Void Of Powers

The first thing I noticed wasn’t the sky or the ash-it was the way Ridgewood Park sounded wrong.

Even after the eruption, even after the screaming stopped and the ground stopped shaking like it wanted to crawl away from itself, the air kept carrying a low, metallic hum. It vibrated in my teeth when I swallowed. Somewhere near the burned-out crater edge, a loose chunk of rock clicked against another like a jaw chewing in the dark.

I stood with my shoes half in a puddle of rainwater that had pooled in the crater grooves, staring at the place where the volcano had spit light and heat. My friends were scattered a few feet away, all of us breathing like we’d run a mile even though nobody remembered moving. Elias had soot on his cheek and couldn’t stop rubbing it like he could wipe off the whole night. Mina kept flexing her fingers, staring at her own hands like they might be different if she looked long enough. Juno sat on a fallen slab, laughing once - short and shocked - and then clamping her mouth shut like laughter might summon something worse.

“You’re sure it’s over?” Mina asked, voice thin.

Elias snorted, but it wasn’t mean. “If it starts again, I’m blaming you for making it weird.”

Mina shot him a look. “Me? You’re the one who - ”

I cut in before their argument could turn into something else. “We should check on everyone. People near the park entrance. Mrs. Dalloway. The - ” I didn’t even know what to call it anymore. The normal world. The safe world. The world where powers weren’t real.

The hum deepened for a second, like the ground had leaned closer to listen. I felt it in my bones, and that made my stomach twist harder than fear. Because fear was easy. Fear was familiar. This was something else, like my senses were trying to map the air and failing.

The want in my chest was immediate and stupidly clear: confirm it. Not the volcano. Not that we were alive. Confirm the thing I’d refused to believe for the last hour, the thing that had happened in flashes - light crawling over my skin, Mina’s eyes catching something that wasn’t there, Juno’s shadow doing something it shouldn’t. I needed proof that what we felt wasn’t just shock or smoke or adrenaline.

But the proof couldn’t come with alarms.

We were still at Ridgewood Park, right where people might wander back in the morning with phones out and questions loaded like bullets. If anyone saw what we could do, the secret wouldn’t stay secret. It would turn into headlines, interviews, and strangers with cameras acting like they had the right to touch our lives.

I scanned the crater edge. Ash drifted down in slow sheets. The burned-out ring of earth looked like somebody had taken a bite out of the world and left the crumbs behind. Tall weeds had gone black and brittle. Broken concrete rose in jagged shapes, too sharp to be accidental.

“We stay quiet,” I said, forcing my voice to sound like it belonged to a person who hadn’t just watched the impossible happen. “No showing off. Not now. Not here.”

Elias’s gaze flicked to mine. “You mean… not even a little?”

“Not even a little,” I repeated, and hated how it sounded like I was trying to control them instead of protect us.

Mina’s mouth tightened. “Okay, but if we’re going to be… whatever we are now, we should still know. Like, right now.”

Juno finally looked up from the slab. Her hair had ash in it, gray streaks that made her look like she’d been painted by the aftermath. “My head feels like it’s full of static,” she said. “But when I move, it changes. Like - like the air listens back.”

That sentence hit too close to something I’d been feeling since the eruption. Not static. Not exactly. More like an echo I couldn’t place. I’d thought it was the hum in the ground. I’d thought it was my brain trying to make sense of violence.

Now it felt personal.

I wanted to test anyway. Something small. Something that could be explained away as coincidence if we got interrupted. A glance at my own reflection in a puddle. A count of heartbeats. Anything that would let me confirm the powers were real without lighting up the whole park.

Then footsteps broke the quiet.

They weren’t ours. Too careful. Too steady.

We all turned toward the path that looped past the crater edge and toward the burned-out facilities near the maintenance gate. A flashlight beam slid across the ash, shaky at first, then steadier as whoever held it adjusted their grip. A figure appeared, taller than me, shoulders hunched like they were trying not to look like they belonged.

“Hello?” a voice called. A kid’s voice, maybe. Young enough that panic still sounded like curiosity. “Is anyone there?”

My throat went dry. Elias opened his mouth, then shut it again like he’d remembered the rules we were making up on the spot.

Mina leaned closer to me, whispering, “Do we lie?”

I didn’t want to lie. Lying felt like a door that opened onto bigger problems. But truth would be worse.

Juno stood, slow and careful....