James Knight: Teenage Superhuman - B2

Prologue

SEVEN MONTHS LATER

The world had already started falling apart long before my own life followed.

They called it the Alpha Strain, a fast-changing virus built around a supergene that tore through cities quicker than governments could react. People collapsed where they stood. Others suddenly developed strange abilities they had no idea how to control. Buildings rattled. Sirens never stopped screaming. Even the sky looked wrong, like it was sick too.

Still, none of that mattered when the heart monitor next to Claire's bed went flat.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

And then the sound everyone recognizes, even if they pray they never will.

BEEEEEEP.

I stayed where I was. I couldn't make myself move. Her name came out of my mouth thin and cracked, barely there.

"Claire?"

She didn't stir. She lay the way she had a moment before, lips slightly open, like she'd been about to say something and never got the chance. Her eyes were half-closed, frozen mid-blink, unfinished. I was still holding her hand. It was warm. Just not warm enough.

"Claire?" I said again, louder, desperate. "Claire, come on. Please. Don't do this. Not now. Not like this."
Nurses slammed through the door, their voices sharp and frantic.

"Clear!"

Her body jerked.
Once. Twice. Again.

Nothing.

"Time of—"

"No." The word tore out of me. "Don't. Keep going. Don't you stop!"

But they stopped anyway.
The doctor looked at me with that expression—the one people wear when they've already lost someone.

Then everything went black.

Not a flicker. Not dim. Just gone.

The machines went silent.
The lights died.
The generator didn't even try.

For three suspended seconds, it felt like the world forgot to breathe.

And in that emptiness—
Her voice cut through.

"I'm sorry."

A whisper. A ghost. A promise.

Then the lights came back on.

The bed was empty.

Nothing.
No sheet ruffled. No imprint in the mattress. Like she'd never been there at all.
"Where is she?" I yelled, spinning toward the staff. "She was just here! You all saw her!"

"We... we didn't move her," a nurse stuttered. "She... she flatlined. We didn't... she was right there."

Security poured into the hallways. Cameras were checked.

Nothing.

Static.
Glitches.
Footage missing in precise, surgical chunks—like someone had cut out time itself and tossed it away.

Then the screaming started.

From the neonatal unit.

I ran—faster than I ever had—through the halls, down the stairwell, into the maternity ward.

Two cribs. Empty.
No alarms.
No glass shattered.
No sign of a struggle.

Just the bracelets.

Still fastened.
Still warm.