Kade felt the weight of the two words settle in his chest, heavy despite the fact that he didn't fully understand them. Judging by his father's reaction — the same fixed intensity Trent wore when confronting a student who'd plagiarized entire paragraphs — they were important. Very important.
Time passed.
Trent remained still, staring somewhere past Kade, lost in thoughts that clearly had nothing to do with the room they were standing in.
Kade waited. Counted his own breaths. One. Two. Three.
His father didn't blink.
"Hey," Kade said. "You can't just act all weird, say something I have no idea about, and then go silent." His irritation bled through despite his effort to keep his voice level. "What's this dual gaze business about?"
Trent blinked, as if yanked back into reality.
He looked at Kade then — really looked at him — and his expression shifted rapidly, a storm of thoughts crossing his face too quickly to follow. Calculation. Hesitation. Something darker underneath.
Finally, Trent spoke.
"Kade," he said slowly, "you have to promise me something first."
Kade stiffened. "Promise what?"
"That you won't tell anyone," Trent said, his voice grave, "that you survived a dual gaze."
The word survived landed wrong.
Kade frowned. "What do you mean survived? Was I… not supposed to?"
Trent exhaled heavily, rubbing a hand over his face.
"A dual gaze isn't unheard of among the Enlightened," he said. "It's rare — but not unknown. The problem is that every recorded instance of it has ended the same way."
He met Kade's eyes.
"Death. Painful. Without exception."
The color drained from Kade's face.
He hadn't expected that. Hadn't expected to learn that, in the span of a few seconds the night before, he'd been closer to dying than he ever had in his life — not once, but twice.
"How?" The word came out rough. "How does it kill you?"
Trent was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice had gone flat — controlled, but with something underneath that suggested he'd seen it happen.
"Ala overload," he said. "Two opposing forces forcing their way into the Ori at once. The aperture tears. The energy floods the nervous system instead of circulating through it. Convulsions. Internal bleeding. The body burns from the inside out. Sometimes it takes hours."
Kade's hands tightened on the edge of the bed. He thought of the cold flooding through his spine, the pressure at the base of his skull. How close he'd come to that end without even knowing it.
"So you understand now," Trent said. "A survivor of a dual gaze is unprecedented. Completely uncharted territory."
He paused.
"You are an anomaly."
The word should have scared him more than it did.
Kade reached for fear — for the panic that should have been clawing up his throat — and found something else instead. A strange, hollow calm. Like standing in the eye of a storm and watching the walls of wind tear past on either side, canceling each other out.
He felt the two forces inside him now, clearer than before. Conviction on one side, pulling him toward certainty, toward purpose. Obsession on the other, dragging him toward fixation, toward the need to know. They didn't merge. They didn't fight. They simply held, leaving him suspended in a silence that felt almost like freedom.
He tried to panic again. Deliberately, like flexing a muscle that wasn't there.
Nothing.
"Kade?"
He looked up. His father was watching him with an expression he couldn't read — concern, maybe, or suspicion.
"I'm fine," Kade said. And he was, in a way that felt deeply wrong.
Trent hesitated. Then he shook his head.
"In all honesty? I don't know what this means for you," he said. "It could be nothing. It could be everything."
He turned toward the door, already halfway out of the conversation.
"I'll need to do some research. Reach out to a few contacts. We may be going somewhere soon."
He paused with his hand on the door.
"For now, focus on school. Try to be as normal as you can."
Then, almost as an afterthought: "One more thing. Enlightenment tends to take whatever part of your personality resonates with the being that performed the gaze — and amplifies it. With a dual gaze, the implications are unclear. Be mindful of anytime you feel yourself acting out of character."
On that ominous note, he left.
The door closed softly behind him.
Kade remained seated on the edge of his bed, staring at nothing. The word anomaly echoed in his mind, but it didn't settle. It kept sliding off, unable to find purchase.
He reached for fear one more time.
Found only the storm's quiet center, waiting.
Kade sat in silence for a long while, listening to the world outside his room.
Birds chirped somewhere beyond the window. A car passed on the street below. From downstairs came the faint, familiar sounds of movement — cups clinking, a pan sliding across a stovetop. Breakfast. His mother, Theresa Moren, already up and moving.
The thought of her made his chest tighten.
Warm. Tireless. Always busy, yet somehow always present. CEO of a makeup company that had done better than anyone expected — including her — but no matter how packed her schedule became, she never failed to make time to be a mother and a wife.
And now, apparently, she was the only normal human in the house.
The realization left a sour knot in his stomach.
He couldn't tell her any of this. According to his father, the Veil would simply alter her memories, smoothing over the truth as if it had never existed. Worse, trying to explain might put her in danger.
Maybe ignorance really was safer.
But looking at her — really looking, with whatever had changed in his eyes — would he even see the same mother? Or would he see someone fragile, someone walking through a world that could crack open at any moment and swallow her whole?
Kade stood.
He crossed into the bathroom and stopped in front of the mirror.
