Beneath the surface

The hospital room had started to feel like a prison cell—quiet, sterile, and suffocating with secrets. I'd been discharged this morning, but even before that, something had started burning inside me. Not anger, not fear—curiosity. Power.

The vision I had of him—the boy who looked just like Peter—lingered in my mind like perfume that wouldn't fade. His lips on mine, the feel of his breath against my cheek, how my skin tingled and warmed when his fingers touched my wrist. I remembered every inch of that moment like it was carved in my bones.

And I remembered me—different me. Eyes bleeding, things flying, people screaming. Unstoppable… and uncontrollably broken.

I wanted to know more. I needed to know more.

Peter sat beside me, elbows on his knees, twirling a paper straw wrapper in his hand. Chloe stood by the windowsill, watching the rain make patterns on the glass.

"Have you ever… felt like you're not in control of yourself?" I finally asked.

Peter turned his head slowly, like he knew exactly what I was talking about.

"You mean like… when you're about to explode but you're not angry?" he said quietly.

"Exactly," I said, a little too quickly. "It's like... I feel like I'm walking on a string between two versions of myself."

Chloe sighed. "Emma, you've been through so much. Maybe you don't need to dig into this stuff right now."

"But I do, Chlo," I said firmly. "I saw myself with him—in the past, I guess—and I was so happy. But also terrifying. I was tearing people apart and laughing like it was a joke. And he was there... calming me. Like a magnet pulling me back to sanity."

Peter's jaw tensed. "Do you think that's me?"

I looked at him. His eyes—the exact same hazel as the boy from my vision—held something unspoken.

"I think it was always you," I whispered.

We fell into a quiet that felt thick like fog.

"And… I want to see it again. Not the killing part. I mean—my powers. I want to know what I can really do."

Peter sat up straighter. "Then let's find out."

Chloe raised an eyebrow. "Here? In a hospital room?"

Peter chuckled. "Relax. We're not breaking the walls down… yet."

I smiled.

Peter helped me to my feet and gently held my hand. "We're not going to trigger it with fear or rage. Let's try something else."

"Like what?"

"Joy," he said. "Or kindness. Or… connection."

His words lit a fire in me. My heart pounded faster than it should've.

Chloe rolled her eyes. "You two are disgustingly romantic sometimes. I'm gonna step out and get some coffee."

"Thanks, Chlo," Peter said, not looking away from me.

When she left, the silence returned. But it was heavier now. Charged. I could feel it.

Peter stood in front of me, his hands now holding mine. "Think about what made you feel safe in that vision," he whispered.

And I did.

His fingers brushed my cheek slowly, and something flickered inside me. The IV stand beside my bed trembled.

My breathing hitched. "Did you see that?" I whispered.

He nodded. "It's working."

I could see his chest rise and fall faster than before. He stepped closer. Our noses nearly touched. His lips—God, his lips—I couldn't stop staring at them. They looked so soft, so familiar, so right.

"Emma," he whispered, and I swear my name had never sounded more beautiful.

I tilted my face just slightly. Our foreheads touched. My entire body felt like a live wire.

He leaned in, and I did too.

Our lips were this close when—

Knock knock.

We both jolted as the door opened and a nurse stepped in. "Hey! Just checking—oh, sorry!"

Peter awkwardly stumbled back. I blinked like I'd been snapped out of a dream.

The nurse grinned. "Lovebirds, huh? Cute. Anyway, Ms. Blanders, you're officially discharged. Time to head home."

Peter cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. "I'll wait outside."

As he left, I pressed my palm to my lips. I didn't know what scared me more—that I almost kissed Peter... or that every part of me wanted to.

—

Later that day, Peter and Chloe came over to my house. We sat in my backyard, beneath the old maple tree, and laid out what we knew.

"We have to practice somewhere safe," Chloe said. "Like an abandoned space. And Emma, we can't let you lose control."

"I won't," I said. "I want to try kindness. I want to feel that joy again… like when we were close. It was like the power fed on that."

Peter nodded. "Let's do it. Tomorrow. Just us.

That night, I couldn't sleep.

I kept thinking about how close we were—me and Peter. How his breath felt on my lips, how his hands didn't shake even when he was trembling inside. He was calm for me. Always for me.

But was I for him?

I wondered… did he think of me the way I thought of him? Did he ever feel the urge to pull me into his arms the way I wanted to do with him every second? Or… did he look at Chloe the same way?

My thoughts were a mess, but I knew one thing—I wasn't afraid of my powers anymore. Because for the first time in forever… I didn't feel broken.

I felt powerful.

