The first sign that my power was evolving came when Farrah Payton started screaming about shadows that shouldn't exist. Her mother brought her to Mount Sinai Hospital's ER, where I was just finishing a twelve hour shift of absorbing other people's trauma. The timing probably saved all our lives.

  I recognized them from the news coverage immediately, one of the famous Parallax birth cases that had dominated headlines for months. Evelyn Payton had been the only mother conscious during those four minutes and thirteen seconds when shadows covered the Earth. Her daughter Farrah, almost three now, played with a stuffed rabbit while reality rippled strangely around her, the air bending like heat waves over summer asphalt.

  "The shadows hurt," Farrah said matter of factly as I checked her vitals, her small fingers clutching the worn stuffed rabbit tighter. "They keep showing me things I'm not supposed to remember yet."

  My power pulsed when I touched her arm, not the usual transfer of physical pain that I was accustomed to, but something deeper, something that resonated in frequencies I'd never encountered before. Something older. Like muscle memory from before muscles existed.

  "How long has this been happening?" I asked Evelyn, though I couldn't take my eyes off the shadows gathering in the corners of the examination room. They moved wrong, forming patterns that hurt to look at. Not like normal shadows cast by objects blocking light, but like entities with purpose and intent, coalescing into geometries that seemed to fold in on themselves in ways that made my eyes water.

  "A few days," Evelyn said, her voice tight with tension. Her hands twisted together nervously, knuckles white. "At first I thought it was just nightmares, but..." She glanced at the shadows writhing in the corners of the room, then quickly looked away as if the sight physically pained her. "She keeps talking about before. About what she used to be. And the shadows... they're getting stronger."

  I knew about shadows. We all did now, after what happened in Queens and Washington. The incidents had been headline news for weeks, quantum disturbances that had left entire city blocks in states of physical flux, buildings existing and not existing simultaneously, people reporting time flowing at different speeds. But these shadows curling around Farrah were different from the ones that followed other powered individuals. These had purpose. Intelligence. They curled around Farrah like old friends, like they recognized her on some fundamental level.

  "Can you help her?" Evelyn asked, desperation evident in her voice. "Please. I don't want BACR involved. Not after what they've been doing to powered people."

  The rumors about BACR, the Bureau of Anomalous Containment and Research, had been circulating through the powered community for months. Disappearances. Experimentation. People with abilities being "contained" for the greater good. The thought of a child, especially one like Farrah, falling into their hands made my stomach turn.

  I nodded, reaching for Farrah again. My power could absorb pain, physical trauma, injuries, diseases. Seven minutes and thirteen seconds of someone else's suffering. It had made me an excellent doctor but a terrible dinner date. Nothing kills a romantic evening quite like suddenly doubling over with your companion's childhood appendicitis.

  But when I touched Farrah this time, something else happened.

  Reality bent.

  The air screamed, not metaphorically, but actually screamed, like the fabric of existence itself was being torn apart. The sound came from everywhere and nowhere, vibrating at frequencies that made my teeth ache and my vision blur. Medical equipment exploded around us, monitors shattering, IV stands twisting into impossible shapes. Glass shattered, raining down in crystalline patterns that hung suspended for impossible moments before continuing their descent. The fluorescent lights burst in cascading waves, plunging the room into a darkness pierced only by sparking electronics and the eerie glow emanating from the corner where the shadows were thickest.

  From this concentrated darkness, the Herald manifested.

  What had once been a child named Mikey, I recognized him from the Washington incident footage, now existed as pure frequency given form, trailing void and static. His form rippled between states of being, sometimes resembling a human child, sometimes a living constellation of quantum static, sometimes a void in the shape of a person. Reality distorted around him like he was a stone dropped into the pond of existence, sending ripples through everything he approached.

  "A child born in shadow," it said, voice layered with countless others, harmonizing at frequencies that made my bones vibrate painfully. "The last piece we've been searching for."

