the place where pain grows wings.

---

I've been to this cave before.

Six months ago, Adam brought me here the first time—dragged me, really. I had just started to understand my second power.

The one where I could read minds—but only when I was hurt.

It came with bruises. Blood. Panic attacks. I hated it.

That day in the cave… I bled for the first time on purpose.

To unlock something I never asked for.

Today, I'm going back.

But not as the same girl.

---

Adam didn't say much during the ride.

His hands stayed clenched on the wheel. His jaw locked in tension. He glanced at me only once, when I winced holding my ribs—still bruised from training.

"You sure you're ready?" he asked quietly.

"No," I said, voice flat. "But we both know it doesn't matter."

---

The forest around us darkened as we reached the cave's edge again—the same twisting path carved through rocks and vines. Only this time, I wasn't gasping from fear. I knew the path now. I remembered the steps. The way the air got thinner the deeper we went.

But the dread?

Still there. Sinking into my bones like wet cement.

"You never told me," I said as we walked, "how many times you've been here."

"Three."

"For your own powers?"

"No. I don't have any."

I paused mid-step. "Wait, what?"

Adam sighed. "Not all of us are chosen, Rhea."

"But your mother—"

"She had them. I didn't inherit anything."

That was the first time I looked at him and felt… pity.

But also, unease.

If he had no powers—why did he know so much about mine?

---

We reached the chamber again. The same pedestal as last time. This time, instead of the silver knife from the second ritual… there was a bowl.

Black stone. Filled with water that shimmered faint gold, like liquid memory.

I blinked. "What's this?"

Adam stood at the edge. "This is how your third gift is revealed."

My throat tightened. "Why do I feel like it's going to hurt?"

"Because it is."

"Figures."

He looked at me then. Really looked. And for a moment, the Adam I fought with, insulted, pushed away... was replaced by someone else.

Someone afraid for me.

"You've changed, Rhea."

I laughed. Bitter. "Yeah, I get kidnapped, attacked by your psycho brother, discover I can read minds if I slice myself, and now I'm about to… bathe in memory juice or whatever this is. I think changing is the least dramatic part."

He didn't smile.

"You ready?" he asked again.

"No."

Still didn't matter.

---

I knelt by the bowl. My heart pounded so hard I felt it in my skull.

"I have to drink it?" I asked.

Adam nodded.

"And then what?"

"It will show you something you've locked away."

"What if I don't want to see it?"

"It doesn't care."

---

The water burned going down.

Not spicy, not hot—emotionally.

Like swallowing grief.

And suddenly, I wasn't in the cave anymore.

---

I was six again.

On the sidewalk.

Holding a broken bird in my hand.

The one I healed.

I saw it all—the moment I wished it better, the moment I took its pain and fractured my own arm in return.

But then the memory twisted.

Bled into something else.

My mother. Screaming. Crying. Her arms bloodied. Me in a white dress.

"You shouldn't be alive!" she had yelled.

That memory wasn't supposed to be there.

I gasped, falling to my knees inside the vision.

It was like the memory had teeth, and it was biting me.

And then it all snapped back.

---

I was in the cave.

Screaming. Shaking.

Adam caught me as I collapsed.

"Rhea—look at me!"

Tears streamed down my face.

"What was that—what was that?!"

Adam's voice was low. "That… was your truth. You saw it. And now, if you choose, you can make others see it too. That's your third power."

"To project pain?"

"To show what's hidden. What's been buried. What no one believes. You can make them live it."

---

I trembled in his arms.

Shattered. Again.

"So what now?" I whispered.

He looked down. "Now you choose when to use it. If ever."

"And if I don't want this power?"

"You already have it."

---

Back in the car, I didn't speak.

Just stared out the window at nothing.

I could still feel it burning in my chest. That golden thread of memory. That ghost of a voice—"You shouldn't be alive."

---

This power… it wasn't just a gift.

It was a curse.

Another one.

But now I understood something.

The pain I carried wasn't mine alone anymore.

And the next person who tried to break me?

.

---

"I never asked for this," I whispered.

Adam didn't answer right away. The room felt… different now. Smaller. Like the shadows had shifted closer. Like even the walls were holding their breath.

I looked at him. "I knew your mom had the powers before me. I knew she was… special."

A beat.

"But I didn't know it wasn't something passed down. I didn't know it wasn't—"

I swallowed. "Some family thing. Like a bloodline or whatever."

Adam's eyes darkened.

"It's not," he said quietly. "It never was."

He sat down on the arm of the chair across from me, his posture tight. "The powers… they aren't inherited. They're chosen. Not by people. Not by fate. By something older. Something… ancient."

He paused.

"The world picks one."

A chill ran down my spine.

"One person every few generations. Someone who can carry the chaos. Someone who has to."

I looked down at my hands, still raw from where I'd cut myself earlier. "Why me?"

He hesitated. "Because you felt the world. That bird… that moment when you were six… you chose to hurt in place of someone else. You made that call before the world even asked it of you."

My throat tightened.

"And your mom?" I asked, my voice smaller than I expected. "She was chosen too?"

Adam nodded.

I already knew the answer. I'd known for months. But it still felt like stepping off a cliff when I said it aloud.

"She didn't survive it."

"No," Adam replied. "She gave everything."

There was a silence so sharp, it felt like something was cracking inside me.

Suddenly, the walls around me—this room, this world, this weight—felt too much.

I wrapped my arms around myself.

"I didn't know this would kill me," I murmured.

Adam looked at me then, and for a second, his usual sharpness softened.

"It doesn't have to. But it might," he said.

> "Because mercy, Rhea, isn't soft.

It's sharp. It bleeds. And it asks for everything."

I pressed a hand to my chest, like I could hold my ribs together. "Tell me what this power does to me."

He inhaled deeply.

"This third one…" he said. "It lets you push someone's deepest truth to the surface—their buried memories, emotions, guilt. You make them relive what they hide."

"And me?" I asked.

"You go with them, Rhea. Every scream. Every wound. Every ounce of grief they've tried to bury… you feel it too."

My heart dropped.

"Worse," Adam added. "You can get trapped in it. Stuck in their mind. Lost in the memory with no way back. That's the cost."

---

I didn't say anything.

The room was so silent I could hear the clock ticking in the hallway.

"I don't want this," I whispered.

"I know," he said. "She didn't either."

I blinked up at him. "Then why are we even doing this?"

He looked away. "Because if you don't… the powers will break loose. And the world will suffer."

---

For a second, everything inside me just froze.

Like the grief of someone I never met was suddenly mine too.

And I wondered if Adam saw her face every time he looked at me.

If he hated me for reminding him of the woman he lost.

If I hated myself for becoming her shadow.

But he just stood and walked to the door.

Before leaving, he turned to me.

"You weren't born to suffer, Rhea," he said. "You were born to save."

Then he left.

And I stayed there, breaking quietly, in the shape of a girl learning what mercy really costs.