And somehow, Peter helped me find that again.

Even if the kiss didn't happen—yet—it felt like we were getting closer.

To the truth.

To each other.

To everything.

Chloe's old farmhouse sat on the edge of nowhere, wrapped in silence and secrets. It was the perfect place to unleash something dangerous. Or die trying.

The plan was simple—trigger my powers by exposing me to my deepest emotions.

Only it wasn't simple. It was terrifying.

The first task was Chloe's idea, and it was brutal.

She filled the old, cracked swimming pool with icy water. The late afternoon sun cast sharp shadows on the ground as Peter and I stood at the edge. My stomach twisted.

"I don't know if this is a good idea," Peter said, looking worried. "She almost drowned once, remember?"

"Exactly," Chloe said. "That's the point. We need something real. Something that cuts deep."

I swallowed. "I'm okay with it. Let's do this."

Peter looked at me like I was out of my mind. "Emma, are you sure?"

I nodded. "I need to know what I can do. I need to control it."

So I climbed into the pool.

The cold stabbed into me like knives. My breath caught as I lay back, letting the water swallow me.

Then Chloe, hesitating for a moment, gently pushed my head under.

The world vanished into blue silence.

And panic.

I thrashed.

I screamed underwater.

The faces returned in flashes—the boy with Peter's eyes, my eyes bleeding, people burning, screaming, begging.

The pain, the power—it all surged.

I couldn't breathe.

The last thing I saw was Peter's blurry figure diving in.

And then darkness.

When I came back, I wasn't sure if I was alive.

Air slammed into my lungs as Peter hovered over me, chest heaving, eyes wild with fear.

"Breathe, Emma. Please."

He had given me CPR. Mouth to mouth. I could still feel the ghost of it. But what haunted me more was what I felt when I woke.

Fury.

My eyes opened and the rage erupted. My heart raced and the world around me shook.

The lights hanging off the shed began to flicker. Wind picked up out of nowhere. The farmhouse groaned.

"Emma," Peter said, his voice low. "Emma, stop. You're okay now."

But I wasn't. I was seeing red. I saw him again—the man who beat me in that past life, the people who laughed when I screamed. My chest burned.

I stood, shaking, as Peter reached for me.

"Don't!" I screamed. My voice cracked like thunder.

Everything around us trembled. Chloe backed away slowly. The ground beneath my feet pulsed.

Peter stepped forward, brave and stupid. "Emma, it's me."

I raised my hand without meaning to.

Peter's body jerked in pain. His face contorted.

"Emma!" Chloe shouted. "Stop!"

But I couldn't.

He was crying. Not from the pain, but from heartbreak.

"Emma, you don't want to do this," he said through clenched teeth. "This isn't you."

And then—he kissed me.

In the middle of the storm, in the middle of the pain, his lips met mine.

Soft.

Familiar.

Real.

And everything stopped.

The wind died.

The lights steadied.

My hands dropped.

I collapsed into him, sobbing. "I'm so sorry. I was going to kill you. I felt it. I wanted it, Peter. I wanted to stop the pain."

He held me tighter. "You didn't. You didn't. You came back."

"Because of you," I whispered. "Because you kissed me. You pulled me back."

Later, after I stopped shaking, we sat inside the farmhouse, wrapped in blankets and silence.

Chloe made tea. Peter didn't let go of my hand.

"We need to be careful," Chloe said. "This... power. It's not just emotional. It's ancient. It's part of you. It feeds off how you feel."

"I felt like a monster," I whispered.

Peter shook his head. "No. You felt everything. That doesn't make you a monster. It makes you human."

"Barely."

"Emma," he said, turning to me. "You looked at me like I was the enemy. And even then, you stopped. You chose to stop."

That kiss. It wasn't just about feelings. It was my anchor.

Peter was my anchor.

And now... the real training would begin.

Because that was just the beginning.

And I knew the worst was still ahead.

I remembered it again bcoz of the regret i had...

Peter was on the ground, his breathing shallow, my hands trembling. My vision was still a blur of red and white light. I remember his lips touching mine to stop the storm that had erupted inside me—but I'd already hurt him. I'd almost killed him.

My legs gave out as the realisation hit. I collapsed onto the wooden floor of Chloe's old farmhouse, crying so hard I couldn't breathe. My body curled into itself like it wanted to disappear. I could hear Peter groaning softly beside me. My mind kept playing it over and over—the moment his body was flung against the wall, his shoulder cracking, blood dripping from his forehead.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I whispered like a broken record, voice shaking.

