Core Awakening

Heat licked Karl's skin as he grunted into Iora's mouth, his hips gyrating into her with a rhythm that bordered on desperation.

The air in his cramped apartment was thick, a cocktail of sweat, musk, and the faint buzz of neon holo-ads flickering across the walls—ads for Shard Cruises and Core enhancers that he knew he would never afford.

Her long dark hair spilt over the threadbare sheets like ink, wild and untamed, framing a face that could stop a man cold. Those green eyes, sharp as cut jade, burned into his, half-lidded with want but alive with something feral.

"Ah, fuck, I'm so close."

A moan echoed beside his ear as nails raked down his shoulders, sharp enough to leave marks, and he welcomed the sting.

Karl's breath came in jagged bursts, his chest tight with more than just exertion. "Close," he rasped again, this time against her lips. He was teetering on the edge, ready to spill over, when it happened.

"Fuck!!" He screamed as a blade of pain, white, hot, and merciless, sliced through his chest. His body seized, a choked cry ripping free as he jolted off her and crashed onto the mattress hard enough to make the frame groan.

"Karl, are you okay?" There was panic in Iora's voice as she reached for him.

The pleasure shattered, replaced by agony that clawed at Karl's ribs as if something inside him was breaking apart. He clutched his sternum, his nails scraping red lines over his skin.

His vision swam and the room tilted with Iora's form blurring at the edges. The holo-bracelet on his wrist—his cheap lie to fake a stable Core—flickered once and died.

Iora scrambled upright, sheets pooling around her hips, her beautiful body tense and glistening with sweat.

Her breath hitched, a gasp escaping as she stared at him, green eyes wide with shock. "Karl?" Her voice cracked, cutting through the haze of his pain.

She leaned forward, her fingers hovering over his trembling form as if afraid to touch him. The faint hum of the Shifter Shard's machinery outside faded beneath the pounding in her ears. It was possibly a drone passing.

She knew what this meant for Karl.

"Didn't you say you were twenty?" Iora whispered fiercely, the words laced with disbelief.

Karl jerked and nodded, his teeth gritted so hard that his jaw ached. Sweat beaded on his brow, dripping into his eyes, stinging him.

"Yeah," he forced out, his voice a strained growl, each syllable a battle against the fire in his chest. His blue eyes fluttered open and met hers.

Iora's heart slammed against her ribs, mirroring the frantic beat she could see pulsing in his throat. She was twenty-one, a shifter born and bred, her Core awakened years ago under the triple moons. Her panther form was sleek and sure. But this… this was wrong.

Cores ignited at sixteen. It was a rite etched into the Shard's soul. Her lips parted as she leaned closer, her voice rising with a frantic edge.

"How are you just having your Core activation now?"

She was already regretting coming home with Karl. He'd been a stranger at The Howl, a club pulsing with neon and bass, where she'd found him lurking in the shadows; tall, lean, with eyes that promised a night to forget her troubles.

It was supposed to be just sex and company for the night, but now he was unravelling before her, and she couldn't look away.

Karl couldn't answer. The pain wasn't just breaking him, it was splitting him in half.

A scream tore from his throat again as his body twisted. Antlers erupted from his skull, jagged and wild, scraping the low ceiling with a screech that made Iora flinch.

His limbs stretched, bones cracking, and soon he was a deer, with large hooves splintering the cheap floor tiles, eyes wide and panicked.

Iora's gasp echoed in the room. She recoiled, pressing her back against the headboard with the sheets tight around her nudity. Before she could process it, Karl snapped back—human again, sprawled and gasping—only to scream louder as fire burst from his hands.

"Help me!" Karl screamed, his eyes twisted in agony.

Flames roared out, wild, licking the mattress and leaving a black scar across the fabric. The air turned acrid, smoke curling up to sting her eyes.

Iora's pulse thundered. Her instincts screamed at her to move, to fight, to flee, but she was frozen by the impossibility of it.

The fire stopped and soon illusions flickered around him: horses prancing the room, their forms glitching like broken holo-feeds, with snarls distorted into static. They vanished as quickly as they came, and a gust of wind slammed the window open, glass rattling in its frame.

The air was gone as quickly as it came and lightning arced from Karl's fingers, blue-white and erratic, striking the lamp in a shower of sparks. It exploded, plunging the room into a stuttering dance of shadows and dying neon.

He screamed and thrashed around. Each shift was a wound, each power a shard of chaos tearing through his Core. Iora's hands trembled, pressed against her mouth, her green eyes locked on him, with shock etched into every line of her face.

This wasn't a shifter's Awakening as she had initially thought when he turned into a deer. This was something broken. There was something terribly wrong. A person's core was supposed to only accommodate one ability, which told the shard they were to stay.

Karl's core had suddenly activated at this age—which was strange—and displayed abilities that could make him stay with the volcanic shard where the fire controllers were, or here on the shifter shard, or on the misty shard where the wind wielders and weather controllers were.

Each shard was designed to fit a person's core, and now…

Iora's heart raced as fast as his, a drumbeat of fear and awe, her chest tight with the weight of what she was witnessing. They'd met hours ago, two strangers seeking escape in a haze of liquor and lust, and now he was a living fracture of the Shard's rules.

Finally, the storm subsided. Karl collapsed into a heap of trembling muscles and charred cloth, smoke curling from his singed shirt. His chest heaved, each breath a ragged pull, his dark hair plastered to his face. The room stank of ozone, burnt fabric, and something metallic—blood, maybe, or the aftertaste of his Core's rupture.

Silence settled broken only by the faint whine of the wind through the open window.

Iora skidded off the bed and crouched beside him. "What are you?" she whispered, the words fierce and low, more to the air than to him. Her fingers hovered over his arm, hesitant, as if touching him might spark the chaos again.

Karl groaned and pushed up on shaky arms. His blue eyes opened, glassy with pain, and met hers. "I don't… I don't know," he croaked, his voice raw and his throat scraped dry from screaming. He had hidden his Coreless shame for years, with the holo-bracelet as his shield, making an illusion of an animal whenever he pretended to change, but now it was gone, and he was exposed.

He had always prayed for his Core activation, but now that it was here, he wanted nothing to do with it.

She straightened and glanced toward the window, holding the sheets tighter around herself like they were not fucking moments ago. Her sharp ears caught a faint rhythm, growing louder each second. Her head snapped up, green eyes narrowing.

Beyond the void's edge, pinpricks of light flickered, like torches, bobbing in the dark, moving fast. Too fast. Her lips pressed into a thin line. "Enforcers," she said. "They must've sensed the energy. That wasn't normal, Karl. None of this is."

"I'm fucked," Karl muttered. "They are going to arrest me, take me away." His eyes were pleading when he said, "Iora, I know we are strangers, but help me… please."

His head swam. The pain was a dull throb now. Enforcers. They were shifter cops clad in tech-laced armour, their Cores honed to track threats: an unregistered awakening, a wild surge of fractured power, or even crime.

Iora grabbed his arm tightly, her nails biting into his skin.

"Get up!" she snapped. He swayed as she pulled him, and she yanked harder, eventually hauling him to his feet. His vision blurred, the room spinning, but her green eyes burned into his.

"Don't pass out! Bathroom, now!" she hissed, shoving him toward the narrow door across the room.

The torches grew brighter outside, their glow casting long shadows through the window. A drone's whine cut the night, closer now.

Iora looked around the room, noting the mess it was in. "Fuck!"