The alarms hadn't stopped for nearly ten minutes. Red strobes pulsed across the fractured lab like a heartbeat on the brink of arrest. Mara felt each flash press against her skull, igniting a throb deep behind her eyes. She wasn't sure if it was fear… or the powers simmering too close to the surface.
Ten stood in the center of the lab, trembling, head tilted as if listening to something only she could hear. Her small frame shook, fingers twisting, spasming, as though a current ran through them.
"Mara…" Daniel rasped, leaning heavily against the wall. Blood seeped through the bandages Evelyn had wrapped around his abdomen. "Don't get closer. Something's wrong with her."
"Something's always been wrong," Mara whispered. "But this is different."
Ten lifted her head slowly.
Her eyes were no longer just mismatched—they glowed, faint but unmistakable. A shimmering, unstable aura flickered around her, bending the air like heat over asphalt. The temperature shifted, warm one second, ice-cold the next.
"Make it stop," Ten croaked.
Her voice layered—one tone childish, the other low and hollow.
Mara froze.
That second voice wasn't Ten's.
It sounded like a fracture in reality.
Evelyn hovered near a smashed workstation, typing desperately into a flickering terminal. "She's in neurological overload. If we don't stabilize her—"
Ten screamed.
It wasn't loud. It was deep, vibrating through the steel floor, rattling every bone in Mara's body. Equipment shattered. Glass exploded outward like shrapnel. Daniel ducked. Mara shielded her face as shards sliced the air.
Then Ten collapsed to her knees, sobbing.
"Make it stop… make it stop…" she whispered, rocking, tearing her nails across her skin as if trying to rip something out of her own mind.
Mara felt her own pulse surge. A rush rose in her—raw, electric, terrifying. Instinctively, she stepped closer.
Ten's head snapped up.
For a moment, Mara saw herself reflected in Ten's pupils…
and saw fear.
"Mara," Ten whispered. "You're loud. Everything in you is loud."
Mara swallowed hard. "What are you hearing?"
"Everything," Ten whimpered. "Your heartbeat. Your memories. Your—"
She convulsed again, slamming her palms into the floor. The ground rippled outward in a shockwave of distorted air. Monitors burst. Light fixtures flickered wildly.
Daniel coughed, wincing. "She's going nuclear."
Evelyn's hands shook violently over the keyboard. "She wasn't meant to reach maturity this fast. Voss accelerated her neural map—she's destabilizing!"
Mara took another step.
Ten watched her, terrified… then furious.
"You're the reason," Ten hissed. "You're the reason I exist. I saw it. In the files. In his plans. In your memories. You—"
Her aura flared.
Mara felt her muscles lock. It was like gravity thickened around her. Her breath caught in her chest.
Ten rose slowly, as if lifted by an invisible force.
"Everything breaks because of you."
The air screamed—metal bending, wires snapping, pressure building like a storm.
"Mara!" Daniel yelled. "MOVE!"
Mara didn't move.
She couldn't.
She stared into Ten's glowing eyes and finally understood—
Ten wasn't just unstable.
She wasn't just afraid.
She wasn't just powerful.
She was coming apart, mentally, emotionally, physically.
And when she broke…
the entire facility would break with her.