Kacper and his friends have begun to notice strange powers in themselves, and tonight a blue flash above the old hospital pulls them toward a danger they do not understand.
In the evening, after the spring rain, the Old Town shone in broken reflections on the pavement. Kacper stopped by the school window and saw his own face staring back at him, pale and uncertain. Then the glass shifted, and behind his reflection there was something else: a faint purple haze, trembling around his shoulders like smoke.
A month ago, he would have backed away. Now he only stared, waiting for the fear to catch up with him. It never quite did. The strange things had been happening too often for that.
The front door banged somewhere down the corridor.
"Kacper!" Lena called, hurrying toward him with her bag sliding off one shoulder. "You’re here. Good."
"Of course I’m here," he said, though his voice came out thinner than he wanted. "What now?"
Lena didn’t answer straight away. She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him after her. "Biology room. Now. Everyone’s waiting."
The room was dim, lit only by the strip of light leaking in through the blinds. Janek stood by the desk, rolling a metal pen between his fingers. Every few seconds it jerked out of his hand, hovered in the air for a heartbeat, then clattered back down with a sharp tap. Zuza sat on the windowsill, one earbud dangling, her thumb moving over the player without touching the buttons.
"You took your time," she said.
Janek looked up. "We found something."
Lena crossed to the desk and dropped her phone onto it. On the screen was a blurred photo of the old hospital at the edge of the district. One window on the top floor glowed red, and above the roof something pale and streaking had been caught mid-motion.
"We saw lights there again," she said. "No one should be inside."
Kacper felt the purple haze around him tighten, as if the photo had tugged at it. "Again?"
"Same place," Janek said. "Same time as last week."
Zuza finally looked up from her music. "And this time there was someone on the roof."
Nobody spoke for a moment. Outside, the school grounds were empty, the windows darkening one by one across the street. The old hospital sat at the far end of the road like a blackened tooth, all broken brick and boarded windows.
Lena’s eyes moved from one face to the next. "If we wait until morning, someone else finds out first."
Kacper swallowed. Last time they had tried to use what was happening to them, everything had spun out of control. He still wasn’t sure what his own power could really do, or what it wanted from him.
But Lena was already heading for the door.
"Come on," she said. "If we don’t go now, we’ll never know what’s there."
They slipped out into the corridor together, their footsteps dull against the tiles. Kacper felt the air change as they reached the back exit, colder somehow, as if the night had been waiting for them.
Outside, the Old Town was almost silent. Rainwater gleamed in the gutters. The hospital loomed ahead, a dark shape against the low sky. Kacper tightened his grip on the torch in his pocket.
"Ready?" Lena whispered.
Before he could answer, a sharp blue flash burst across the roof of the hospital.
All four of them froze.
A figure in a black cloak had stepped into view at the edge of the roof. Kacper’s skin prickled. The purple haze around him began to churn wildly, as if it recognised the stranger before he did.
Then the figure turned.
Straight toward them.
"He’s got something in his hand!" Zuza shouted.
The cloaked figure lifted an arm, and another flash, brighter than the first, ripped open the night above the Old Town.