Page 103 of Pulse Zero
The city hums outside—distant traffic, sirens, life continuing like nothing is wrong—but standing in this abandoned building with Ash and a body that isn’t a body yet, everything feels suspended. Dust hangs in the air. The smell of rust and something electrical lingers faintly, like the place remembers what it used to be.
If it’s anything like me, then that was a lifetime ago.
Ash stands a few feet behind me, heat still crackling faintly along her skin. Not with visible flames, not anymore, but I can feel it. The aftermath of her power always lingers when she’s coming down from a fight.
Mine doesn’t linger the same way. Itwaits.
The shadows at my feet stir, subtle and restless, stretching forward like they’re curious. Hungry.
On the ground in front of us, the man struggles to breathe. Another Ascended who thought he could escape the Instituteand disappear.
But Ascended soldiers like me and Ash are the reason most don’t run. Because it’s our job to find them before they slip too far out of reach, to give them a choice that isn’t really a choice. To bring them in or put them down.
The man is pinned in place, not by ropes or restraints, but by the absence of light itself. More of my shadows coil around his limbs, pressed tight enough to keep him still without crushing him. But they’re eager, waiting for me.
I reach into my jacket and pull out my gun. The weight of it settles into my hand like it belongs there. It always has, long before the shadows, long before the Institute. Long before any of this. I trust it because it’s not a part of me. It doesn’t feel. It doesn’twantanything.
It doesn’t get one taste of chaos and become addicted, always wanting more.
That’s why I use it instead of them.
This is the part people think would be hard. The choice. The moment where someone’s life balances on a single answer, a single breath, a single word.
It isn’t.
The hard part is everything that comes before it. Tracking them down, cornering them, listening to them try to justify why they should be the exception.
The ending is easy.
The man coughs, blood streaking the corner of his mouth, his eyes darting between me and Ash like he’s trying to decide which one of us is worse.
The answer is both of us.
I step closer, leveling the gun at his head.
For a moment, I consider not even asking the question. It would be faster. No wasted breath pretending like he might give the right answer, the one that would keep him alive.
But Malcolm likes the question, the choice. So I give it to him.
“You’re coming with us,” I say. “You work for the Institute. You follow orders. You live.”
The offer hangs there. It sounds reasonable. It always does.
But it never is.
Somehow, they know that. Maybe it’s because they take one look at me and realize they don’t want to be like me. Stuck.Owned. I wouldn’t blame them for that. If I had been given the choice, I would’ve stayed dead.
His breathing stutters, and he swallows as he makes his decision. “No.”
Sometimes, there’s a second chance in situations like these. Sometimes, people change their minds when they hear their answer echo back at them.
I don’t give him that.
I pull the trigger.
The sound cracks through the building, deafening and final. The body jerks once, then stills. My shadows loosen their hold, retreating back along the floor and dissolving into the corners of the room like they were where they belong the entire time.
Silence settles, and I lower the gun.
