27 Feb You Are Not Gods

Part I

Scotty Stark had always been lucky. At least, that’s what people told him. His earliest memory was of a social worker sitting him down in a playroom with faded yellow walls, explaining in soft, careful words that his parents had died in a car crash. That there was no one left to take him. That they would find him a new family.

They never did. Not permanently, at least. Stark spent his childhood bouncing between foster homes, some decent, some forgettable, a few outright awful. But no matter where he landed, one thing remained the same—he never got sick. He never got hurt.

Other kids broke bones falling off jungle gyms. Stark hit the pavement headfirst and got up laughing.

Other kids got fevers, strep throat, and chickenpox. Stark never once had a sniffle.

Once, a foster mother took him to five different doctors, convinced something was wrong. “Some kids are just lucky,” one had finally told her, flipping through pristine medical charts. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

It never changed. By high school, his body still felt untouchable, like he existed just a few inches outside the rules of reality. It made him an incredible athlete and track star, the fastest in the district. He could run until his legs should have given out, sprint on twisted ankles that healed overnight, and push himself harder than anyone else on the team.

His foster parents at the time—his tenth family, if he had been keeping count—thought they had won the genetic lottery by taking him in. He was popular, easygoing, and charming enough to date half the cheer squad.

To everyone else, Stark just seemed lucky, and he never questioned it.

That is, until the night of the crash.

* * * * * *

The party had been like any other—a blur of music, cheap beer, and backyard smoke circles. Stark and his friends—Danny, Gina, Ryan, and Sam—had spent most of the night near the fire pit, passing a joint and stealing each other’s water bottles in between half-drunken conversations. They weren’t reckless, not in a way that mattered. They were just high school seniors, buzzing with the kind of stupid confidence that came with knowing life hadn’t gotten around to humbling them yet.

They left around midnight, Ryan behind the wheel. He wasn’t drunk, but he’d had enough that Sam side-eyed him when he started the engine. They rolled through the quiet streets, laughter trailing off as the party glow faded behind them.

Then, at an intersection just a few blocks from home, headlights bloomed in Stark’s peripheral vision. A sedan barreled through the red light, the driver’s face illuminated in the glow of a phone screen, eyes locked downward. Stark barely had time to turn his head before the car hit them.

The impact was catastrophic.

The sound of metal crumpling swallowed every other noise as their car flipped, twisting midair before slamming back onto the asphalt. Glass shattered. Stark’s world spun violently before it all stopped with a final, sickening crunch.

Darkness pressed in, the smell of gasoline burned his nose, and for a moment, he thought he might be dead.

Then, painlessly, he opened his eyes.

The car was a ruin around them, the roof crushed inward, the frame bent and folded like an accordion. Airbags had deployed. Nearby, someone—he couldn’t tell who—was wheezing.

Stark shifted, trying to move his arms. Metal groaned as he did. It took him a second to register why—the car had folded around him, the steel molding itself to his body.

Gina made a noise next to him, something between a cough and a sob. “Oh my God.”

Sirens cut through the ringing in his ears. Flashing lights painted the night in shades of red and blue. Firefighters arrived within minutes, assessing the damage before setting to work on peeling the wreck open. It took the Jaws of Life to wrench the doors from their twisted hinges. One by one, they were pulled from the wreckage.

“Jesus Christ,” an EMT muttered, scanning them over. “How the hell are you all standing?”

They had minor cuts, and their clothes were torn, but none of them were seriously injured. No broken bones. No deep gashes. Not even a limp.

The contrast was horrifying when they heard about the driver of the other car. “Didn’t make it,” a cop told them. “Had to call in dental records to confirm ID.”

They had been trapped in a death machine—and they had walked away. All of them, with hardly a scratch.

* * * * * *

The adrenaline soon faded, but the unease lingered. For the first few days, no one talked about it. They just moved on, grateful for their good fortune.

But then, little things started happening.

Danny burned himself on a hot pan in Home Ec—only to watch the mark fade within minutes.

Gina tripped on the stairs at school, tumbling hard onto the tile. She got up without so much as a bruise.

Sam accidentally ran a blade across his palm in an automotive class, lost in thought. When he looked down, the skin wasn’t broken.

Stark noticed, but he didn’t say anything. Not at first. He told himself they were imagining things, that the crash had left them jumpy, that their bodies were still on high alert.

Then, a week later, something happened that made him question everything.

He had been walking home from school, headphones in, not paying attention to the crosswalk signal. The light was green, but a car ran the yellow.

He should have been hit. Instead, the driver swerved so violently that he clipped a parked car and flipped over.

Stark stood frozen on the curb, heart hammering. People ran toward the wreck, shouting. The driver was fine—shaken, but alive. But what stuck with Stark wasn’t the crash. It was the look the driver had given him when he climbed out. Fear. Like he had seen something wrong in Stark.

That night, lying awake in bed, Stark thought back to the party. To the weed and the water bottles. He and his friends had all shared something that night, and then they had survived the impossible.

It wasn’t just luck.

Part II

The crash had been nearly two weeks ago, but its effects lingered. It wasn’t the trauma of what had happened—none of them had scars or pain to remind them—but rather the quiet, unshakable sense that something had changed. They had walked away from a disaster that should have killed them, and the world wasn’t quite making sense in the aftermath.

