n

n

n

nThe lights within the research lab began to flicker in a bizarre way, one Kieran couldn’t wrap his mind around no matter what. Gossamer threads of smoky darkness rippled in the air, seeming as if it wanted to go to war with reality’s ever-present light.

nCurious of the dimming metal bed, Kieran touched it to see if it remained material… and it did, which made it baffling to try and understand. Then again, understanding his own ability to ruin through an infernal flame or by way of ignited blood was just as confounding — for a mundane human, of course. One who had not ventured into Zenith Online at all.

nKieran retracted his hand and circled the table. He noticed blackened veins start at Altair’s fingertips and creep up his arm like a prowling assassin bathed in shadows. Catching Altair’s pained expression and the exaggerated grunts that often escaped his lips, Kieran gathered he, too, was paying a cost. Only… his seemed different.

nWhy was his veins becoming black? And his skin… whiter. Too white. Almost as if he were a dead corpse with no heartbeat at all. That mental comparison led Kieran to press his forearm against Altair’s naked chest. Had it not been for the burns to his hands, he would have opted for the better alternative. Still, there was some sensation in his forearm, more than an average human could perceive, which was understandable given his heightened constitution. There were a great many advantages and perhaps disadvantages to being an Inhuman that he had yet to uncover.

n‘Ice cold… freezing.’

nCalling Altair’s actions strange was putting it mildly. And to label them inferior to Kieran’s was a mistake.

nThe absurdity of Altair’s condition could be likened to his own, only in a different way. They were as opposite as they could be… but Kieran suspected they were arriving at the same endpoint — death. A grim, harrowing, and ironic death.

nOne would burn himself to the high heavens as if he approached the damned sun. The other would freeze to death as if left out in a horrifying blizzard during the night. It had to be during the night, for the darkness was the coldest then… as Altair had put it.

nKieran somewhat agreed with the sentiment, considering the Night Altair traveled through on Xenith carried an inexplicable chill invasive enough to seep into one’s bone.

nUpon removing his forearm, however, Kieran realized that chilling sensation remained, coating his arm with the same gradual creep as the dark veins inching up Altair’s body.

n“Oh, what the actual hell is this?! Hell no!”

nKieran reflexively cringed, waving his arm about as if trying to shake off a nasty bug. Only there was no bug, only a perverse, icy, and tenebrous chill attempting to pierce his arm. It seemed adamant in succeeding, and Kieran felt dispelling it was impossible without triggering his own Inhuman Manifestation.

nAnd they had come to the consensus that he would do no such foolish thing.

nKieran looked to Lillian for help with a pleading grimace.

n“I regret being so damned curious. Perhaps help me? I don’t know how to shake this thing off!”

nLillian stammered, hopping up and down as if it were conducive to her problem-solving skills. Ideas flashed through her mind, but they all seemed nonsensical based on her cringing expression. Typically, that would only happen when the suggestion in mind would cause undeniable anguish.

n“Uh, can’t you like… do the thing with your blood? Like, can’t you stimulate your blood without tapping into that ruinous power? Also… we should absolutely wake up Xane. I do not like his condition at all.”

nThe mention of Altair’s condition overshadowed Lillian’s first comment because it reminded him of what he forgot to tell her.

n“His heart! That fool almost has no damned heartbeat!”

nIf there was one thing Kieran was sensitive to, it was heartbeats. Perhaps it was a side effect of one of his abilities quite blatantly having traits of vampirism, but he was hypersensitive to the blood of the others and how it flowed. In that same vein, he was unreasonably mindful of the condition of his own heart.

nHis hyperactive, vigorous heart.

nLillian double-checked the vital scan, and it showed no change, which was strange in her opinion. But she also didn’t want to discard Kieran’s comment. On the contrary, when it came to these kinds of things, she trusted his instinct.

nOf course, she couldn’t help but voice her misgivings.

n“The scanners aren’t picking up what you’re sensing. And preparing the manual shock will take longer due to the lack of emergency the system is recording. You’ll need to do something quickly.”

nKieran frowned and looked at the discolored forearm — a strange mix between frostbite and perhaps necrosis.

n“Fuck me…”

nHe groaned but raised his arm nonetheless and pounded his gauzed hand against Altair’s chest.

nAltair awoke with a deep, alarmed gasp, staring ahead with widened eyes. Kieran swiftly ran to Lillian with his arm extended, shouting at the top of his lungs.

n“Cut this off! It is going to spread like a plague.”

nThe gauze and bandages already displayed signs of stiffening, not from absorbing bodily fluids and going stale but from the icy energy quickly suffusing its outer layer and spreading down. If Lillian didn’t act quick enough, it would reach his opened wounds, which were taking oddly long to heal, in his honest opinion.

nHis most significant advantage was his absurd healing ability. Kieran felt he could proudly proclaim to be unmatched in that aspect, but he didn’t know how truthful that notion was.

nSo much about the world remained unknown.

nLillian panicked fearfully regarding the gauze. She felt primal trepidation take hold of her reason as she watched the darkfrost permeate the gauze.

n“Lillian!”

nShe yelped and nodded, scrambling for a scalpel or any sharp object. She found one and then handed it off unsuccessfully.

n“You do it.”

nKieran guffawed, looking at the woman as if she were a lunatic. “W… How?! I have no useful hands!”

nThen, Altair grabbed the scalpel from Lillian and swiftly sliced the gauze open with a frightfully accurate cut. Then he sliced up each finger individually, peeling away the gauze before it was utterly frozen.

n“There you go, simple as that.”

nKieran wore an incredulous look while silently shifting between the panicked Lillian and the seemingly immune Altair. Of course, he would have a semblance of immunity; the chill came from within his body, after all.

nLillian appeared sorry as she avoided Kieran’s gaze, but he found it extremely hard to blame her. These new abilities were… unusual, to say the least.

n“I’m sorry, Kieran. I don’t have the constitution you two have. I just don’t know what it’d do to me, and that crippling fear took over, and well… I froze.”

nKieran sighed and patted her head.

n“No hard feelings. Everything you said is completely justified. There’s no telling what it’d do to you. You’ve yet to become an Inhuman.”

nAltair squinted at the two, then scowled.

n“Look at you two lovebirds, get a room. I’ll end up diabetic if I watch all this sweetness unfold before me.”

nKieran and Lillian shot him a look… only they were vastly different. One bore reddened cheeks and a slight pout… and the other seemed ready to maul him to pieces despite his decommissioned hands.

n