Chapter 3: The Storm of Beginnings

Chapter 3: The Storm of Beginnings

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The first scream wasn't hers.

Elara's mother gripped the hospital bed railing, her knuckles bone-white, as a *second* mind撕裂 through her own—a stranger's panic, a construction worker's broken leg three floors below, a nurse's secret affair—all flooding her skull like shrapnel. The epidural hadn't accounted for *this*.

"Make it stop," she begged, tears carving hot trails through sweat. But the anesthesiologist only adjusted dials, oblivious to the true storm.

Her fingers clawed at the bedsheet. Somewhere in the cacophony, she found a lifeline—a telepathic frequency older than hospitals, older than fear.

*Help us.*

The plea shot through generations, a coded S.O.S. in the static.

Miles away, a journalist named Luga jolted awake, his whiskey-stained notes scattering. The message burned behind his eyes: twin heartbeats, a flower made of light, and a name. *Elara.*

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**First Breath**

Maya arrived screaming.

Not a newborn's cry, but a sonic boom. Windows rattled. Monitors died. And then—she *floated*, tiny fists punching air as nurses gaped.

"Demons!" someone shouted.

Chaos erupted. Orderlies slipped on spilled sanitizer as they chased the levitating infant down corridors. Outside, clouds curdled into a vortex, wind howling through Mindale's streets.

Elara's mother rose, IV lines snapping. Her bare feet left bloody prints as she strode into the storm, arms outstretched.

"Mine," she whispered into the gale.

The tempest stilled. Maya fell silent.

In the sudden calm, the second cry came—softer, stranger. Elara.

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**The Choice**

APGA's letter arrived on jade-green stationery.

*"One child only. The one who shines."*

Elara's mother traced the words, her finger catching on the embossed serpent seal. Through the nursery door, she watched:

- Maya, age one, stacking blocks with her mind.

- Elara, silent, her tiny hand pressed to a sunbeam. *Listening* to light.

The twins' aunt stood in the doorway, her three daughters clustered like ducklings. Amanda clutched a dandelion; Amansah smudged charcoal on her overalls; Amaga hid behind a joke book, her laughter edged with something darker.

"Take her," Elara's mother said, handing over the quieter twin.

Amanda sneezed. The dandelion seeds erupted, swirling around Elara like a halo.

"She'll be safe with us," her aunt promised.

But safety, Elara would learn, was a relative term.

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**Life Among Mortals**

The triplets' idea of "training":

1. **Amanda's Garden**:

"Plants don't lie," she declared, stuffing Elara's hands into soil. The Melodiflora crooned as Elara touched it—a sound like her mother's forgotten lullaby.

*"It's singing your name,"* Amanda whispered.

2. **Amansah's Canvas**:

"Draw what you *feel*," the artist ordered, slapping down paints. Elara's first masterpiece: a storm in shades of loneliness, with two girls holding hands across a chasm.

Amansah stared. "Well. That's depressing."

3. **Amaga's Stories**:

"Once there was a girl who ate shadows," the youngest triplet began, her voice sweet as poisoned honey. "They gave her power… until she forgot how to digest light."

Elara dreamed of teeth that night.

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**The Fracture**

At three years old, Elara finally asked:

"Why does Mama visit Maya but not me?"

Her aunt froze, teacup trembling. Through the kitchen window, they watched Maya in APGA's promotional hologram—a child prodigy bending steel beams with a glance.

"You're special differently," her aunt said.

*Liar,* sang the Melodiflora on the sill.

That night, Elara pressed her ear to the flower's bloom and heard it: a twin's laughter, miles away but harmonizing with her pulse.

*Maya.*

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