At first, they dismissed it as luck, an impossible stroke of fortune they’d talk about for years. But then things kept happening. Small things, at first. Danny burned himself on a curling iron while messing around in Gina’s room but pulled his hand away without a mark. Gina wiped out during gym class, hitting the hardwood hard enough that the other students winced. She got up laughing, stretching her arms as if she had landed on a pillow instead of solid ground. Sam got clocked in the face by a soccer ball during a scrimmage and barely flinched.

It was Ryan who took things too far first. They had been hanging out at his place, half-watching a terrible horror movie when Danny got an idea.

“Dude,” he said, nudging Ryan, “you should jump off the roof!”

Ryan, leaning back in his chair, looked over at him with a skeptical frown. “Why the hell would I do that?”

Danny grinned. “Because we don’t get hurt anymore. It’s like—we’re invincible or something.”

Sam, sitting on the couch, scoffed. “That’s a dumb reason to break your legs.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed, but then his gaze flickered toward Stark, who hadn’t said anything. “Unless Stark thinks it’s a great idea.”

It had been happening more often—Ryan looking to him when these moments arose, as though Stark held some sort of unspoken authority over whatever weirdness had taken root in their lives. And Stark wasn’t sure why, but he felt responsible, like he was supposed to be the one to say no.

But the truth was, he wasn’t entirely convinced it was a bad idea.

Danny smirked. “Come on, dude. The pool’s right below. You’ve done dumber stuff for a dare.”

Ryan hesitated only a second longer before standing. “Fine. But if I break something, I’m blaming all of you.”

They scrambled outside, the cool night air carrying their laughter. Ryan climbed the trellis with ease, perching at the edge of the roof while the rest of them gathered below.

“You better not land on me,” Gina warned, shielding her eyes.

Ryan took a breath, bent his knees, and jumped. For a split second, he flailed mid-air, limbs awkward, panic flashing across his face. He hit the water at an angle, a slap loud enough to make them all wince. But then he surfaced, blinking, shaking water from his hair.

“That should’ve hurt,” he called out.

Danny cheered. “See? We’re invincible!”

The next few weeks passed in a blur of increasingly reckless behavior. Gina let Ryan throw a baseball at her as hard as he could. Danny deliberately touched the glowing red coil on a stovetop. Sam even gave in, allowing Danny to strike him with a steel shovel across the back.

Nothing seemed to stick. Nothing seemed to hurt.

Until the day Danny fell off his dirt bike.

It happened at the track just outside town, where they had spent summers as kids daring each other to go faster, to take sharper turns. Danny had been going too fast, but that was the point. He launched off a mound of dirt, and for a moment, it looked good—like something out of a highlight reel. Then, mid-air, the bike tilted the wrong way, and he hit the ground with a sickening thud, the bike flipping over him, his helmet skidding across the dirt.

Stark was the first to reach him, dread curling in his stomach.

Danny groaned, rolling onto his back. “Ow. What the hell?”

For the first time in weeks, there was blood.

* * * * * *

The video went viral overnight. The title read: “Teen MIRACULOUSLY SURVIVES Cliff Dive Accident”

The next night, they were celebrating in their hotel, laughing about the millions of views racking up online. Drinks in hand, sunburnt from a day on the beach, they felt untouchable.

But Stark’s good mood wavered when he spotted a man standing near the bar. There was nothing particularly unusual about him—mid-forties, dark hair with hints of gray at the temples, dressed in a simple button-down and blazer. He wasn’t the type that should have caught Stark’s attention.

And yet, something about him was off. He wasn’t talking to anyone. He wasn’t drinking. He was just… staring. Watching them.

Stark nudged Gina. “Do you know that guy?”

She followed his gaze and frowned. “No. Why?”

“He’s been looking this way for a while.”

“Maybe he recognizes you,” she teased. “You are viral now.”

Stark tried to laugh, but the feeling didn’t leave him. He shifted in his seat, observing from the corner of his eye.

As they moved around the bar, the man adjusted his position, never letting Stark out of sight.

Later, when they made their way upstairs, Stark lagged behind, peering over the railing to the lobby below.

The man was still there. He had his phone to his ear now, his mouth moving in quiet conversation. Stark couldn’t hear the words, but the way his gaze flickered up toward their retreating group gave him pause.

Who the hell watches a group of kids like that?

Part III

The feeling of invincibility lingered even after the plane touched down on U.S. soil. There was something intoxicating about walking through life without consequences, without that obnoxious voice in the back of their heads warning them to be careful. For weeks, they had been untouchable. That it could ever change never occurred to them.

That was why Ryan got on the motorcycle.

The night had started the same as any other. They had gathered at Danny’s house, half-watching TV, half-scrolling through their phones, still reveling in the absurdity of their viral fame. Danny had taken to referring to them as “the unbreakable five,” throwing the name around with the same reckless confidence that had always defined him. Gina rolled her eyes at it, Sam ignored it, and Ryan, always the show-off, leaned into it.

When they got bored, he had grinned at them, stretching out like a cat. “I feel like doing something stupid.”

