The first thing Ben noticed wasn't the pain. It was the silence.
It was a heavy, suffocating silence that felt like it had physical mass, pressing down on his chest and filling his lungs with the scent of sterile ozone and ancient dust. For a long time, he existed only in that quiet, a consciousness floating in a sea of grey void. He didn't know who he was, or where he was, or why his very soul felt like it had been shredded and stitched back together with jagged lightning.
Then, the sensation returned.
It started as a dull throb in his shoulder—the right one. It was a rhythmic, pulsing heat that grew with every second, blooming from a spark into a roaring wildfire. Ben tried to groan, but his throat felt like it had been lined with sandpaper. His tongue was a lead weight in a mouth that hadn't known moisture in an eternity.
Open your eyes, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. It wasn't his own voice. It sounded like grinding stones and humming wire. Wake up, Catalyst.
Ben's eyelids felt like they were glued shut with dried salt. He fought against the lethargy, forcing his muscles to twitch. Slowly, agonizingly, he cracked them open. The world was a blur of harsh, clinical white and flickering shadows. He blinked rapidly, his vision swimming until the ceiling came into focus. It wasn't the ceiling of the ancient passage. It was metal—brushed steel, etched with glowing blue runes that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
He tried to sit up, but his body betrayed him. He was weak, his muscles wasted away from a year of atrophy he didn't yet understand. He let out a ragged, whistling breath and turned his head to the side.
That was when he remembered the door. The golden light. The stone tablet that had looked like a tombstone for the world.
And the bang.
Memory hit him like a physical blow. He remembered the sensation of his arm being vaporized, the wet thud of bone hitting the floor, and the scream that had died in his throat as the light consumed him. Panic, sharp and cold, flared in his gut. He looked down at his right side, terrified of the emptiness he expected to find.
His breath hitched.
His arm was there. But it wasn't his arm.
From the shoulder down, his right limb was encased in a sleeve of obsidian-colored material that shimmered with an iridescent oil-slick sheen. It didn't look like skin; it looked like forged shadow. Where his elbow should have been, there were intricate, glowing gold filigrees that mimicked the symbols he'd seen on the tablet. His hand—the fingers long and tapering into blunt, metallic points—rested on the white sheet of the bed. It didn't feel like flesh. It felt like power held in a fragile container.
"You're finally awake," a voice said from the corner of the room.
Ben jolted, a surge of adrenaline sparking through his nervous system. As he moved, the obsidian arm reacted. A low hum, barely audible, vibrated through his bones, and a faint spark of golden electricity danced between his new fingertips.
A woman stepped out of the shadows. She was dressed in a sharp, slate-grey suit, her hair pulled back into a bun so tight it looked painful. She held a digital tablet in one hand, her eyes—sharp and calculating—scanning Ben like he was a laboratory specimen rather than a human being.
"W-where..." Ben's voice was a broken wreck. He coughed, the effort racking his thin frame.
"You are in Facility 09," the woman said, her tone devoid of warmth. "And to answer your next ten questions: It has been 372 days since you touched the Tablet of the First Sun. You are currently the only survivor of the 'Resonance Event.' And no, that is not a prosthetic. It is a symbiotic integration."
Ben stared at the black arm. He tried to clench his fist. The movement was fluid—more fluid than his natural left hand. He could feel the texture of the bedsheets through the obsidian "skin" with a sensitivity that was almost overwhelming. He could feel the temperature of the air, the vibration of the ventilation system, and something else... a hum in the walls. He could feel the electricity running through the building.
"A year?" Ben managed to wheeze out. "My parents... they..."
The woman's expression softened by a fraction of a millimeter. "Your family was told there was a gas leak at the ruins. They believe you are in a specialized coma ward for long-term recovery. Which, technically, isn't a lie. But you aren't going home, Ben. Not yet."
Ben felt a surge of anger. It started in his chest and flowed straight into his right arm. The gold runes on his elbow flared bright, and the air around his hand began to distort, shimmering with heat.
"Don't do that," the woman warned, stepping back. "The last time you had an emotional spike while unconscious, you leveled the medical wing. You are currently the most dangerous 17-year-old on the planet, Ben. We spent twelve months keeping you stable while that... thing... rebuilt your molecular structure."
Ben looked at his hand again. He wasn't Ben the high schooler anymore. He wasn't the boy who liked old history books and wondered if there was more to life than his small town. He was something else. A 'Catalyst,' she had called him.
"What did that tablet do to me?" he whispered, the gold light in his arm dimming as he forced himself to breathe.
"It chose you," the woman replied, tapping a command on her tablet. The wall in front of Ben's bed slid open, revealing a floor-to-ceiling window.
Outside, Ben didn't see a city. He saw a wasteland. A massive crater stretched for miles, the earth glassed and scorched. In the center of the crater, floating several hundred feet in the air, was the stone tablet. It was no longer glowing gold; it was a deep, pulsing crimson, surrounded by a swirling vortex of clouds.
"The world changed while you were sleeping," she continued. "The 'Bang' you heard wasn't just in that room. It was a pulse that circled the globe. Across the world, people are waking up with... 'gifts.' Some are calling them miracles. We call them anomalies. And you, Ben, are the source."
Ben stared at the floating stone. He felt a tether between his chest and that ancient rock, a psychic umbilical cord that thrummed with a heavy, rhythmic beat. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
He wasn't just a superhero in the making. He was the epicenter of a new era.
"I want it off," Ben said, his voice gaining strength. He gripped the obsidian arm with his left hand, trying to peel it away, but his fingers just slid over the smooth surface. "Take it off me!"
"It is you now, Ben," the woman said, turning to leave. "Rest. The tests begin at dawn. If you want to survive the others who are coming for that power, you'll need to learn how to use it."
As the door hissed shut, Ben was left alone in the flickering blue light. He lifted his right hand, watching the golden sparks dance across his black palm. He realized then that the boy who entered that passage was dead.
He closed his eyes, but he didn't see darkness. He saw the golden light, and for the first time, he heard the stone tablet speak.
Claim your crown, Ben.