CHAPTER 76: JUST HUNGRY

The sky was gray. Not stormy, not sunny... just heavy and dull, like it knew something awful was happening behind the gym. Theo was on the ground, curled up with his arms over his head. Dirt and dried leaves clung to his uniform. His knees were scraped. His lower lip was bleeding from where he bit it, hard, just to stop himself from crying.

"Hey! Where’s your fire now, freak?"

A kick landed in his ribs. Another on his back.

Laughter echoed from the small group of boys circling him. They weren’t older, just mean. Mean enough to know Theo wouldn’t fight back. He never did.

"You think acting smart makes you better than us?"

"Let’s see if being smart helps when you’re choking on dirt."

They grabbed his backpack and dumped it out. Books hit the ground. A worn notebook with scribbled sketches of robots and monsters tore open. One of the boys picked it up.

"Look at this! What are you, five?"

He ripped it in half. Theo’s fists tightened. His knuckles turned white. His whole body trembled, not from fear, but from the effort of holding something in, something boiling behind his eyes. He wanted to hit them. He wanted them to suffer.

But his mother’s voice echoed in his mind.

"Always choose the right thing, Theo. Even if it hurts. Even when it’s unfair."

He swallowed the rage. Like always. The boys eventually got bored and left him there... bruised, dirty, alone.

When he was sure they were gone, Theo sat up slowly, wincing. His eyes fell on the torn notebook pages flapping in the wind. One of them had a drawing, a figure standing tall, back turned to the world. A lone warrior with black armor and glowing veins. Power dripped from his hands.

A protector. A destroyer. A being who never cried or begged. A version of himself he had only ever dreamed of becoming.

*

Theo jolted awake, a thin sheen of sweat on his brow. His chest rose and fell in quick breaths as if the pain from that long-ago memory when he was ten years old still pressed down on him.

He sat up on the edge of the bed, running a hand through his hair. The dream lingered, not just a memory, but a haunting.

The kicks. The laughter. That torn notebook.

His other hand instinctively reached for his eye. The golden glow from earlier was gone now, and yet... he felt something under his skin. A dull throb. A quiet whisper of something still watching, still waiting.

The warehouse. The slaughter. The fight against UMS turned to meteorborns.

The Dark Online System.

He hadn’t just killed those men. He enjoyed it. Not completely, not outwardly but in some corner of him that frightened him more than anything else. He stood and stumbled to the bathroom sink, splashing cold water on his face. He stared at himself in the mirror.

There were no scars. No visible changes. But his eyes... something about them looked heavier. Older.

"What’s happening to me?" he asked quietly.

The mirror didn’t answer. But inside him, deep beneath the surface, something grinned.

The same part of him that once dreamed of not being weak. The part that said, Let them bleed. Let them beg. This time, they don’t get to walk away.

He clenched the sink.

"No," he told himself. "I’m still me."

But the silence in the room didn’t comfort him. Because part of him wasn’t so sure anymore.

"Theo? Are you in there?"

Aries’ voice snapped him back to reality.

Theo stepped out of the bathroom and found her waiting just outside his door.

"I knocked, but you didn’t answer. I got worried," she said, eyeing him closely, as if searching his face for clues. "Is everything okay?"

"Just hungry," he replied with a reassuring smile.

"I figured. Come on, let’s eat." Aries grabbed his wrist and gently pulled him out of the room.

It was already past one in the afternoon. Theo had gone straight to his bedroom earlier and passed out the moment he hit the bed.

Aries didn’t say much as she quietly set the table for him, filling it with several dishes.

"Where’s Kael?" he asked, settling into his seat.

"Oh, he’s with Uncle Andres, helping out with a few things around the estate," she replied, sitting across from him and nibbling on a bowl of fruit salad.

Theo started eating in silence. After a few bites, Aries spoke again.

"So... what happened this morning?" she asked, watching him carefully. "You were out there longer than usual."

"Oh, I passed by Moore Warehouse-"

"Did you see the news?!"

Calix suddenly burst into the room, cutting Theo off. He snatched the remote and turned on the television before plopping down beside Aries.

Theo’s stomach dropped as the screen lit up with footage of the very warehouse he had just mentioned.

"There are four confirmed dead - security guards," the reporter announced grimly. "And seven unidentified individuals believed to be outsiders. Police suspect they were thieves... but sources now confirm they were UMS agents who mutated into Meteorborns during the incident."

Theo’s eyes stayed fixed on the screen.

"The investigation is ongoing," the reporter continued, "but progress has stalled due to the destruction of all CCTV footage during the attack. Authorities are urging anyone with information to come forward."

Then Calix turned to them, eyes wide. "It happened just in the next town!"

He paused, then glanced suspiciously at Theo. "Wait... did you have something to do with that?"

"Yeah," Theo replied casually without looking up from his plate. "Those UMS mutated into Meteorborns, so I finished them off."

Aries blinked. "The security guards?"

"They were already dead when I got there. Except for one, he’d been bitten, so I ended his life too," Theo said flatly, still chewing. He didn’t mention that he killed the man before the mutation took over.

Calix leaned back with a whistle. "Good thing those thieves already destroyed the warehouse’s CCTV footage. The police won’t know you were there. The road cameras in that town were down too, but I heard they’re working on fixing that. They’re planning to add more surveillance near the red zones."