Danny smirked. “Isn’t that your whole thing?”

Ryan flipped him off, but his eyes had already drifted toward the door. There was a motorcycle in the garage. It belonged to his older brother, who was out of town for the weekend, and Ryan knew how to ride it—sort of. He had taken it out a handful of times before, never for long, never too fast.

But that night, he wasn’t worried about the consequences. That night, he thought he couldn’t die.

Stark didn’t even have a chance to stop him. One second, Ryan was laughing, and the next, he was outside, straddling the bike, revving the engine as though daring the world to prove him wrong.

Sam hesitated on the porch. “Dude, maybe… don’t?”

Ryan only grinned. Then, he peeled out of the driveway.

The street was dark, lined with streetlights that barely cut through the night. Stark watched the red taillight shrink as Ryan sped down the road, the sound of the engine echoing through the quiet neighborhood. He was going too fast. Much too fast.

Then, the impact happened—followed by the sound of metal colliding, the shriek of tires, and the sickening crunch of something breaking apart.

Stark was already running before he even realized he had moved.

By the time they reached the intersection, the damage was unmistakable. The bike lay in pieces, debris scattered across the asphalt. A dark smear trailed along the road where Ryan’s body had been thrown.

There was no waking up from this one.

The police said he died instantly, which was supposed to be some kind of comfort, but it didn’t feel like one. They weren’t allowed to see the body. They heard from secondhand whispers that there wasn’t much left to see.

It had worn off.

And Ryan was dead.

* * * * * *

Ryan’s funeral felt like a wake-up call. The air of invincibility they had carried began to crack, replaced with an unspoken understanding that what had happened in the Bahamas was temporary.

But the real fear didn’t settle in until Gina disappeared.

It happened three nights after the funeral. Stark had been in bed when his phone buzzed, notifying him that he’d received a text from Gina.

Something is wrong, she wrote. I feel sick.

He sat up immediately, fingers moving quickly.

What do you mean? Where are you?

There was no answer.

The next morning, she was gone.

Her parents called the police. The house showed no signs of forced entry, but her bedroom was a wreck—like something had happened in the middle of the night.

Stark and Danny drove over as soon as they heard. The sight of her empty bed, the overturned nightstand, and the blanket half-dragged to the floor made Stark’s stomach churn.

Then he saw the writing. It was on the mirror, scrawled in what he hoped was red paint:

“You are not gods.”

* * * * * *

Danny grew paranoid after Gina disappeared. He stopped answering calls for days at a time, only to show up out of nowhere with new theories about what was happening to them. He insisted that someone was after them and that Gina hadn’t just vanished. He claimed she had been taken.

Stark didn’t necessarily disagree—he didn’t have enough information to make a determinaiton—but the way Danny was handling it was making him nervous.

“There has to be a way to get it back,” Danny muttered one night, pacing the length of Stark’s room. His movements were erratic, hands twitching like he couldn’t keep still. “It wasn’t just random. It happened because of you.”

Stark exhaled slowly. “Danny, that’s ridiculous. I—”

“No, seriously. We know we had it before. We just need to restart it. If we do exactly what we did that night—”

He pulled a joint from his hoodie pocket, shaking it between his fingers like it was the key to everything.

“I have an idea,” Danny said, smirking. “Follow me.”

* * * * * *

At the radio tower, Danny tested his theory first. He grabbed a rusted metal pipe and slammed it against his own arm. Nothing. Not a mark.

He smashed his hand against a jagged rock. The skin didn’t break.

He dragged a pocketknife along his forearm—the wound sealed instantly.

Danny grinned. “Told you.”

Then he climbed. Stark barely had time to argue before Danny was standing on the ledge, arms spread.

Then he jumped.

He landed perfectly, his feet hitting the ground as if he had simply stepped off a curb.

Danny threw his head back and laughed. “I knew it! We just have to—”

He was interrupted by the arrival of half a dozen unmarked black SUVs. Tires screeched as men in tactical gear swarmed in.

Danny tried to run, but they were faster.

A gloved hand clamped over his mouth before he could make a sound, dragging him backward.

Stark ran, Danny’s muffled scream echoing behind him.

Stark never looked back, and he didn’t stop until he reached home.

* * * * * *

Stark wasted no time. The second he got through the door, he locked it behind him, and he called Sam.

Ryan was dead. Gina was missing. Danny had been taken. There was no doubt in his mind that he and Sam were next.

They met up and packed their bags in silence, moving quickly, stuffing whatever cash they had into their pockets. They didn’t have a plan beyond getting the hell out of town.

The car barely made it three miles before the headlights appeared in the rearview mirror. Black SUVs.

“Shit!” Sam muttered, gripping the wheel. They didn’t have time to turn.

The SUVs cut them off before they could swerve, tires screeching against the pavement as armed men poured from the vehicles.

The first gunshot hit Sam square in the chest. There was no hesitation, no warning—just the crack of a silencer and the wet impact of a bullet finding flesh.

Sam’s body jerked forward, his hands slipping from the wheel as the car veered into a ditch.

Stark’s heart stopped. He reached for Sam, but the moment he touched him, he knew there was nothing left to save.

