Pop.
The sound of beer bottles opening rang through the room, followed by laughter and the warm buzz of celebration. Among the grinning faces was Alexander Moore—sharp, reserved, red-haired, and newly twenty-one. The man holding out the beer wasn't just a friend; it was Professor Dante Grey himself.
"Alexander, get over here. You need to have a drink on your birthday!" called Grey, his eyes glinting with the kind of mischief only professors with tenure could get away with.
With a reluctant smirk, Alexander accepted the bottle. It was his first drink—shared with classmates and faculty in the home of the professor who had become something of a mentor. Today marked more than just the end of the semester. It was the day Alexander's senior thesis—an ambitious theory in theoretical physics—was being tested live by a renowned particle research facility.
The entire theoretical sciences division of Martin University had gathered at Grey's house, just fifteen minutes off campus. There was laughter, teasing, and plenty of half-empty bottles. But amidst it all, Alexander sat a little apart—watching the television feed showing the prep work at the accelerator facility.
Short red hair, solemn brown eyes. Alexander was an oddity. Brilliant, but strange. Quiet, but deeply passionate. His classmates found him endearing in an enigmatic way. Especially Carmen, the professor's daughter, who rolled her eyes every time he spoke—but never looked away when he did.
"This is disgusting," Alexander muttered after his first sip.
"That's what you say now," said James, a class clown with a good heart and a bad GPA. "Wait till life knocks you on your ass—you'll be chugging it by the bottle."
"Yeah, just like James here," Carmen jabbed, already sparring.
Alexander gave a dry chuckle and turned his eyes back to the screen. 'I guess this is one of the perks of being a scientist,' he thought. Live access to the secrets of the universe. To him, it wasn't just a career—it was a calling.
Ever since childhood, he'd been obsessed with the idea of hidden energies: mana, ki, chakra. Powers from fantasy and fiction that had long since shaped his dreams—and perhaps his delusions. What others outgrew, Alexander buried deeper.
"Alexander, come play truth or dare. The science can wait thirty minutes," said Professor Grey, voice laced with fond teasing.
"Sigh... I'm coming."
The room lit up with noise again. James, predictably, chose dare. Carmen dared him to summarize Alexander's thesis in 500 words in thirty minutes. When James whined and tried to switch, Carmen shut him down with an iron smile. The rules were now clear: no dares over three minutes—unless you're James.
Soon, it was Alexander's turn.
"Truth," he said.
"No fun," Carmen pouted, but she leaned in, intrigued.
"What really motivated your thesis?" she asked.
The question hung in the air. Everyone knew Alexander was different. They didn't know why. James studied because it was the only major his parents would fund. Carmen because she grew up in the lab. But Alexander? His reasons were private—until now.
He paused, then spoke.
"I plan to invent a force—something beyond our laws of physics. I call it 'mana.' And with it, I'll conquer the Earth. The galaxy. The universe."
The room went silent. Carmen stared. James blinked. Then everyone groaned in collective cringe.
"…You're such a dork," Carmen muttered.
Alexander grinned.
"I just think the world would be better if strength—not social standing—determined who rose."
That did it. Carmen kicked his chair out from under him.
"Oh mighty ruler of the universe," she said, looming over him. "If that day comes, I'm punching you and James with one hundred times the force."
James laughed. "Honestly, I'm in. Who wouldn't want superpowers?"
But his opinion didn't save him from Carmen chasing him around the room while the rest of the class laughed. Despite the chaos, this oddball crew felt like home.
Alexander lay on the floor, smiling faintly.
What would they say if they knew I wasn't joking?
Just then, Professor Grey received a call. His expression shifted several times before he finally spoke.
"They're ready. The accelerator powers on in five minutes."
Alexander was on his feet in an instant. The screen showed scientists preparing the machine, calibrating the final parameters. This was the moment. His theory—his dream—was about to be tested.
At that exact moment, James proudly announced he had finished his essay. Carmen snatched the paper from his hands and began to read.
It was the same sentence. Over and over. Alexander's thesis in the next thirty minutes.
Five hundred times.
Carmen looked ready to murder him.
But before she could start swinging, Professor Grey clapped his hands. "Enough. The test is about to begin."
The class gathered. All joking was gone. Anticipation filled the room. If Alexander's calculations were correct, this experiment wouldn't just be another test—it would mark the beginning of a new era in energy. One beyond nuclear. One... possibly beyond imagination.
On-screen, the director appeared.
"All systems go. Let's see what you've done, kid."
