Chapter Two: When the Sky Opened
It began with a hum.
Not a sound in the traditional sense, but a resonance—a primal, bone-deep vibration that swept across the world like the breath of some ancient god awakening beneath the skin of the earth.
It came subtly at first.
Animals froze mid-motion. Birds halted in the sky, hovering as if uncertain whether to flee or bow. Trees swayed without wind, their leaves whispering a language long forgotten. Somewhere, clocks stopped ticking.
And then came the silence.
Not the peaceful kind, but a stillness so heavy it seemed to press against the very fabric of reality. Traffic halted. Conversations died on lips. Phones and machines flickered, then dimmed into quiet.
The world, in all its chaos and speed, held its breath.
High above, the sky began to shift.
The ordinary blue gave way to something ancient—an otherworldly canvas stretching out into infinity. It was not day, nor was it night. It was the color of memory, of frozen time, of divinity wrapped in twilight.
From this ocean of light, they descended.
Pillars.
Towers of ethereal mana, each one a stream of pure cerulean essence, spiraling gently as they fell—not like comets, but like purpose made form.
They were not chaotic.
Each descended with intention. Each chose one child.
They did not strike in groups, nor did they favor regions or nations. The mana found its chosen as if it had always known where to go—as if the children had been born with invisible marks only the sky could see.
They came for the children—those on the cusp of adolescence, their fates still unwritten, their hearts still wild and wide open.
---
London, England.
In a narrow alley choked with smog and lined with rusted fire escapes, a girl stood with a cracked shoelace in hand, preparing to run.
But then the alley turned quiet.
The sounds of the bustling city were drowned beneath the weight of the descending silence.
A gentle breeze brushed past her cheeks, carrying the faint scent of ozone and ancient rain.
And from above—piercing the smog, cutting through the grime—a slender beam of glowing blue light slid downward like a blade of heaven.
It enveloped her slowly, wrapping around her like a memory from before birth.
Her knees trembled.
She clutched her chest, not from pain, but from a sudden, impossible fullness. Her breath slowed. Her pulse echoed in her ears like a steady drum.
Then her eyes, once gray and dull from the wear of poverty and isolation, ignited.
Not with fire.
With light.
A tranquil, glowing blue that reflected not what she had endured—but what she was yet to become.
---
Delhi, India.
Amidst the cacophony of train announcements and human motion, a toddler whimpered in his mother's weary arms.
The platform was a sea of bodies—but suddenly, the tide halted.
Even the electric buzz of the metro lines faltered.
From the sky above the stained concrete canopy, a thin stream of light bored through reality itself.
It bathed the child in its radiance.
Gasps rippled across the crowd.
The mother cried out, but the child only reached upward, giggling, eyes now glowing like twin moons drowned in a dream.
The pillar remained for only seconds—but that moment would last a lifetime.
---
Nairobi, Kenya.
The runner collapsed onto the cracked dirt field, breath ragged, sweat glistening under the sun.
But then—no wind.
The trees around him grew still.
He lifted his head weakly as a strange coldness trickled down from the heavens. He watched in awe as a spectral beam of blue curved through the clouds and met him like a slow-falling drop of divine water.
It passed through him.
His limbs relaxed.
A heat and cold mixed in his chest like thunder and silence, grounding him and freeing him all at once.
Then came the glow—soft at first, then stronger, flooding his eyes with light as calm as the evening sky above Mount Kilimanjaro.
He felt… seen.
He felt chosen.
---
Beijing, China.
The twins always watched the horizon. They said it made them feel like time couldn't catch them.
That evening, time stopped anyway.
The air around them trembled with invisible pressure. The clouds seemed to part—not pushed away, but peeled open, like a curtain lifting at the beginning of a grand play.
Two separate columns of mana spiraled down, slow and serpentine, before encasing each twin like a mirrored dream.
The moment the light touched their skin, their eyes widened—tears silently streamed down their cheeks, not from fear, but from some deep-rooted knowing that could not be explained in words.