The door was wrenched open before he could move. Then, he felt a sharp sting at the side of his neck. The tranquilizer hit fast, darkness creeping into his vision before he could fight it.

The last thing he saw was Sam’s body slumped over the dashboard—and everything went black.

Part IV

Stark awoke to the slow, numbing sensation of returning consciousness. His body felt sluggish, his limbs unresponsive, his head fogged by the lingering effects of whatever sedative they had pumped into his system. The air around him was sterile, thick with the scent of antiseptics and recycled ventilation.

When he finally opened his eyes, he was met with the blinding white glow of overhead lights. A dull beeping filled the silence—machines monitoring his vitals. Electrodes clung to his bare chest and arms, wired into the cold metal frame of the gurney beneath him. Restraints secured his wrists and ankles, though there was no slack, no chance to move.

For the first time since his capture, he registered the weight of his situation. He was in a facility—a prison disguised as a laboratory.

A shadow moved just outside his line of sight, and he heard footsteps approaching.

“He’s awake,” a voice noted, clinical and detached.

There was no rush to acknowledge him, no urgency in their presence. Whoever they were, they were not afraid of him.

Stark turned his head, his movements slow and heavy, to find a figure standing at the foot of the gurney. A man—late forties, maybe early fifties—dressed in a dark suit, his face unreadable. There was nothing outwardly intimidating about him, but something in his posture, in the way he watched Stark with cool, assessing eyes, sent a shiver through him.

This was the man who had been following them. The one who had been watching. He had been waiting for this moment.

“You’ve caused a great deal of trouble,” the man said, tapping a pen against the clipboard he carried. “I suppose I should congratulate you for lasting this long on your own. But you had help, didn’t you?”

Stark didn’t respond.

The man smiled thinly. “You’re not much of a talker. That’s fine. You’ll want to listen, anyway.” He stepped closer, stopping just outside of Stark’s reach—not that Stark could move. “Your survival isn’t just impressive,” the man continued, his tone clinical. “It’s unprecedented. Do you know how many people have survived that level of impact? A crash like that? Not just one, but five. And that was only the beginning.”

Stark exhaled slowly, focusing on his breathing. He would not give this man the satisfaction of a reaction.

“You probably think it’s random,” the man went on, watching him closely. “That it’s all some genetic anomaly, a gift—but it’s not. It never was. You weren’t just lucky, Stark. Your parents were engineered, and you inherited their abilities.”

His blood ran cold.

The restraints clinked softly as he tested them, but they didn’t budge.

The man didn’t even acknowledge the attempt.

“Your parents were part of something far bigger than you could ever imagine,” he said, stepping back. “And I think it’s time you saw the truth for yourself.”

The door behind him slid open, and two guards entered, their weapons at the ready. One of them pressed a button on the gurney, releasing the locks.

Stark’s limbs were still sluggish, but he forced his muscles to respond. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.

The guards didn’t give him a chance. One grabbed his arm, yanking him upright. His legs nearly gave out beneath him, but they held him steady.

“Move!” the man instructed.

Stark didn’t have a choice. The guards led him down a long corridor, its walls gleaming white, the overhead lights buzzing softly. There were doors lining the hall, locked and reinforced, the kind used for maximum security containment. Some had observation windows, but whatever was inside, he couldn’t see.

They stopped in front of one of the doors. The man pressed his palm to a biometric scanner, and the lock clicked open.

The guards pushed him inside. Stark stumbled, catching himself against the metal frame of a cot bolted to the floor. His head swam from the movement, his body still sluggish.

Then he looked up, and he froze. A man and a woman sat against the far wall, barely moving. Their faces were familiar, too familiar—because he’d known them since childhood, and they hadn’t changed at all.

His parents.

Stark’s breath caught in his throat as he took a step forward. His mind refused to process what he was seeing.

“M-Mom?” he whispered.

The woman flinched.

“Kathleen, wake up,” the man in the suit murmured. “You have a visitor. Look at him.”

Slowly, she lifted her head. Her face—her eyes—everything was the same. Exactly the way he remembered.

But something was wrong. There was no relief in her expression. No recognition of the son she had lost—only a hollow, haunted emptiness.

“Mom,” Stark tried again, stepping closer. When she still didn’t respond, he turned his attention to his father. “D-Dad, it’s me. It’s—it’s Scotty.”

Arthur Stark said nothing. His posture was rigid, his hands curled into fists. He looked at Stark the way a soldier assesses an unfamiliar battlefield.

Kathleen’s lips parted slightly, as if she wanted to say something, but no words came.

The man in the suit cleared his throat. “You understand now, don’t you? You see?”

Stark turned to him, flustered, fighting back a sudden surge of rage.

“You did this to them,” he said, his voice low.

“They were given every opportunity to cooperate,” the man in the suit said. “We did everything we could to extract the truth. But some things… some things don’t break as easily as bone.”

Stark lunged for him.

The guards were faster.

They slammed him back against the cot, holding him in place.

The man adjusted his sleeves, unfazed. “You were a mistake, you know,” he said. “An unexpected factor in an otherwise controlled experiment. We tried to replicate your parents, but they were too perfect. Too resilient. We could never unlock what made them what they are.”