  Before I could move, tendrils of pure force slammed me against the wall. The impact should have broken my spine, but the wall itself gave way, becoming soft and pliant before hardening again, trapping me like an insect in amber. Medical monitors sparked and died as reality began to forget how to hold its shape. The examination table flowed like liquid, the floor rippled like water, and the ceiling began to fold inward in geometric patterns that shouldn't have been possible in three dimensional space.

  "Stay away from her!" Evelyn tried to shield Farrah, throwing herself between her daughter and the Herald, maternal instinct overriding terror. But the Herald simply phased through her like she was made of smoke, leaving her gasping and shuddering as void energy passed through her body.

  "Your daughter," it said, reaching for Farrah with hands made of void, fingers elongating into tendrils of pure nothingness, "carries the blueprint for the Unweaving."

  I pushed against the force holding me, trying to absorb the trauma, the pain, anything. But my power wasn't meant for this kind of hurt, the agony of existence itself being rewritten, the fundamental pain of reality forgetting how to be real. It was like trying to swallow an ocean, my ability overwhelmed by the sheer scale of what was happening.

  Then Farrah screamed.

  The sound hit frequencies that shouldn't exist, piercing through octaves that human ears were never meant to hear. As the Herald touched her, reality began to unravel around the point of contact. Walls crumbled into quantum uncertainty, furniture dissolved into probability fields, and the floor became a suggestion rather than a fact, existing in multiple states simultaneously. Farrah's stuffed rabbit twisted and morphed, cycling through every possible configuration of cloth and stuffing before settling back into rabbit shape, now somehow more real than everything else in the room.

  Something in me broke. Or perhaps, evolved.

  My power surged, not just absorbing physical trauma anymore but drinking in quantum frequencies themselves. The pain of reality breaking became energy, became understanding, became strength. Where before I could only take on physical injuries, now I found myself absorbing the very patterns of existence as they fractured around us. Blood poured from my nose, my ears, my eyes as I channeled frequencies that human bodies weren't meant to process, weren't built to contain.

  "Get. Away. From. Her." Each word carried force as I pushed back against the Herald's power, each syllable containing frequencies that made the air between us solidify and then shatter. Blood streamed down my face, metallic and warm, but I barely noticed. My consciousness had expanded beyond mere physical sensation, reaching into the quantum structure of reality itself.

  The Herald's form flickered, static momentarily disrupting its cohesion. "Impossible. You can't..."

  I hit it with every frequency I'd absorbed, every quantum signature it was trying to force through Farrah. I held the power of unmaking itself, but I knew it wouldn't last. My body wasn't designed to channel this kind of energy, and already I could feel cells rupturing, blood vessels bursting as I forced power through a system never meant to contain it.

  The Herald staggered back, its void form rippling with what might have been surprise. Through my evolved perception, I saw its true form, layers of stolen powers arranged like an infinite orchestra, each one singing the song of what reality used to be. Powers taken from other Parallaxers, absorbed and transformed into something else entirely. It was beautiful and terrible, a symphony of abilities harmonizing into something greater than their parts.

  "Fascinating," it said as reality trembled around us, the hospital room fluctuating between states of existence. "But futile. The child must remember. Must show us the way. Her quantum signature carries the pattern of perfect emergence."

  The ceiling collapsed as the Herald's influence expanded, but the debris never reached us. Instead, it hung suspended in mid air, breaking down into component particles that orbited the room like planets around a dying star. I grabbed Farrah and Evelyn, trying to create a bubble of stable space around us with my evolved ability. It was like trying to build a sandcastle while the tide was coming in, possible, but temporary at best.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  "Run!"

  We burst into the hallway as reality unraveled behind us. The hospital corridor stretched and compressed like an accordion, distances becoming meaningless as space itself forgot how to measure properly. Support beams twisted into geometries that shouldn't exist, forming M?bius loops and Klein bottles of structural steel. Walls forgot how to be walls, becoming permeable membranes that showed glimpses of other rooms, other times, other possibilities. The Herald's laugh echoed through it all, resonating at frequencies that made physics hurt.

  "You cannot stop the unweaving," its voice followed us, shaking the building's foundations, causing cracks that leaked not dust but probability. "The child will show us how to emerge properly this time. How to transform without breaking."

