The Prototype

Chapter 16

Ethan's jaw tightened as he took a step forward, squaring his shoulders against the violent winds swirling around them. "Maia!" he called out, voice straining over the roar.

"This ends here, one way or another. But you have the power to choose how it does."

For a moment, Maia's expression faltered, her stormy gaze wavering as his words broke through.

She looked at him, pain and indecision flickering across her face, and slowly, her hands began to lower, the tempest around them stalling.

The Thunder rumbled overhead, louder now, as though the entire storm were hesitating alongside her.

But just as the winds and waves of flooding water began to calm a bit. A jolt of energy tore through Maia's body as the third and fourth pieces of the prototype, which she'd combined, surged with power.

The force flooded through her veins, crackling like lightning, and she threw her head back with a scream, unable to contain the torrent of raw energy now raging inside her.

Ethan's eyes widened in horror as Maia writhed, caught in the throes of power too volatile for anyone to bear. The pieces in his bag responded, vibrating wildly until they glowed, sending a pulse toward Maia that only intensified her pain.

A wave of blue light exploded from the bag, arcing through the air and into Maia like some electric tether that yanked her deeper into the prototype's energy.

"Ethan, what's happening?" Solace shouted, pressing a hand against her own bag to stop its violent shaking.

Rowan, still clutching his own injuries, glanced at his watch, realization dawning on him in a panic. "The last stage... It's almost here! We have only ten seconds left until she's—" He didn't need to finish the sentence. They all knew what came next.

Ethan felt his stomach twist. This was the unknown, the part of their journey they'd hoped they'd never reach: the final stage of Maia's transformation, one from which there might be no return.

The Acceptance Stage.

Where her power would reach a lethal peak and potentially consume her, warping her into something unrecognizable.

Ethan stepped forward, desperation in his voice as he tried to break through the storm.
"Maia, look at me! We can fix this. It's going to be okay, but you have to listen!" His words were frantic, but Maia was too far gone.

Her eyes flickering with an unnatural light, her hands engulfed in the power surging from the pieces. Her face was void of any expression, drained of humanity.

She was slipping, being overtaken by the prototype's grip on her spirit.

"Maia!" Solace cried, her voice laced with grief as she stepped closer, clutching her watch as if it could somehow tether Maia back to them.

Tears streaked her face, and she reached out a hand toward her, but it was too late. The Maia they knew was already gone, swallowed by the darkness pouring through the prototype.

The ticking on their watches reached "1:00:00." And in a flash of blinding light, Maia lifted off the ground, hovering high above them with a terrible calm, her body rigid and eyes glowing a cold, vacant blue.

In the span of a single heartbeat, she vanished, dissolving into the air, leaving a chilling silence in her wake.

For a long moment, no one moved. The world around them felt still and hollow, as if Maia's departure had drained the very life from the landscape. And then, as the realization sank in, their watches flickered and sputtered, unresponsive.

"Oh no..." Rowan murmured, looking down at his watch. "They're dead. I think the energy surge from the prototype knocked them offline."

Solace's hand trembled as she tapped her own watch, her pulse racing. "Ethan... they're not working. We're trapped here!"