A Scream Made Flesh

The laboratory hummed,

a low, mechanical breath beneath flickering fluorescent lights. The walls loomed pale and unfeeling, steeped in metal, silence, and something older. Something watching.

A girl stood at the center. Fragile. Barefoot on cold tile. Wires kissed her skin, sensors blinking faintly.

Around her, scientists circled, white coats still, eyes wide and hollow, watching her like she was both miracle and mistake.

Their whispers drifted just out of reach, ghosts behind glass.

Silence thickened. Heavy. Knowing.

Then something cracked.

Not metal. Not glass.

Something deeper.

Something inside.

Her body jerked. Then erupted.

Flames tore through the air, hot, golden, and unforgiving.

Not heat. Fury.

It didn't burn around her. It erupted from her.

A scream made flesh.

The nearest scientist never made it. He caught fire mid-step.

Others stumbled back, shielding their eyes as the air warped and shrieked.

The heat struck like judgment.

Her veins lit up like molten wire.

Her breath caught fire, ragged, searing, unstoppable.

She was burning alive.

Machines convulsed.

Sparks danced like lightning bugs gone rabid. The room thrashed with her.

Alive. Furious. Sentient.

Wires burst from the walls.

Shadows flailed, shapes clawing at the edges of vision.

Alarms wailed. Metal screamed.

"Shut it down!"

"Contain her, now!"

"Stabilize the core. She's not holding!"

The room pulsed, like the world itself was shrinking from her.

Then suddenly...

A scream cracked open from the core of something older than pain.

And then...

A gasp. Sharp. Ragged. Real.

Enor jolted upright. Her eyes snapped open to the dark.The room was still. But her body trembled like it had just outrun death. Bedsheets clung to her, damp with sweat. Her hands shook, fingers curled like they were still gripping pain.

She couldn't breathe. The air turned to ash in her lungs.

Her throat burned.

Her skin prickled.

And the heat...

She could still feel it.

Before the thought could settle, the door slammed open.

Ar burst in. Breathless, eyes sharp, scanning the room. Behind him, the grandfather entered, slower, but no less alert.

They had felt it.

Not the dream. Something else.

A pulse. A flare.

A crack in the air that wasn't supposed to be there.

"We felt something," Ar said, voice clipped. "A pulse…"

Enor didn't answer. She stared at her hands like they still held flame. Like she was waiting for them to ignite.

"Are you alright? What happened?" he pressed.

She shook her head slowly."I... I don't know…"

Then, nervous, embarrassed to be such a burden on her very first night, she added in a quiet, apologetic tone,"It was just a nightmare... I'm sorry if I disrupted your sleep…"

The grandfather, still contemplating a small device cradled in his palm, finally looked up.

"Well... even if it was just a nightmare," he said gently, "it definitely triggered your powers. Otherwise, this little thing wouldn't have been beeping like crazy a moment ago."

He tapped the device. The beeps faded into the room's silence.

Ar, still by the door, said flatly,"Same energy pattern as what happened at the school."

"But no combustion this time," the grandfather added."Just raw energy. A flare. Something's off with your core."

And as if sensing her confusion, he continued,

"The core is what separates the marked from the rest of us. It's not visible. Not physical. But it's the source. The engine. Your powers don't exist without it. And when it destabilizes, when it spikes, or shuts down, it throws everything off. Your senses. Your control. Your mind."

Enor lifted her gaze. Her voice was low, but certain."If the Academy even suspected there was a chance I'd get my powers back... They wouldn't have let me walk out."

Silence followed.

Ar didn't move. Didn't nod. Didn't argue.

But the old man hummed faintly, not dismissively, just... thinking.

He turned the device over once in his hand, then set it gently on the desk."Whatever happened... It stirred something," he said."Maybe your core wasn't destroyed. Just buried. Asleep. Deep down."

He glanced at her again and added with a dry shrug,"You know... maybe I should've run a scan as soon as you arrived. But seeing the state you were in yesterday, I figured it could wait. You needed rest more than analysis."

He sighed, rubbing a hand down his tired face."It's three in the morning," he muttered, rising."You all still need some rest."

He turned to Ar, nodding toward the hallway.

"Come on, boy. No point staring holes through the floor."

Ar hesitated. Then gave a faint nod and stepped back.

"If anything feels off again," the old man said at the door,"wake me. No matter the hour."

He waited, just long enough for Enor to meet his gaze.

She gave a barely-there nod.

"Good," he said, then stepped out. Ar followed in silence.

The door clicked shut.

And Enor was alone again.

She glanced toward the far corner where her phone lay face down on the desk.

Untouched since she arrived.

She wasn't supposed to use it.

Any signal might be tracked.

She knew that.

But still...

Her chest tightened.

A small, sharp ache she hadn't noticed until now.

What if her parents had texted?

What if they... actually cared?

She hoped they did. Just a little. Just enough to notice she was gone.

She lay back down, eyes to the ceiling. Closed them slowly.

But rest didn't come.

Fragments of the nightmare hovered behind her eyes.

The heat. The screaming. The lab. Too familiar. Too close.

It reminded her of the academy. Cold metal. Burning skin. Voices muffled behind glass.

But that exact moment, what she saw, what she became...

She couldn't remember living through it.

And yet, it felt real.

Energy flare... Core... How am I here again?

The thought sliced through her mind like a shard of glass. She buried her face into the pillow, listening to the silence answer back.

Cold. Unyielding. Mocking.

Somewhere else, Ar stood in the stillness of his room.

He didn't bother turning on the light. Darkness was easier to think in, and he didn't want to bother his sleeping roommate.

Across the room, Cedrik lay sprawled on the bed, deep in untroubled sleep, completely unaware of everything that had just happened.

Ar's gaze flicked to him, and a slow, cold question settled in his chest.

Was bringing her here really the right choice? Maybe he was just dragging Cedrik and the grandfather into his business with her, taking advantage of the fact that they stood with the marked, always willing to give a hand.

He sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, rubbing a hand over his face. Part of him wanted to ask questions. Press Enor. Push until she remembered and confessed what happened during her stay at the Academy. But another part, the older, quieter one, recognized the look in her eyes.

That wasn't secrecy. That was trauma.

He needed to be more human with his approach. Or she'd never open up.

Still, something felt wrong. Deeply wrong.

The Academy never let anyone go.

Especially not marked.

Especially not someone who could do that. That was what drew him to her the first time they met at school.

But also if her powers were really just asleep, then why only recently? After all these years?

He glanced toward the lab down the hall, where the old man had already begun prepping diagnostics for the morning. They'd know more soon. But Ar had a sinking feeling this wasn't just an awakening.

It was a warning.

And if the wrong people had felt it...

He straightened, casting one last glance toward Enor's door.

He could still feel an eerie energy bleeding faintly through the air.

Not comforting. Not human.

Just strange.

His expression stayed unreadable, calm as ever, but his fingers twitched slightly as he finally lay down and closed his eyes.

He'd make sure to get more answers tomorrow.

But deep down, what worried him most wasn't that her powers had returned.

It was the feeling that something else had returned with them...