Their bodies shimmered. Their souls stirred.
And when their eyes opened again, they burned with an identical, brilliant blue—a bond older than language, stronger than blood.
---
Somewhere in Africa
The sun dipped low on the horizon, stretching long shadows over the dry earth. The air shimmered with heat, cicadas humming their eternal rhythm in the stillness of late afternoon.
A boy stood alone among tall grasses, his skin dusted in red soil, his eyes watching the sky with a strange certainty. Something inside him thrummed—a quiet pull, like a forgotten name whispered on the wind.
Then, it came.
From the deepening sky, a pillar of light descended—not in fury, but with reverence. It did not rush, it did not burn. It came like rain after drought—gentle, deliberate, and undeniable.
The blue light bathed him, casting soft shadows behind him. The heat of the day lifted, replaced by a cool presence that wrapped around his shoulders like invisible arms.
His breath caught.
His chest stirred.
His eyes glowed—calm, radiant blue. Not fierce. Not wild. But deep, steady, eternal.
In that moment, the world around him paused. The insects hushed. The wind stilled. Even the clouds seemed to wait.
And the boy, standing under the open sky, became part of something far greater than himself. Something ancient. Something waiting.
A whisper in the light, a mark left behind.
The world had chosen.
And it had begun.
---
Somewhere in the Rift Valley, Kenya
The sun hung low in the sky, casting golden light over the endless stretch of grasslands. Acacia trees dotted the horizon, their silhouettes sharp against the reddening sky. A herd of wildebeests moved slowly in the distance, their low grunts blending with the whispering wind.
A boy named Kamau stood barefoot on the cracked earth, the dust warm beneath his toes. He had wandered far from his village, chasing a feeling he couldn't name. Something had been stirring in his chest all day—an itch beneath his ribs, a restless thrum in his bones.
He looked up.
The sky had deepened, shifting from burnt orange to a blue so pure it stole his breath. Then it came—a pillar of light, descending like the breath of heaven itself. Silent. Majestic. Alive.
Kamau did not run.
He stood as the pillar reached him, the grass around his feet bending with the soft pressure of its presence. The light enveloped him like a river—cool, vast, endless.
He gasped, feeling a pulse rise from the earth through his legs, into his spine, blooming outward like a second heartbeat. His eyes fluttered open, now glowing a soft, cerulean blue—steady, unblinking.
The birds in the trees had gone silent.
The wind had stilled.
And in that quiet, the boy smiled—not because he understood, but because something ancient had recognized him.
And in return, he had accepted its call.
---
Across the planet, the phenomenon repeated.
In remote villages and urban skylines.
In icy tundras and burning deserts.
In refugee camps and palaces alike.
The light did not discriminate. It cared nothing for wealth or fame. Only for readiness.
Every child marked by the mana felt it differently—like home, like fire, like clarity, like destiny.
Their eyes, each one, now glowed.
Soft blue. Silent blue. Soul blue.
Back in Michael's City New York
The schoolyard became a canvas of frozen time.
Laughter and games turned still as statues, their echoes cut short by awe and silence.
Michael stood in the middle of it all, a boy half-forgotten by those around him.
The pillar descended toward him alone—graceful, focused, inevitable.
It washed over his small frame like falling starlight.
His breath hitched.
His heart slowed to a near stop—not from fear, but from overwhelming peace.
Something within him stirred.
Something remembered.
Then his eyes opened.
And they glowed—not like fire or lightning, but like the still waters of a sacred lake untouched by time.
The blue light reflected within him, not as power, but as potential.
As promise.
When the pillars finally faded, the skies returned to their normal state.
Clouds rolled in again. Machines whirred back to life. People moved. Time resumed.
But the marked children remained changed.
And they knew—even if they didn't understand how—that the world would never be the same.
The mana had chosen.
The sky had whispered.
And every eye that now glowed blue carried a silent vow etched into the soul:
A new era has begun.