His gaze settled on Stark.

“But you? You were different. You were born with it, but unlike your parents, you could share it. It wasn’t limited to you—and that changed everything.”

Stark struggled against the guards’ grip, but it was useless.

The man leaned in slightly. “And thanks to you, we finally found the key.”

A name flashed through Stark’s mind. Danny.

The man smiled, as if he could read his thoughts. “Daniel is still alive,” he said. “He was our first real success. Gina… well. Let’s just say not everyone adapts as well as you do.”

Stark’s body went still. He had already known, hadn’t he? The message. The blood on the mirror. “You are not gods.”

“You’re lying,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction.

The man tilted his head slightly. “We’ll see,” he said.

A low, rhythmic sound filled the silence. It took Stark a moment to realize it was coming from his father.

Arthur Stark lifted his head. He was scowling, simmering hatred welling up inside of him.

The man in the suit stiffened.

Arthur exhaled, stretching his fingers, rolling his shoulders—and he moved.

The guards didn’t even have time to react.

Arthur lunged forward, his hands clamping down on the nearest man’s throat. The guard thrashed, his legs kicking wildly before his spine snapped with an audible crack. Before the second guard could reach for his weapon, Arthur was on him, his fist colliding with his jaw so hard that bone shattered on impact.

The man in the suit took a slow step back. “Contain them!” he ordered.

Another guard rushed in, rifle raised. Arthur grabbed him by the arm, twisting it until the bone jutted through flesh. He seized the fallen weapon and turned it on the others. Bullets riddled the room, but they didn’t find their mark. Arthur was faster and more precise. The next three men collapsed before they even understood what was happening.

Weakly, Kathleen finally lifted her head and looked at Stark. For a moment, he saw the hint of a smile beginning to form on her lips.

“Move,” she said. “Now.”

Stark didn’t need to be told twice. He ran, and his parents followed.

Part V

The cabin was nothing more than a forgotten structure on the outskirts of nowhere, nestled deep within a dense forest of gnarled trees and damp earth. It was the kind of place that time had abandoned, a relic of rotted wood and rusted nails, barely standing but sturdy enough to serve as temporary shelter.

Stark sat on the edge of a battered cot, elbows on his knees, trying to wrap his head around everything that had happened. His hands still shook, though whether from adrenaline or exhaustion, he wasn’t sure.

Arthur paced near the boarded-up window, his movements tight and measured. He hadn’t spoken much since they arrived. His expression was carved from stone, but Stark could tell his father was on the lookout for something.

Kathleen sat near the cold fireplace, knees drawn to her chest, her vacant stare locked onto nothing in particular. She had scarcely moved since they’d entered the cabin, and hadn’t said a word.

Stark clenched his fists, his breath coming unsteadily as he tried, for what felt like the hundredth time, to process what he’d seen in that facility. The way Arthur had moved—efficient, lethal, and precise. His strength had been terrifying, unnatural even. And Kathleen—she wasn’t injured or sick, but something inside her had shattered beyond recognition. She was whole in body but hollow in spirit, and that terrified him more than anything else.

He finally broke the silence.

“We need to talk.”

Arthur didn’t stop pacing, but his eyes flickered toward Stark in acknowledgment. Kathleen didn’t respond.

Stark inhaled sharply, pushing aside his frustration. “What happened to you in there?” His voice was quiet, but the demand in it was clear. “What did they do to you?”

Arthur’s jaw tensed. He exhaled through his nose before turning to Stark fully, his sharp gaze pinning him in place. “They didn’t kill us,” he said simply.

Stark let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, I noticed.”

Arthur’s expression didn’t shift. “They tried. More times than you’d believe. But they wanted more than just our deaths.”

Stark stared at him, waiting.

Arthur folded his arms, his fingers tapping against his bicep. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm and controlled.

“They weren’t just looking for soldiers. That’s what they told us at first, but that was just the surface of their research. They weren’t just trying to make us invincible.” He hesitated. “They wanted to know what it did to our minds. To our souls. If what made us human could change.”

A chill crept down Stark’s spine.

“They called it ‘consciousness adaptability,’” Arthur continued. “They wanted to see how long a mind could hold onto itself if it was pushed beyond the limits of mortality. If survival itself could alter perception. If living too long and enduring too much would eventually turn us into something else.”

Stark swallowed hard. “And?”

Arthur didn’t answer.

Stark turned to his mother. “Mom?” His voice cracked slightly.

She flinched, and Arthur’s fingers stopped tapping.

Stark’s heart pounded in his chest. His father had massacred an entire squad of armed men back at the facility, his movements sharp, practiced. His mother—she barely moved at all. She had survived just as long as Arthur, and had endured the same horrors. But if Arthur had come out the other side as something sharper, Kathleen had come out fractured.

Stark’s voice was quiet when he spoke. “Did they break you?”

His mother finally looked at him. The answer was in her eyes.

She turned away, drawing her knees tighter to her chest.

Arthur didn’t say anything. But then again, he didn’t have to. His silence told Stark more than words ever could.

* * * * * *

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed since the escape. Hours? A day? Stark had no way of knowing, and Arthur wasn’t exactly forthcoming about their next steps.

