touched the back of his neck as the diagnostics activated. Light cascaded over his body in sharp pulses. Dozens of readouts projected into the air... some green, others flashing erratically.
Henna entered next. A slender woman with short-cropped hair, half of her face covered by a scanning lens that glowed purple. She approached without meeting his eyes.
"Vitals stable. Neural frequency inconsistent," she muttered. "There's… deviation in his Aether rejection curve. No known pattern."
Zayn turned toward her. "You're scanning for a Core. I don't have one."
Henna's jaw tightened. She didn't respond.
Velon approached the console. "True. But you erased Aether in a five-meter radius during the Arena event. You destabilized three students, one still in a coma. You also disrupted Instructor Rhys's cybernetic interface. That's not absence of power."
He tapped a button.
A small cube floated into the room glowing softly, humming with golden light.
Zayn tensed.
The Core cube drifted toward him and the moment it entered the sphere around his body, the light died. The hum ceased. The cube dropped, inert.
Henna staggered backward, clutching her head.
"Field collapse," she gasped. "No energy redirection. It's not absorption. It's nullification. Like... like he's a vacuum."
Velon's eyes gleamed.
"You're not Aether-resistant," he said softly. "You're a singularity."
Zayn's pulse thundered in his ears.
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means you're not part of the Aetherial spectrum," Velon said. "You exist outside it. You don't reject power, you erase it. Your presence destabilizes reality's energy lattice. We've only ever theorized this… in blacksite physics labs."
Zayn's mind reeled. "You're saying I'm… what? A weapon?"
"You're an anomaly," Velon said. "And anomalies rewrite the rules."
---
Later That Night
Zayn lay in a containment chamber shaped like a coffin... clear walls, no pillow, no comfort. His arms still shook from the cube test. He stared at the ceiling.
He thought of the Arena.
Of the way the Aether vanished.
Of how people looked at him.
And then, memories surfaced.
Flashback — Age 10
Rain pelted the rusted roof of the shelter in Sector 19. Zayn curled in the corner, wrapped in a blanket that smelled of mold and iron. Outside, a woman screamed. Gunfire echoed. A Core storm crackled in the distance, painting the sky neon blue.
His mother sat beside him, a deep wound across her thigh. She'd been trying to steal antibiotics for him. Her breathing was shallow.
"I tried, Zay…" she whispered. "I tried to protect you."
He didn't answer.
He just held her hand as the light in her eyes faded.
---
Zayn's fists clenched.
Never again.
---
Henna paced the observation deck, replaying the data. No one else knew she had saved copies to her personal drive.
The readings made no sense.
No Core resonance. No elemental markers. But massive gravitational imprint. As if he wasn't a person, but a hole in the latticework of reality.
She touched her temple.
"Could he be... artificial?" she whispered. "No. That doesn't explain the human genome... unless…"
She looked up as an alert flashed.
Security breach.
---
Back in Zayn's chamber, red lights pulsed.
The locks disengaged. Sirens blared.
A crack formed in the wall near him spreading like ink across ice.
Zayn stood slowly.
His body didn't tremble anymore.
The floor beneath him shimmered.
With a touch, the door dissolved.
The hallway beyond awaited.
And Zayn stepped forward into freedom.