The Retrieval (Prologue)

The murmur of his Mom and Dad's hushed conversation with the doctor finally coaxed Perca's eyelids open.

"Are you absolutely certain, Doctor?" Mom's voice trembled, each word a tightrope stretched to breaking. Distress laced her tone, sharp and raw.

The doctor's nod was slow, deliberate, his expression a mask of professional gravity. "Regrettably, ma'am, yes. There's simply no other medical explanation for the accelerated healing, the complete regeneration from those… unusual burns. I am profoundly sorry to be the bearer of such news."

Dad's voice, normally a bedrock rumble that anchored their home, grated with an unfamiliar, choked emotion. Perca had rarely, if ever, heard such strain. "Is there any way to… to correct… this?" The question hung unfinished, heavy with unspoken dread.

Perca's dad stood as he always did: hands clasped at his chest, broad shoulders squared, maintaining his customary, respectful distance from Mom. But now, a tremor ran through his frame, subtle yet visible. He, who was always solid, always the provider, the sometimes-scary figure of unwavering strength, stumbled over words. Whatever held him in its grip now was truly monstrous.

The doctor offered a glance, a fleeting spark of shared sorrow, before his head dipped in a mournful negative. Dad's sigh escaped him, a sound of air leaking from a punctured lung, a sound of defeat. A single, sharp nod punctuated the silence. "I'll call the Retrieval Handler."

A shift in the doctor's stance, a subtle lean forward, an almost imperceptible gesture of burden-sharing. "If you wish, I can contact the Retrieval Handler? Allow you both to remain with your son until they arrive."

Mom's nod was abrupt, a broken marionette's jerk, and the carefully constructed dam fractured. Tears welled, then spilled, soft, choked sobs that amplified the sterile silence of the room, each inhalation a ragged gasp.

The moment the doctor slipped from the room, leaving them adrift in the hushed finality of the diagnosis, Perca tried to speak. His throat felt like sandpaper, each swallow a painful scrape. He coughed, a weak, rattling sound that echoed the hollowness inside him, then blinked up at his parents, his voice a dry whisper. "Mom? Dad? What's… what's happening?"

They remained rooted, statues carved from ice, no approach, no comfort offered. Mom's sobs escalated, rising in pitch with each word he uttered, a siren of distress. Dad's jaw bunched, a hard knot of muscle, his eyes obsidian, shuttered, locked away from him. Perca recoiled against the stiff hospital pillows, confusion twisting in his chest, a cold dread solidifying in his stomach.

"Mom?" He tried again, the question barely audible.

His mother flinched, a sharp intake of breath, blinking rapidly to clear her tear-blurred vision. Her gaze snagged on him, then hardened, the softness dissolving, replaced by something brittle, sharp. Disgust warped the lines around her mouth, twisting her familiar features into a grotesque mask of rejection.

No words for him, no acknowledgement, just a brittle turn towards Dad, her voice fracturing. "I… I can't. I'll be in the car."

Dad stood motionless, a long, drawn-out silence, his gaze fixed on Perca, distant, opaque. Then, a curt nod to Mom, his eyes never leaving Perca's face, a cold stare from across the sterile chasm of the room.

Knowing Dad's aversion to repeated questions, especially from him, yet lost, adrift in this sudden tempest of fear and bewilderment, Perca asked again, voice thin. "What's going on, Dad?"

Dad expelled a frustrated breath, a ragged, scared sound quickly swallowed, a hand raking roughly through already disheveled hair. He began to pace, a confined predator circling its cage, muttering, words tumbling out in a low, frantic rush, barely coherent.

"We can't… never have kids again. What did we do? What did we do wrong to… to deserve this? Our kid… our kid, a freak. What sin… what did I do to be cursed with this? Percy… Percy wasn't supposed to be… like this."

Perca gasped, interrupting the torrent, pushing himself upright so abruptly the room spun, white spots flashing at the edges of his vision.

"Metahuman?" The word felt alien, a lead weight on his tongue, heavy with unknown consequence. "How? Was it… was it the lightning? Kael's lightning?"

But Dad remained deaf to him, blind to his presence, lost in his own spiraling terror. Dad's gaze remained locked on him, fixed, unwavering, yet seeing something else, something not Perca. Horror widened his eyes, a raw, visceral revulsion that made Perca's breath hitch. He recoiled, a reflexive step back, almost stumbling, widening the sterile space between them.

Dad's voice, when it finally emerged, was stern, commanding, laced with the chilling authority Perca had overheard in the hallway, yet a tremor betrayed the fear thrumming beneath.

"Percy. Do not move. Stay exactly where you are. Understand?"

Perca's nod was jerky, terrified, fear constricting his throat, stealing his voice. Scared of the icy steel in Dad's tone, scared of the naked terror in his eyes, reflecting back at him as if Perca had transformed, ceased to be his son, become something… monstrous.