Same face. Same dark skin, same unruly hair that refused to lie flat.
But his eyes —
Green. Almost incandescent now, catching the morning light in a way that made them look lit from within. They held his gaze, sharper and more vivid than he remembered, as if something behind them had woken up and wasn't going back to sleep.
He stared for a long moment.
Then he bent his knees and jumped.
His head didn't hit the ceiling this time. He'd expected to rise a few inches, maybe a foot — but his body kept going, weightless, effortless, until his shoulder blades brushed the ceiling fan and he had to twist mid-air to avoid the blades.
He dropped back down, landing light as a cat, and stared at his reflection in the mirror.
The face looking back at him was grinning.
Kade hadn't decided to grin. The expression had simply arrived, pulled up from somewhere deep and startled and hungry. He felt the fear now, finally — but it was small, distant, overwhelmed by something larger.
He was alive when he shouldn't be.
He could jump to the ceiling.
And somewhere in the silence of his own head, two impossible forces had agreed to let him keep breathing.
He turned on the shower before the grin could turn into something else.
After a criminally cold shower meant to knock his head out of the clouds, Kade finally felt something resembling a human being again — if he even was one anymore.
He cut that thought off immediately.
"Breakfast first," he muttered to himself. "Then school. Focus on the normal. Like Dad said."
Standing in front of his dresser, he grabbed the first clean clothes his hand landed on and pulled them on without much thought. He made a half-hearted attempt to tame his hair, failed miserably, and gave up. Curly and unruly it was.
He caught his reflection in the mirror and threw it a self-satisfied smirk before turning toward the door.
As soon as he stepped into the hallway, the smell hit him.
Pancakes.
His favourite.
Kade rubbed his hands together with a grin and headed downstairs.
The Moren house looked exactly like you'd expect a large house with only three occupants to look — full, yet strangely spacious. Photos lined the walls: the three of them together, individual portraits frozen at different stages of life. Vases and paintings occupied corners. Sculptures filled empty spaces. And books — everywhere. Shelves, tables, stacks in corners. All courtesy of his father, the resident historian.
Despite the clutter, there was a quiet order to it all. Kade had learned early on that his father's books and artifacts were sacred.
He reached the bottom of the stairs just as his mother's humming drifted out from the kitchen.
Theresa Moren moved like she always did — effortless, efficient, everywhere at once. She flipped pancakes, scrambled eggs, fried bacon, and still found the time to keep his father's coffee mug filled as he sat at the kitchen island.
Kade paused in the doorway, watching her.
She was already dressed for work in a sharp pantsuit, her black hair tied back into a neat bun. Her dark skin looked vibrant, her hazel eyes crinkling with familiar smile lines as she laughed at something Trent had said.
Then her gaze found him.
The smile didn't fade. But something flickered — a microsecond of adjustment, like a camera refocusing. She looked at him the way she always had, but Kade felt the weight of it differently now. Sharper. More deliberate.
"Morning, baby," she said, and the warmth in her voice was real, but her eyes tracked him as he crossed the room — his posture, his stride, the way he moved now with a lightness that hadn't been there yesterday.
"Morning," Kade said. He leaned down to kiss her cheek and took the seat she ushered him toward, piling his plate high.
She studied him for a moment longer than usual. Then, casually — too casually — she reached out and brushed a curl back from his forehead.
"You sleep okay?" she asked. "You look different."
Kade's stomach dropped.
"Different how?"
Trent's newspaper rustled. He didn't look up.
"Probably just the light," Theresa said, but her eyes stayed on Kade's a beat too long. "You seem taller. Or something."
"Growth spurt," Kade said, forcing a laugh. "Finally."
Theresa smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. She turned back to the stove, and Kade let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
Trent lowered his newspaper just enough to meet Kade's gaze over the rim. A single, pointed look. Be careful.
Kade looked down at his pancakes.
He'd grown up an only child in what could only be described as the textbook definition of a suburban neighbourhood — white picket fences, smoking chimneys in the winter, neighbours so friendly it sometimes bordered on verbal assault. The Morens had always kept to themselves. As an African American family — and the only one for several blocks — they tended to stand out. The green eyes he and his father shared didn't help either, often leading to awkward conversations that inevitably ended with some variation of, they're really cool though.
He'd grown used to it.
At least until Rex and Tina.
A small smile tugged at his lips as he thought of them. They'd met in preschool. The only kids who'd called his eyes cool with genuine smiles instead of whispering behind his backs. Best friends since before he could remember life without them.
He'd see them at school today.
The smile faded.
What would he say? Hey, I almost died last night, and now I can jump to the ceiling? The Veil would erase it anyway. Or worse — what if trying to tell them put them in the path of something like last night?
He couldn't drag them into this. Not until he understood it himself.
Kade schooled his expression and focused on his food.
After finishing the cooking, cleaning up the dishes, and making sure everyone had a full plate, Theresa finally sat down at the table. She'd eaten her own breakfast earlier, long before anyone else was awake.