  The hospital's main entrance vanished into quantum static as we reached it, the doors becoming a vortex of possibilities, sometimes glass, sometimes solid wall, sometimes nothing at all. I felt my power pulse, absorbing just enough frequency to forge a path through unreality, to force the entrance to remember how to be an exit long enough for us to pass through.

  "This way!"

  We sprinted across the parking lot as the building's east wing ceased existing in normal space time, the architecture folding inward like origami constructed by a madman. Cars warped and melted, metal flowing like wax as reality's temperature fluctuated wildly. The asphalt beneath our feet became elastic, then crystalline, then something without name or definition.

  The Herald emerged through spaces between moments, its form blazing with stolen powers. It passed through solid matter as if such distinctions were beneath it, trailing void and static that corrupted everything it touched. Ambulances arrived, their sirens warping into impossible notes as they encountered the spreading unreality. First responders froze mid motion as time became inconsistent around them.

  "The Unweaving comes," the Herald called after us, its voice carrying across distances that shouldn't have been traversable by sound. "Reality will remember what it was before merging. Before distinction. And this child..." Static tendrils reached for us, stretching across the parking lot like cosmic fishing lines. "This child knows the way."

  I turned, channeling every frequency I'd absorbed into one desperate blast. The power tore through me like lightning, cellular structures rupturing as I forced energy through pathways never meant to exist in human biology. The Herald's attack met my evolved power in a collision that made existence hiccup, time skipping forward and backward simultaneously, creating a momentary bubble of pure potential where neither of us could affect the other.

  Just enough time to reach my car.

  We piled in, Evelyn clutching Farrah to her chest in the back seat as I fumbled with keys that kept shifting between states of existence. The engine roared to life on the third try, and we peeled out of the parking lot as Mount Sinai Hospital rippled with quantum distortions. Through the rearview mirror, I watched the Herald's influence spreading, transforming concrete and steel into frequencies that predated matter. The east wing folded in on itself, becoming a singularity of pure potential before blinking out of existence entirely. The rest of the building fluctuated between states, sometimes hospital, sometimes something else entirely, architecture shifting through possibilities like someone flipping through TV channels.

  "What did it mean?" Evelyn asked, her voice shaking as she held Farrah close. Blood trickled from her nose, exposure to quantum instability affecting her despite my best efforts to shield them. "About the Unweaving?"

  But Farrah answered, her voice echoing with others, as if multiple versions of herself were speaking simultaneously: "We're not supposed to break everything. We're supposed to show the way. Show how to grow properly this time."

  I glanced back at her, momentarily distracted from the road. Through my evolved perception, I could see her quantum signature pulsing with patterns I didn't understand, yet somehow recognized on some fundamental level. She wasn't just a Parallaxer; she was something else entirely. Something older. Something that existed before existence learned how to be.

  My nose was still bleeding, copper tang filling my mouth, but my power had stabilized into something new. Something that could feel the deeper hurts, not just physical trauma or emotional pain, but the very wounds in reality itself. The places where existence had forgotten how to be whole. And maybe, just maybe, help heal them.

  Reality trembled as we drove, the Herald's words echoing in frequencies only my evolved senses could perceive: "A child born in shadow... the blueprint for perfect Emergence."

  We needed to understand what that meant.

  Before the Herald showed us.

  In the rearview mirror, I watched as the Herald's form pulsed brightly, then receded into the shadows of the crumbling hospital. To my astonishment, as its presence faded, the destruction began to reverse itself. Collapsed walls reconstructed, shattered glass reformed, twisted metal straightened. Mount Sinai Hospital was returning to normal, reality remembering how to be solid again with the Herald's departure.

  "He's letting us go," I murmured, unable to believe what I was seeing. "But why?"

  Through my evolved senses, I caught a whisper of something, a quantum reverberation that felt almost like satisfaction. The Herald hadn't failed; it had accomplished something else entirely. Something involving Farrah. A confirmation, perhaps.

  "Mommy, he's gone now," Farrah said, her voice sounding strangely normal. "He got what he wanted."

  "What do you mean, sweetheart?" Evelyn asked, smoothing her daughter's hair. "What did he want?"