What he did know was that they weren’t safe, and he suspected they never would be. Somewhere, the man in the suit was still alive, already rebuilding from the wreckage they’d left behind. The organization wouldn’t stop just because one facility had been compromised.

They would only come back stronger. Arthur knew it, too. That was why he kept pacing, why he refused to sleep, why his ears were always trained on the distant sounds of the forest. He wasn’t waiting for peace. He was waiting for the next attack.

Stark was the one who found the file. Arthur had been shifting through the supplies he’d stolen on the way out—maps, documents, loose pages of research. He’d barely looked at them, more concerned with securing their position and assessing the next move.

But Stark saw the name. Danny.

His fingers tightened around the worn pages. He skimmed the text, his vision tunneling as the truth settled over him.

Danny wasn’t just an experiment. He was a success. The organization had been trying to create a new kind of human—one with all of Stark’s gifts, but without the instability and the unknowns. And Danny had given them exactly what they wanted.

The words blurred together as Stark kept reading.

Faster. Stronger. No visible cellular degradation.

A perfect prototype.

Stark’s stomach twisted. He had thought, for a fleeting moment, that maybe Danny was still out there, running and hiding, trying to escape the same way they were.

It was at that moment Stark decided that this was no time to play it safe. He needed to go on the offensive.  Danny’s life was on the line, and he’d be damned if he allowed the organization responsible for torturing and imprisoning his parents to do the same to his friends.

“Dad?” he called out.

“Yes, Scott?” his father replied. “What’s the matter?”

“We’ve got to go back,” he said, pointing at the file. “My friend is in there.”

Part VI

The facility loomed in the distance, its concrete walls stretching high above the frozen landscape, a fortress of steel and reinforced glass. It was buried deep in the mountains, hidden from the world.

Arthur had led them here with the precision of a man who had spent his entire life preparing for war. He hadn’t spoken much on the journey, only breaking the silence to relay the security layout, the shifts of the guards, and the limited window they had to get inside before the facility went into full lockdown.

Stark’s stomach was in knots. His mind refused to let go of the image of Danny’s name in those stolen files. A success. A prototype of something new. Something beyond human.

And he was inside.

Kathleen had barely spoken at all.

The wind howled through the valley as they approached. They reached the perimeter undetected, crouching behind the rusted shell of an abandoned supply vehicle. Arthur glanced toward the towering fence, his gaze calculating.

“They know we’re coming,” he said.

Stark’s pulse quickened. “How do you know?”

Arthur didn’t look at him. “Because I would, if I were them.”

A second later, the alarms began to wail.

The floodlights flicked on, flooding the yard with harsh white light. Stark ducked, but there was nowhere to hide. The sound of boots striking pavement filled the air, followed by the sharp metallic clatter of gun safeties being switched off.

“Move!” Arthur said.

They didn’t hesitate. Arthur led the charge, his movements precise, his strikes lethal. Stark barely had time to register the first wave of guards before Arthur had torn through them, bones snapping under his grip, bodies crumpling before they could raise their weapons.

Kathleen stayed close, moving with practiced efficiency, her face void of emotion as she followed Arthur’s lead. Stark didn’t know what terrified him more—the ease with which his father dismantled the guards, or the way his mother barely reacted at all.

They forced their way inside, slipping through the security doors before the next lockdown could engage. The facility was eerily silent, its pristine white walls humming with unseen energy. It felt too clean, too controlled. Too much like a trap.

They found Danny in a containment chamber at the heart of the facility.

He stood in the center of the room, illuminated by a dull, flickering light. He was wearing a standard-issue jumpsuit, his arms loose at his sides, with his head tilted slightly as if listening to something only he could hear.

The moment Stark saw his face, he knew. This wasn’t Danny—not anymore. His skin was paler than Stark remembered, almost translucent under the glow of the artificial lighting. His eyes, once so familiar, so full of life, now carried an unnatural sheen, an eerie luminescence that made his entire expression unreadable. His posture was relaxed, but there was something deeply unsettling about the way he stood, as if he were only barely containing something far more violent beneath the surface.

When he spoke, his voice was soft. “You found me.”

Stark swallowed hard. “Danny?”

Danny smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “I remember you.”

Something inside Stark twisted. “What did they do to you?”

Danny considered the question as if he hadn’t thought about it before. “They made me better.”

Arthur took a step forward, his eyes locked onto Danny with the same cold calculation he always had before a kill. “They turned you into a weapon.”

Danny’s lips quirked at the corners. “Maybe.”

Kathleen’s breath hitched. It was the only sound she had made since they entered the room.

Danny looked at Stark again, tilting his head slightly. “You know, I used to be afraid of dying. It’s funny how quickly that disappears when you realize you never will. I’ve been told I’m immortal, that I’m the result of years of testing, and that the breakthrough that ultimately produced me… was you.”

Stark’s stomach churned. “This isn’t you.”

Danny’s expression didn’t change. “Maybe this was always me.”

* * * * * *

Danny moved first.

Stark barely had time to react before he was on him, faster than any human should have been. A fist connected with his ribs, sending him skidding backward, crashing into the metal wall hard enough to dent it. Pain exploded through his body, but it wasn’t enough to keep him down.

