"Do you remember my fight with Alex?" James turned to Karl.
Karl flinched. The memory of those mismatched eyes returned to him. "...Yes. What about it?"
"Do you remember how my wounds healed?"
He remembered. The wounds had disappeared. Slowly. As if time was reversing.
"Even this." James placed his hand on his chest. "Alex ran me through right here. I saw my own bones. Air was entering through my chest and exiting through my back." He paused for a moment. "Any ordinary person would have died."
Karl's eyes glinted. "Do you mean... that anyone can do that?"
James shook his head. "No. Only people like us."
"Like us?"
"Those who weren't affected by the plague. Or rather..." He searched for the word. "...were affected differently."
Karl looked at his hands. Clean. No blood. But he saw Maya. His knife. Her eyes as they flickered awake for a moment before dimming again.
"But..." James began, then stopped.
"But?"
"It hurts." James smiled bitterly. "Every time you use your power, you pay a price. Your old pain. Your memories. Your losses."
A long silence.
Then Karl brought the glass of water to his lips. Took a long sip. Set the glass down.
"Then let's begin."
In the corner of the room, the commander who hadn't uttered a word the entire time, shifted his shoulder slightly. Perhaps he was just getting comfortable. Perhaps he was smiling.
''
The Silver Hoof Tavern
Kael sat at the bar. He placed his glass down without drinking.
"The Abyss."
The bartender looked at him. His hand paused mid-wipe.
"News travels fast."
"You caught one of them?"
A nod toward below. "In the basement."
"Did he talk?"
"Told us everything he knows. Didn't have a choice."
Kael drank his glass in one gulp. Stood up.
"Take me to him."
---
The bartender gestured to a door on the other side. An old wooden door.
Kael passed through the gambling tables. Beneath his feet, the creak of wood mingled with the noise of drunks. Then a metal door. Cold. Heavy. Built to silence sounds.
Stairs descending. His footsteps echoed in the narrow space. Then another door.
The room below was wide. Scattered candles barely pushed back the darkness. Cells on both sides.
Before he saw anything, he heard.
"Please... please just kill me... I told you everything... I don't know more than this... please..."
The voice was hoarse. Torn. Not the voice of a man screaming for the first time, but the voice of a man who had screamed so many times his throat could no longer bear it.
Kael followed the sound.
A worn wooden chair. A man tied to it with thick restraints. He wore no shirt. The exposed skin was a map of wounds—some still scars, some still bleeding.
But what caught Kael's attention wasn't the wounds.
When the man opened his mouth to scream again, Kael saw: gaps. Broken teeth. Some were just black remnants.
Not ordinary beating. Someone had pulled his teeth out. One by one.
His eyes were blindfolded with a cloth. But he heard the door open.
His screaming stopped abruptly.
Not because he had calmed down. Because he wanted to listen.
"You..." he finally whispered, his head tilted slightly, like someone trying to see with his ears.
'''
The most important moment in the entire chapter—Karl's internal turning point—takes up a single sentence, and then we abruptly cut to ordinary dialogue.
Karl discovers that his pain could become fuel for revenge. This isn't an ordinary moment. This is an identity-shifting moment.
Then, one sentence later, James says, "Let's head to the training center."
This is like reaching the summit of a mountain and then descending immediately without looking at the view.