OTHERS: Five elements

CHAPTER 3.10: LIGHTNING

31 January 2030, 09:00 AM

I woke up staring at a white ceiling. The lights above buzzed faintly, a constant, low hum that made my head throb worse than it already did. My arms refused to move. I tried again. Nothing. That's when I noticed it.  My body was strapped down with leather restraints. A thin plastic catheter was lodged into the vein of my left arm. My body felt heavy—like I hadn't used my muscles in days. I tried to open my mouth, to speak, but I couldn't. I was laying like an empty shell, motionless and voiceless. 

Then I heard footsteps. Two men entered the room. They wore white coats, surgical masks covering most of their faces. One of them nodded to the other. 

- "He's awake" said the taller one.

- "We need to inform the doctor. But first let's do what we came for. Give him the double dose."

- "His skin is starting to harden again. It would be a pain in the ass if we needed to put the IV line into his arm" said the taller one, already reaching for a syringe. 

The drug entered my system slowly, but its effect hit me with terrifying speed. Within seconds, it was like my whole body began melting inward. My muscles became numb. I couldn't open my mouth at all. I could only breath, and that was difficult too. 

They left without saying another word. Moments later, two guards in black uniforms came in. Neither of them looked at me as they unstrapped the restraints and lifted me like dead weight into a wheelchair. They wheeled me into a small white room. A single table. One chair. It looked like something out of a police procedural show. They rolled me up to the table, opposite the empty chair. Then they left, closing the door behind them. I waited. And then the door opened. A man entered, maybe in his late thirties, dark brown hair, blue eyes. He sat down across from me. 

- "Good morning, Richard! I'm dr. Salvador Ferrán. I'm here to talk to you, to give you some explanations and why you are here."

I couldn't open my mouth, couldn't respond. I was only able to listen to him. 

- "You've been unconscious for nearly a week. We found you two days after the incident. You were discovered in the woods near Tallahassee. You were sedated and brought here. This facility is secure. For your safety—and others."

Incident? What incident was he talking about? I didn't understand anything he said. Then he pulled a newspaper out of his briefcase and showed me a news article. NIGHT OF HORROR AND BLOOD - MONSTROUS FATHER KILLED HIS OWN DAUGHTER. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Did I really kill my Ruby? I would never do such a thing. Then he pulled out a tablet to show me the footage. 

- "It was recorded, Richard," Ferrán said. "A journalist in your building filmed the whole thing. While you were holding your daughter against the wall, the blonde woman coming down the stairs grabbed a vase and hit you on the head with all her strength. You paused for a moment, staggering backward, but you didn't fall. Then you turned to face the woman. You threw your daughter with great force—she hit her head against the wall. You grabbed the blonde and kept hitting her until she was dead. At that moment, the police and an ambulance arrived. The medical staff saw your daughter and rushed to help her. The police officers drew their weapons and aimed at you. You moved toward them. They opened fire, but it had no effect. The bullets seemed useless. And then you just ran off. More and more police forces were brought into the search for you. As for your daughter—she suffered a concussion, internal bleeding, and died." 

The moment I heard that, my world shattered. I wasn't listening to the doctor anymore—my eyes were fixed on the tablet, and my thoughts were only on Ruby. My heart—what was left of it—cracked like glass under a hammer. Regret. Shame. Guilt. All of it exploded inside me. It felt like a lightning bolt had struck my soul, setting fire to whatever good was left inside me. Lightning. That's what it felt like. When I had first changed. When everything in me broke and reformed into something else. That electric jolt had burned through my humanity like wildfire. And now, the same thing stirred again.

My fingertips tingled. Tiny sparks. Electricity arced between them, dancing lightly like fireflies. Then it began to spread. It slithered along my forearm, crackling softly, and then surged upward, wrapping around my shoulder and down my spine. It wasn't just pain or energy—it was something else. A memory. A scream. A heartbeat. Every pulse of electricity echoed with what I had lost, what I had destroyed. The current was alive, humming with guilt, regret, rage. It wasn't just moving through me—it was me. As if my broken soul had found its voice in voltage. My chest tightened as the spark spread across it, a storm forming behind my ribs. Lightning, not of the sky but of the spirit, churned in my veins. My fingers twitched uncontrollably. My legs trembled. I felt like a wire pulled too tight, about to snap or ignite. Dr. Ferrán noticed it. 

- "Guards!"

The door burst open. Two men tackled me, slamming me into the floor. I tried to fight them off, but my limbs were sluggish. Another syringe. Another rush of cold. Triple dose, I heard one of them say. As my vision dimmed and the sedative turned my muscles to jelly, only one thought survived the chaos. Ruby. Her name echoed in my soul. What had I become? Whatever humanity had been left in me died in that video. That man—me—wasn't a father. He was a monster. A shadow of lightning and blood. I had made a promise to Evelyn. And I had broken it. Now only one thing remained: Vengeance. A storm was coming. And I was the eye of it.