"Emma… Emma, look at me," Peter rasped, dragging himself close, his face bruised and bleeding but his eyes—those damn hazel eyes—still only looked at me with worry. Not fear. "It's not your fault."

I couldn't look at him. My guilt had taken a physical shape now, clawing at my chest. "I almost killed you, Peter! I saw your bones crack. You—you were lying there like a broken doll. I did that. My powers did that."

He sat up, his breathing ragged, his shoulder clearly injured, but he still put a hand under my chin and lifted my face. "And you stopped. You came back."

"No… You stopped me. If you hadn't kissed me, I would've…"

My lips trembled.

"I had to," he said softly, brushing a thumb across my cheek, wiping a tear. "Because if I lost you to yourself, I wouldn't forgive myself either."

My heart cracked open.

Chloe stood behind us silently, wrapped in a blanket, her eyes misty too. "You did good," she whispered. "We're learning. Slowly. But we're learning."

That night, Peter refused to leave me alone. He slept on the couch just outside the guest room. I barely slept—I kept hearing echoes of the scream I'd let out underwater, kept seeing Peter flying backwards, and the look of pure fear in Chloe's eyes.

The next morning, I didn't talk much. I avoided Peter's gaze, still too ashamed. I couldn't look at him without seeing the blood.

"Emma," Peter said gently as we sat on the porch, the morning light filtering through the dusty windows, "I need you to forgive yourself."

I shook my head. "I don't know if I can. You don't understand what it felt like. I wanted to hurt. That rage—it was inside me, like lava, and I wanted someone to burn."

Peter put his hand on mine. "Then we figure out how to control it before it controls you."

Chloe joined us soon after, holding a dusty old book in her hands. "I found this in the storage loft," she said, flipping through pages. "It's not exactly a manual, but it has some old energy control techniques. Meditation, visualization, grounding… one section even mentioned using sound."

"Sound?" Peter raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah," she nodded. "Like… specific frequencies. Music, tones, voices—it can trigger energy reactions in certain people."

And that's how we landed on our next experiment: sound triggers.

Chloe set up her dad's old stereo system in the barn behind the farmhouse. It was creepy, honestly—half-broken speakers, dusty floor, and the air had that ancient wood scent that made everything feel eerie. We'd picked three sounds: the soft lullaby Chloe's mom used to hum, a sharp frequency noise that made my head spin, and a war siren from one of Peter's old YouTube videos.

The first sound was soothing. Too soothing. Nothing happened.

The second—the sharp one—made me drop to my knees, clutching my head, but there was no power burst.

Then the third one.

The moment the war siren echoed through the barn, something inside me snapped again.

I screamed and my arms jerked involuntarily, the lights above flickered like they were fighting to stay alive. Peter and Chloe watched from behind the hay stacks, ready this time.

"I hate this," I said through gritted teeth, falling to my knees. "I hate this feeling—it's not mine. It's like someone else lives inside me when it happens."

"Then let's meet her," Chloe said softly, kneeling beside me.

Peter slowly approached, more cautious now. He offered me a cloth to wipe the blood that had once again begun trailing from the corners of my eyes.

"Let's name her," he said with a tiny smile, trying to ease the moment. "Your violent alter ego."

"I already have a name," I muttered. "Emma."

He chuckled. "Right. Badass Emma. We'll just learn to make peace with her."

Later that day, we tried something even harder.

Peter brought a box full of photographs—pictures of the people I had seen in my visions. Those faces of men and women who had once hurt me, tried to kill me.

"This will trigger you," Peter said, voice tight, "but you have to hold on to now. We're here. No one can hurt you."

I stared at the pictures. My vision blurred again. The world spun. The wind outside howled.

I felt something lift around me, like my hair and the air were weightless. My body began to tremble, and objects started to move. A chair fell over. The stereo cracked.

Then Peter took my hand.

He didn't flinch even as his skin burned where I touched him. He didn't blink as blood dripped from my eyes again.

And then… he hugged me.

Tightly. Desperately. Like he needed it more than I did.

It stopped.

The silence afterward was deafening.

I looked up, afraid I'd hurt him again—but his eyes just looked at me with pride.

"I told you," he whispered. "You're not a monster."

But I wasn't convinced.

That night, I locked myself in my room. I didn't talk. I didn't eat. The kiss from yesterday still burned on my lips like a brand, and my heart was a storm. I wasn't sure what scared me more—my powers or the way I liked losing control.

Peter slipped a note under my door.

It read: You're allowed to fall apart. I'll always help you find the pieces.

I cried myself to sleep holding that note.

But I also knew one thing for sure.

Tomorrow, we would try again.

And this time… I would try to forgive myself.