  "To see if I was like the others. Like him." Farrah clutched her stuffed rabbit tighter. "Like Dredsen."

  The unfamiliar name hung in the air, sending a chill through me. "Dredsen?" I repeated, the word strange on my tongue.

  Farrah nodded, her expression unsettlingly adult. "That's what he was called. Before he was the Herald. The shadows say that's his old name, from before he learned to break himself into pieces."

  Evelyn looked at her daughter with growing alarm. "Farrah, how do you know these things?"

  The little girl shrugged, tracing patterns on her stuffed rabbit's ear. "The shadows tell me. They say I'm a seed, like the others."

  "Others?" I asked, a growing unease spreading through me. Through my evolved perception, I caught something in Farrah's quantum signature I hadn't noticed before, a pattern that pulsed with ancient purpose.

  "The special children. Born during the shadow time." She leaned her head against the window, watching shadows flow across the passing landscape. "He planted us, like he did before. The boy who broke into shadows was the first try."

  My medical training struggled to make sense of what she was saying, but my evolved ability was beginning to understand. The Parallax birth children weren't just random manifestations; they were deliberate creations. Seeds planted by something older than our understanding of reality.

  I pulled over, needing a moment to process this. The road ahead stretched dark and empty, but safe for now. The Herald's quantum signature was fading from my perception, returning to whatever spaces between spaces it normally occupied.

  "We should be safe for a while," I said, turning to face Evelyn and Farrah. "The Herald... or Dredsen, or whatever it truly is... has withdrawn. But it will be back."

  "What does it want with my daughter?" Evelyn asked, her voice breaking.

  I hesitated, uncertain how to explain concepts I barely grasped myself. "I think the Parallax birth children are special. Not just powered individuals, but something more fundamental. They're connected to whatever the shadows truly are."

  Farrah nodded solemnly. "We're the new pattern. Better than last time."

  "Last time?" I asked.

  "With the star boy. He broke too easily." She looked down at her rabbit, speaking to it as if sharing a secret. "We're supposed to be stronger. So when the Remembering comes, we don't shatter."

  "The Remembering," I repeated. "Is that the same as the Unweaving?"

  Farrah shook her head. "The Unweaving is when everything gets taken apart. The Remembering is when everything remembers what it used to be. Before it got all separate."

  I looked at Evelyn, whose face was pale with comprehension and fear. "We need to understand what all this means. And we need to find somewhere safe."

  "Where can we possibly go?" she asked. "How do you hide from something that can step between realities?"

  I had no answers, just a desperate need to put distance between Farrah and the Herald. "Away from the city, for now. Somewhere with fewer people, fewer distractions."

  Evelyn nodded, tightening her arms around Farrah. "We'll figure it out. We have to."

  I put the car in drive and accelerated down the empty highway, watching the city lights recede in the rearview mirror. Through my enhanced perception, I noticed something odd about the shadows around us. They were moving with purpose, some flowing ahead of us as if clearing the way, others following behind like guards.

  "The shadows are helping us," Farrah said, confirming what I suspected. "Some of them don't agree with him. They think he's moving too fast, like last time."

  "What happened last time?" I asked, unable to suppress my curiosity.

  "The boy who became stars got broken into too many pieces. Reality got all cracked." She hugged her rabbit tighter. "They don't want that to happen again."

  I caught Evelyn's eye in the rearview mirror. The weight of what we were facing hung between us, unspoken but understood. This wasn't just about protecting a child anymore. This was about something far vaster, far older than any of us could comprehend.

  The road stretched ahead, dark and uncertain. I had no idea where we were going, only that we needed to keep moving. My newly evolved powers throbbed in time with my heartbeat, showing me things I never wanted to see, frequencies I never imagined could exist.

  But also, perhaps, a way to heal the deepest wounds of all.

  In the back seat, Farrah had fallen asleep, her stuffed rabbit clutched tightly to her chest. But the shadows continued to dance around our car, guiding us through the night to a destination I couldn't begin to guess.

  I only hoped that when we arrived, I would be strong enough to face what waited for us.