By Monday morning, Alex was exhausted.
Not the normal kind of tired—the deep, bone-heavy fatigue that came from training his body beyond human limits and then forcing it back into a human schedule. School felt unreal, like a poorly acted play he had wandered into by mistake.
He sat in class, staring at the board while the teacher talked. Every sound competed for his attention: pens scratching paper, someone tapping a foot three rows back, whispered conversations across the room. His jaw clenched as he tried to filter it all out.
Focus. Just be human.
At lunch, his friends laughed and joked like nothing had changed. Alex laughed too, a second too late, always half a step behind the conversation. He could hear their heartbeats. Count their breaths. Smell stress, excitement, fear.
It scared him.
"Bro, you good?" his friend Marcus asked, studying him. "You've been weird lately."
Alex forced a shrug. "Just tired."
It was the truth—but not the whole truth.
The first crack appeared after school.
As Alex walked home, his instincts flared without warning. The city noise dropped away, replaced by a sharp, focused silence. He stopped mid-step.
Someone was following him.
He didn't turn around. He didn't need to. The scent told him everything—cold metal, oil, and something bitter underneath.
Hunters.
His pulse spiked. He slipped into a side street, then another, moving casually, forcing himself not to run. When he ducked into a crowded convenience store, the pressure eased slightly.
They weren't ready to move in public.
Yet.
That night, Mara met him on a rooftop.
"They're testing you," she said. "Watching your habits. Your weaknesses."
"My friends," Alex said quietly. "My family."
Mara's expression darkened. "That's why balance matters. Lose your human life, and you lose your anchor."
Alex looked out at the city. "And if I can't balance both?"
"Then one world will destroy the other," she said simply.
Later, alone in his room, Alex stared at his reflection. He rolled his shoulder, watching the faint outline of the mark shift beneath his skin.
He felt stronger. Faster. More aware.
But every day, being human felt harder.
And deep down, he feared the truth.
The city wasn't just changing him.
It was deciding which side of him would survive.