The rapping on my bedroom door wasn't a knock; it was a rhythmic, authoritative demand. Clack. Clack. Clack.

  I jolted upright. My neck was stiff from sleeping at an awkward angle, and my vision was still swimming with the grey static of my dreams. I'd fallen asleep with my hoodie on, the weight of the fabric providing a comfort I couldn't find in the open air.

  "Jace? Dinner. Now." My mother's voice was thin, vibrating at a pitch that made the nerves in my ears twitch. "Don't make your father wait."

  "I'm coming," I croaked, rubbing my eyes.

  The kitchen was bathed in the clinical, sterile glow of overhead LED lights. My mother, Eleanor, moved between the counter and the table with a mechanical precision, setting down plates as if she were placing pieces on a chessboard. My father, Arthur, was already seated, his hands folded neatly over a placemat that was perfectly parallel to the edge of the mahogany table.

  I slid into my chair. The scrape of the wood against the tile sounded like a scream in my head.

  "You look exhausted, Jace," Eleanor said, not looking at me. She was focused on the green beans, ensuring they were evenly distributed. "Did you finish the SAT practice modules I downloaded for you?"

  "I did most of them," I lied, picking up my fork. "I was... I had a headache. I needed to sleep."

  "A headache?" Arthur's voice was a low, resonant frequency that seemed to vibrate the water in my glass. He finally looked up, his eyes sharp behind his spectacles. "The SAT is in three weeks, Jace. It is the most important gate you will pass through. If your score isn't in the top percentile, you become... visible."

  "I know, Dad," I muttered.

  "Do you?" Arthur leaned in, his silhouette casting a long, dark shadow over my plate. "The world is changing. The N.E.A. doesn't just look for anomalies in the air; they look for anomalies in the system. The 'average' student, the 'unproductive' citizen... they are the first ones they scrutinize. Excellence is your only camouflage. If you are a prodigy, you are an asset. If you are failing, you are a liability. Do you understand?"

  "I'm not failing," I snapped, the energy under my skin surging for a split second. The fork in my hand vibrated—just a micro-tremor—but I dropped it onto the plate with a loud clatter before it could get worse.

  "Jace!" Eleanor gasped, her eyes darting to the window as if the N.E.A. vans were already outside.

  "I'm just tired," I said, my voice shaking. "I'm going to my room."

  "We haven't finished—" Eleanor started.

  "Let him go," Arthur interrupted, his voice cold. "If he lacks the discipline to finish a meal, perhaps he can find it in his studies. Go. Back to your room."

  I didn't wait. I scrambled upstairs, the air around me feeling thick and ionized. I slammed my door, locked it, and threw myself into my chair. My heart was a frantic drum, but I knew how to silence it now.

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  I reached for the power button on my PC.

  The monitor flickered to life, bathing the room in a cool, artificial blue. I launched the game—a frantic, neon-soaked hero-shooter. I didn't care about the ranking or the teammates. I just needed the noise. In the game, I played a character who could teleport and shatter the environment with sonic waves. I watched the pixels explode on the screen, the vibrant oranges and purples of virtual energy filling my vision.

  Here, the "bees" under my skin were safe. I could channel my frustration into the mouse and keyboard, watching the digital destruction that had no real-world consequences. I played until my eyes burned and the blue light felt like a physical weight, finally collapsing into a dreamless, heavy sleep.

  The next morning, Oakhaven Heights High felt different. The air was charged, a subtle shift in the school's atmospheric pressure that I couldn't quite explain.

  I was standing by the lockers with Ollie, who was currently mid-rant about a comic book movie trailer he'd seen the night before.

  "I'm telling you, Thorne, the physics don't make sense! If he hits the ground at that speed—"

  "Ollie, look," I interrupted, nodding toward the main office.

  The principal was walking down the hall, flanked by a girl I'd never seen before. She was slender, with pale, almost translucent skin and dark hair tied back in a practical ponytail. She wore a simple denim jacket and carried a messenger bag, but it was the sunglasses that stood out—large, dark lenses that covered half her face, despite being indoors.

  "Who's the celebrity?" Ollie whispered, his interest immediately pivoting.

  The principal led her into our homeroom. "Class, settle down. This is Riley Vance. She's joining us from the city. I expect you all to make her feel welcome."

  Riley didn't say anything. She gave a small, almost shy nod. As she walked toward an empty desk near ours, she adjusted her sunglasses, and for a fleeting second, I saw her eyes. They were bloodshot, the whites of her eyes laced with thin red veins as if she hadn't slept in days.

  She sat down and immediately pulled a small bottle of eye drops from her pocket, tilting her head back to apply them with practiced ease.

  "Hey," Ollie leaned over, his voice a stage-whisper. "I'm Ollie. This is Jace. Welcome to the zoo."

  Riley turned toward us, pulling her sunglasses down just an inch. She looked at Ollie, then her gaze shifted to me.

  I felt it then. A strange, phantom itch at the base of my skull. It was the same feeling I got when I stood too close to a high-voltage transformer—a sense of being perceived on a level that had nothing to do with sight.

  Riley Vance's Perspective (Mental Activation)

  Inside Riley's mind, she focused. She pushed through the dull ache behind her brow and "clicked" the switch. The world of Oakhaven Heights bled into a flat, monochromatic grey. The lockers, the students, the teacher—all faded into cold, stone-like shadows.

  Then, she saw him.

  Jace Thorne didn't look like a student. In her kinetic vision, he was a bonfire. Within the grey shell of his body, a swirling, violent mass of orange and red embers churned like a trapped sun. He was the brightest thing she had ever seen—a massive, unstable source of resonance that made her own eyes throb with pain.

  Target acquired.

  She "clicked" the vision off, the world rushing back in a blur of painful color. She winced, blinking rapidly, and pushed her sunglasses back up.

  "Nice to meet you guys," Riley said, her voice soft and disarmingly sweet. "Sorry about the glasses. Chronic migraines. The light in here is... a bit much."

  "Tell me about it," I said, a strange sense of empathy washing over me. I looked at her tired eyes and the way she seemed to shrink away from the harsh fluorescent lights. I thought of my own headaches, my own need to hide in the dark. "It's a pretty bright place."

  "Yeah," Riley smiled, her gaze lingering on me just a second too long. "I'm sure I'll adjust. Eventually."

  Ollie started talking about the best places to get pizza, but I remained quiet, watching the new girl. I felt a weird, protective instinct—a sense that she was just as fragile and broken by the world as I was.

  I had no idea that she was the only one in the room who truly knew what I was. And she was already counting the embers.