Dad continued, voice softening fractionally, the thunder receding to a low growl, but retaining its chilling finality. "You're… you're metahuman now. Doesn't matter how. Doctor's calling… people. To take you somewhere… safe. Keep you away from… normal people, Percy. So you… you can't hurt them."

Perca shook his head before Dad finished, denial a frantic bird beating against his ribs, choking down the fear, replaced by a desperate, pleading urgency. "No… no, that's not true! Never! I'd never hurt anyone! Don't send me away, please! I'll be good, Dad, I swear! I'll be good, I promise you! I'll… I'll fix it! I swear, I'll fix myself!"

Dad's voice cracked through the small room, a thunderclap silencing Perca's desperate pleas, a force more brutal than any physical blow. "Enough! Shut up, Percy! You are going with them. No arguments. Final!"

Sudden, chilling clarity pierced the fog of Perca's terror. He saw them then, framed in the doorway, just beyond the threshold, faces blank, impassive masks concealing… what? Judgment? Pity? Fear? Three figures stood there, eclipsing the hallway light, all men, muscle-bound and imposing even in their plain clothes.

But it wasn't the bulk that truly registered, not just. It was the emblem emblazoned on the arm of each uniform, stark white against dark fabric: 'Retrieval Handler.' Perca's blood drained, leaving him cold, clammy, his face ashen.

The tallest of the three stepped forward, the one with skin the color of rich earth and thick, black hair, a meticulously trimmed mustache a dark line above his lip. His voice, when he spoke, was calm, professional, yet edged with an undercurrent of tempered steel. His gaze shifted between Perca and his father, eyes sharp, assessing.

"Sir, we require you to leave the room. We will handle things from here." A subtle inflection colored his words, a shift in vowel sounds Perca couldn't quite place, yet noted, filed away in his observant mind. A strange detail to latch onto in this moment of spiraling dread, yet it snagged his attention, bothered him inexplicably.

Dad cast one last glance, a fleeting look in Perca's direction, his expression shifting, softening, some of the harsh rejection receding, replaced by something… else. Regret? Pity? Unreadable, indecipherable. Then, abruptly, Dad turned and was gone, swallowed by the hallway, vanished from Perca's world, perhaps forever.

One of the men moved into the room, a silent predator with unsettling purpose. Taller, broader than the others, a hulking mass with a face set in a permanent, furious scowl, thick, dark hair swept back from a wide forehead. He stalked towards Perca, his presence compressing the air, pushing breath from Perca's lungs. A terrifying figure of adult authority, of cold, unyielding intent.

Perca instinctively tried to burrow deeper into the bed, a futile scramble for nonexistent escape, but everything felt… wrong. Disconnected. The men's movements possessed a strange, distorted languor, thick, sluggish, as if they navigated through molasses.

Yet, inside his skull, something howled, a frantic, urgent need, a rushing energy vibrating through his limbs, an alien, desperate want he couldn't name, couldn't comprehend. Sparks flickered behind him, a sharp crackling, machines stuttering, spitting light, alarms pulsing red warnings.

The heart monitor beside his bed faltered, beep… beep… beeeeeeeeeep… a flat, unwavering line etching itself across the green screen.

Still ensnared in the stiff hospital blankets, limbs heavy, unresponsive, Perca was helpless as the third man, thin, pale, almost translucent in the harsh light, materialized behind him. His grip was like ice, fingers like steel clamps as he seized Perca's hair, yanking his head back, holding him immobile, a trapped animal for slaughter, as the hulking man began ripping wires, tearing free IV lines, severing the fragile lifelines of the hospital machinery.

Perca whimpered, a small, involuntary sound of pain, but the pale man's fingers tightened in his hair, shaking his captive head in a silent, brutal command for silence.

The dark-skinned man and the pale one each seized an arm, their grips bruising, dragging him from the bed, down the hallway, and out of the sterile confines of the room. Nurses and doctors lined the corridor, faces averted, expressions carefully blank, or something colder, something akin to… revulsion. They watched in silence as he was hauled past.

Perca understood, with dawning, chilling certainty, that they didn't see a child being abducted, dragged against his will, without protest. They saw a monster contained, a threat neutralized, a danger removed for their safety, for the safety of the 'normal' world.

The weight of that knowledge, crushing, absolute, mingled with the bizarre distortion of time, the world accelerating and decelerating around him in nauseating waves, finally fractured something vital within Perca. He surrendered. Couldn't fight, wouldn't fight anymore.

No escape from these men, their implacable purpose, and no one, no one at all, to offer help, even if he could scream, beg, tear himself free.

Escape was impossible.

Escape was futile.

Escape… pointless.

So, he shuffled between the two men, a broken puppet with tangled limbs, bare feet cold and raw against the polished linoleum, the thin hospital gown, thankfully still fastened, a flimsy shield against the cold, indifferent world.