Arthur lunged, aiming for Danny’s throat, but Danny twisted, dodging with inhuman speed. His foot shot out, catching Arthur in the chest and sending him flying across the room. Kathleen rushed forward, but Danny barely acknowledged her, brushing her aside with a flick of his wrist.

This wasn’t a fight—it was a massacre. And Danny was playing with them.

He was faster, stronger. His body didn’t strain under the exertion. He moved with an ease that made Stark’s jaw drop.

Danny had always been reckless—always the first to jump, the first to test limits. But this wasn’t recklessness. This was enjoyment.

Stark forced himself to his feet, gasping for breath.

Danny’s eyes flicked back to him. “You’re disappointing me.”

Stark gritted his teeth. “Yeah?” He wiped blood from his lip. “That makes two of us.”

He charged. Danny met him halfway, lunging again, but this time, Stark was ready. He ducked, twisting just in time to drive the metal rod upward, straight into Danny’s chest.

The impact was immediate. Danny’s body jerked, his glowing eyes going wide in shock. His mouth opened slightly, but no words came out.

For the first time, Danny looked human again.

Stark held onto the rod, his breath ragged, his entire body shaking. He could feel the warmth of Danny’s blood spreading over his hands.

Danny swallowed hard, his fingers twitching as if trying to grab onto something that wasn’t there.

His voice came out weaker than before. “Wh-what?” He stared at the blood pouring from his chest, his face contorted in a mixture of confusion and anger, catching it like water from a faucet in his hands as it left his body. “They lied.”

Stark’s throat tightened. “What?”

Danny’s breathing grew unsteady. His glowing eyes flickered. “They… lied,” he rasped. “They never… figured it out. I’m— I’m not…”

The weight of his words crashed down on Stark all at once. The organization had promised Danny invincibility. They had told him he was their first true success, the perfected version of what Stark had been all along. But they hadn’t perfected anything. They had just gotten closer—close enough to fool him into believing he couldn’t die.

But not close enough.

Danny exhaled one final, shuddering breath, and then his body slumped forward.

At last, he was still, lying in a pool of rapidly congealing blood.

The silence that followed was unbearable. Kathleen stood frozen in the doorway, her hand covering her mouth. Arthur remained where he had fallen, his eyes locked on Stark.

Danny’s body was still warm.

Stark waited for him to heal, waited for him to get back up.

But he didn’t.

Danny was dead.

Something in Stark broke. He closed his eyes, swallowing down the bile rising in his throat.

When he finally looked up, Kathleen was staring at him. There was something different in her eyes, something akin to fear.

Arthur exhaled slowly. “We need to move,” he said.

Stark didn’t respond. He felt numb. But he nodded, and he followed.

Part VII

The fires burned long after the last body had fallen.

Stark stood in the wreckage of the facility, his breath clouding in the cold air, the weight of Danny’s death pressing down on him like a physical thing. The metallic scent of blood clung to his clothes, mixing with the acrid stench of scorched plastic and burning fuel. The alarms had long since died, their piercing wail reduced to a distant ringing in his ears.

Arthur was already moving. He had stripped a rifle from one of the dead guards and slung it over his shoulder, his focus fixed on the control panels lining the far wall. Kathleen stood a few feet behind him, her face pale, her fingers trembling where they clutched at the sleeves of her tattered jumpsuit.

Neither of them spoke. There was nothing left to say.

Arthur knelt beside the control panel, his fingers skimming over the wires as he worked. Stark watched in silence, his muscles tense, his throat dry. He didn’t need to ask what his father was doing. He already knew.

They couldn’t leave anything behind. Not the files, not the files—not the facility.

Kathleen inhaled sharply. “Are you sure about this?”

Arthur didn’t look up. “I was sure the moment we walked in.”

He yanked a handful of wires free, exposing the internal systems. With practiced efficiency, he reached into the bag at his feet, retrieving the first set of charges. The explosives were compact, but Stark knew they would be enough.

Arthur had planned for this.

* * * * * *

The first shot came out of nowhere.

Arthur jerked forward, a sharp intake of breath escaping his lips as he staggered against the console. Stark’s heart lurched.

Then the second shot rang out, and Arthur dropped to one knee, his fingers clawing at his side.

Kathleen let out a strangled cry.

Stark spun, his vision narrowing in on the figure standing in the doorway. The man following them was still alive. Blood stained his temple, but his posture remained relaxed, his gun steady in his grip.

“You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” His voice was calm, almost amused.

Arthur coughed, spitting blood onto the floor. Stark’s stomach twisted. Then he saw the needle in the man’s other hand. A syringe.

Stark lunged without hesitation, closing the distance between them in an instant—but he was too late. The man moved like a phantom, sidestepping Stark’s attack with ease.

And then, with a single sharp movement, he drove the syringe into Arthur’s neck.

Arthur gasped, his body convulsing. Stark barely caught him as he collapsed.

Kathleen dropped to her knees beside them, her fingers pressing against Arthur’s pulse. “He’s—” Her voice broke. “His body—”

Stark felt it, too. Arthur’s skin was warm—too warm. A sickly heat radiated from his body, his muscles locking, his breath ragged. He was changing.