Her eyes flicked between Kade and Trent as she settled in.
"You two were talking for quite a while this morning," she said lightly. "Door closed and everything. Anything interesting?"
Kade swallowed a mouthful of pancake and nearly choked.
His mind scrambled for a plausible answer — anything that wouldn't sound suspicious — when Trent's voice cut in from behind the newspaper.
"Just helping Kade with some schoolwork," he said casually.
It was, annoyingly, the perfect lie.
Kade blinked, momentarily thrown by how smoothly it came out. A chill ran up his spine as he glanced at his father. Trent's face was still hidden behind the paper, but Kade could almost feel those green eyes fixed on him, expectant.
He cleared his throat.
"Yeah," he said quickly. "I was having trouble with some history notes."
Theresa studied them both for a moment. Something unreadable flickered across her face — but before she could press further, Trent folded the newspaper and stood.
"Come on, Theresa," he said, grabbing his coat. "You'll be late. I'll drive."
She glanced at the wall clock, cursed softly under her breath, and sprang into motion. Gathering her things, she leaned down to press a quick kiss to Kade's forehead.
"Say hi to Rex and Tina for me," she said warmly.
Then she was gone, following Trent out the door.
The house fell quiet.
Kade remained seated at the table, alone now.
Noticing the time, Kade hurriedly stuffed the remainder of his food into his mouth, washed it down with a glass of juice, and cleared his plate. He rinsed the dishes, wiped down the counter out of habit, and grabbed his bag before heading out the door.
The neighbourhood greeted him with familiar calm.
Kade attended Peakton High School — a solid, well-funded public school that served most of the surrounding area. It wasn't elite, but it was close enough that nearly everyone in the neighbourhood ended up there sooner or later. In a place like this, it wasn't much of a stretch to say that everyone knew everyone else, at least by face if not by name.
He fast-walked toward the bus stop, quietly praying it was still there.
It wasn't.
The bus disappeared around the corner just as he reached the curb.
"Damn it," he muttered.
With a resigned sigh, he broke into a jog.
And immediately something went wrong.
His first step carried him twice as far as it should have. His second step nearly sent him stumbling into the street. He tried to slow down, to find his normal rhythm, but his legs felt like they belonged to someone else — someone stronger, faster, hungrier for motion.
He wasn't jogging. He was gliding, each push against the pavement sending him forward in long, impossible strides.
Kade's heart hammered. He tried to stop.
Couldn't. Not immediately. The Ala was moving through him now, eager, almost joyful, and his body followed where it led.
Colors screamed past — richer, sharper, almost painful in their clarity. The scent of freshly cut grass punched into his nose, layered with exhaust from a car three blocks away, with someone's morning coffee, with the faint chemical bite of a swimming pool being cleaned. Sounds piled on top of each other: footsteps, conversations, a baby crying, a dog's nails clicking on hardwood, all of it there, all of it now, pressing against his eardrums with crushing intimacy.
He couldn't filter it. Couldn't sort it.
He was drowning in the world.
Kade forced himself to slow down, to drag his attention inward, to find the cold current at the base of his skull and push back.
The sensory flood receded — not gone, but muted, like someone had turned down a volume knob.
He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, breathing hard, and realized he'd covered three blocks without breaking a sweat.
A woman walking her dog stared at him. An old man pruning his roses paused, shears suspended mid-snip. They'd seen him move — too fast, too smooth, too wrong.
Kade met their eyes. For a moment, none of them moved.
Then the woman shook her head slightly, smiled at her dog, and continued walking. The old man returned to his roses.
Kade watched them dismiss him.
He should have felt relief. Instead, he felt a chill that had nothing to do with the morning air. The Veil, working through them. Smoothing over the impossible. Making him safe by making him invisible.
He wasn't sure if he was grateful or furious.
He started moving again, slower this time, forcing his legs into a normal rhythm. It took effort — conscious, deliberate effort — to move like a human being. The Ala pushed against his restraint, eager to run, to fly.
By the time Peakton High School came into view, he'd found a kind of balance. Not control, not yet. But a truce.
He slowed as he reached the front gates, relief washing over him when he saw students still milling around the entrance.
He made it.
Only then did he check the time on his phone.
His steps faltered.
"That's… not right," he murmured.
He remembered when he'd left the house. Remembered the pace he'd kept, the distance he'd covered, the struggle to hold himself back. Yet only a few minutes had passed — and he felt like he could easily go another mile.
He looked at his hands. At the school. At the ordinary morning unfolding around him — kids laughing, lockers slamming, someone complaining about a math test.
None of them knew.
None of them could know.
And standing there, holding the secret like a live wire in his chest, Kade felt the fear finally give way.
Not to excitement, not yet. To something harder and more specific.
Possibility.
He was alive when he shouldn't be. He could move faster than human eyes could track. And somewhere in the hidden world his father had described, two factions of impossible beings were still fighting over what he might become.
The first bell rang.
Kade squared his shoulders and headed toward the main building.