The man in the doorway wiped the blood from his lip and pocketed the empty syringe. “It’s temporary,” he said, as if that made it better. “He’ll live. For a little while.”

Stark’s entire body went rigid.

For the first time in his life, Arthur was mortal.

Kathleen shook her head. “You took it away from him.”

The man’s lips curled into something that might have been a smirk. “We had to know if it worked.”

Arthur coughed again, his hands gripping the floor beneath him. His movements were sluggish, his body struggling against something it had never known.

Pain. Real, human pain.

Then, Stark remembered the explosives. The charges were still set.

Arthur wouldn’t make it out, and he knew it. Their father—the man who had torn through an entire squad of trained operatives without a second thought—looked up at them now with something Stark had never seen in his eyes before. Not fear—resignation. The cold, certain knowledge that this was the end.

With great effort, Arthur pushed himself upright. “Go,” he said.

“No,” Stark protested. “I won’t do it.  I can’t leave you here. Not like this.”

Arthur met his gaze.

“I said go.”

Kathleen’s fingers tightened on Arthur’s sleeve. “We can’t leave you.”

Arthur didn’t argue. He just reached for the detonator.

The man in the doorway took a slow step back.

Kathleen looked at Arthur, her lips trembling. “Please—”

Arthur shook his head. “This is how it has to be. Now, go!”

Stark wanted to fight him, wanted to scream.

But Arthur Stark had already made his choice.

Stark and Kathleen bolted.

* * * * * *

They barely made it out before the building collapsed.

The explosion tore through the facility, sending fire and debris rocketing into the night sky. The force of it knocked them off their feet, the heat licking at their backs as they stumbled into the frozen valley.

And then—silence. Arthur was gone, the research was gone. Everything was gone.

Stark sat in the snow, his hands stained with blood and ash. Kathleen knelt beside him, her shoulders shaking, her face buried in her hands.

For a long time, neither of them spoke.

A few hundred yards away, half-buried beneath the rubble, the man following them pulled himself free. His lip was split. His ribs were likely broken, but he was alive. He watched the ruins of the facility smoldering in the distance, and grimaced. Then, slowly, he reached into his coat and retrieved a small device—a transmitter.

His fingers tightened around it.

This wasn’t over.

* * * * * *

Stark and Kathleen didn’t stay to bury the dead. There was nothing left to bury.

They kept walking, moving through the valley, their footprints the only sign they had ever been there.

The organization wasn’t gone.

Not completely.

But the biggest piece of their research—their ability to replicate what Stark had—had been wiped from existence.

They weren’t running anymore.

Not from the past.

Not from what they were.

They had a new goal now.

The files Arthur had taken before his death had revealed one final truth:

There were others.

Others like Stark. Others like Arthur. Others the organization had been trying to find.

They wouldn’t get the chance.

Not if Stark and Kathleen found them first.

* * * * * *

The snow had begun to fall heavier by the time they made their way through the treacherous mountain path. Stark and Kathleen kept their eyes on the road ahead, their breath misting in the cold air. The distant, fading light from the wreckage behind them was a ghostly silhouette, swallowed by the ever-thickening storm. The world felt as cold and endless as the path they walked, but neither of them stopped. Not yet.

Stark’s mind was a blur, each step heavy with the weight of everything they had lost. Danny. Arthur. The many lives the organization had destroyed in their quest for immortality. His chest felt tight, constricted by it all. There was a gnawing emptiness that couldn’t be filled. And yet, there was something else—something sharper, something purposeful.

Kathleen walked beside him, her face a mask of quiet resilience. She hadn’t spoken much since the explosion, and Stark wasn’t sure if she ever would. He couldn’t find the words either. The loss, the devastation—they both felt it too deeply to voice. But neither of them had broken. Not yet.

They had destroyed the heart of the organization, wiped out their research, and watched as everything they had fought for collapsed into the night. But that wasn’t the end. Not for them. Not when so much still lingered out there.

Stark could feel the weight of their decision pressing on him. There were more like him out there. More people who had been touched by the same experiment, more lives twisted and shattered, still vulnerable to the organization’s reach. He couldn’t rest until they were safe, until the truth was known, until the whole world knew what the organization had done.

“We’ll find them,” Stark said, his voice hoarse, breaking the silence.

Kathleen didn’t look at him. Her eyes were on the horizon, as if the answers lay hidden somewhere beyond the storm. “I know.”

Her simple response sent a shiver through him. She was ready for this, as ready as he was. The world might not understand them. They might never find the answers they were looking for. But they couldn’t stop. Not now.

Stark glanced at the road ahead. Their journey wasn’t over. It couldn’t be. They had come this far—what was left but to move forward, to find those who needed saving, and make sure the organization would never get the chance to finish what they had started?

Kathleen’s hand brushed against his briefly, her fingers trembling slightly. He met her gaze, and for a moment, there was something like understanding between them. Something unspoken. They didn’t need words to know what was coming next.

“We’ll make sure they never hurt anyone again,” Stark said quietly.

Kathleen nodded once, and together, they walked into the storm, leaving the wreckage of the past behind them.