He stepped aside, and the camera fixed on the accelerator.
Alexander's pulse quickened.
Will it work? Will I finally catch a glimpse of something like mana?
"Three… two… one… start."
The switch was flipped.
The class held its breath.
And then—everything changed.
A low hum began to rise, then deepened into a resonant vroom as the particle accelerator roared to life. On-screen, a piercing beam of blue energy surged down a gleaming metal corridor—far too fast for the human eye to follow. The room of students fell into stunned silence. Jokes died. Breath caught.
It had begun.
In a cozy living room filled with worn furniture and laughter only moments before, the air turned electric. Professor Grey stood still, eyes narrowed behind his glasses. Beside him, Alexander Moore was frozen in place, wide-eyed, every muscle tense.
This was his moment.
The calculations—the pages of maddening equations—the sleepless nights—they had all led here. Alexander's thesis wasn't just theoretical anymore. It was alive. Step four of seven had begun, and it was working.
"Starting the first initiation, titled—step four," came the operator's voice through the monitor.
New electrical currents pulsed through the machine. Radioactive material was fed into the core. The beam flickered—blue shifting briefly into violet, then calming back to its pale hue.
Alexander held his breath. A miscalculation?
But no. It stabilized. Just as he'd predicted.
"Probably just reacting to the new materials," he whispered, more to himself than anyone else.
Dr. Grey gave a slight nod, half-impressed and half-cautious.
Then came step five.
"Beginning second initiation—step five," said the voice.
This time, trace amounts of every known element were introduced to the system. The process was delicate, intricate… dangerous. But the scientists in that control room were among the best in the world.
The beam shifted again, this time erupting into a golden light that bathed the interior of the accelerator in a metallic gleam. Carmen gasped. Even the director leaned forward on his console, concerned.
"It's stabilizing," one researcher said. "Wait for it…"
And again, the beam faded gently back to blue.
"I didn't know you were trying to put on a light show, Alex," James quipped.
Two icy stares from Carmen and Dr. Grey silenced him instantly.
Alexander didn't flinch. He couldn't look away.
Step six began.
"Third initiation—step six commencing now."
This was the most dangerous phase.
From beneath the main accelerator, another particle reactor began to feed in trace amounts of something no one fully understood: dark matter. Only recently synthesized, and never before used in this configuration, its presence in the system was volatile. Components began to melt away—non-essential now, discarded like kindling in a controlled fire.
The energy beam rippled and transformed.
What appeared on the screen was no longer a line of light. It was a tapestry of shifting stars—black, red, violet, and white, all swirling in a pattern that resembled the cosmos itself. Beautiful. Unnatural. Impossible.
Even the researchers faltered, eyes wide in awe.
Alexander felt it in his bones—a wrongness that felt right.
'Had I miscalculated? Or... did I just discover something new?'
He wanted mana. A force beyond science. A dream pulled from fiction. And yet, what he had now—it might be something more.
"The third initiation—step six—has stabilized."
The swirl of cosmic light collapsed into a crystalline blue. No longer just energy. It shimmered like liquid diamond, its presence almost sentient.
Alexander's hands trembled. One more step. Just one more.
"Now moving to final initiation—step seven."
This was it.
In his thesis, he had called it the Stripping Away—an elegant term for an impossible idea: to reduce energy to its purest form. No elements. No dark matter. No space. No time. Just raw, unbound existence.
As the final protocols began, the beam accelerated—moving faster than light. Time warped. Gravity vanished. Color bled away. The machine's screen dimmed until there was nothing but a faint ripple in the air, like the ghost of a breath.
No light. No sound.
Only pressure.
And then... silence.
"…Well, that was a letdown," James muttered. "Didn't even blow up."
Alexander didn't even look at him. His voice was quiet. "What happened… was exactly what I hoped for."
They stared at him.
"The fusion of every form of energy—every fundamental force—was stripped down and unified. What's left is something the universe has never seen before. A stable core of what could be…" He hesitated, then smiled faintly. "Mana."
He didn't say it to boast. He said it with awe. As if afraid the word might disappear if he didn't say it fast enough.
"If I'm right, the next step would be—"
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The screen turned red. Alarms blared. Lights flashed.
Carmen bolted upright. Dr. Grey's eyes darted to the monitor.
"What's going on?" James asked, his voice suddenly thin.
No one answered.
The director's voice snapped through the feed. "Emergency shutdown! Kill all systems! NOW!"
But it was too late.
The energy—pure, transparent, unseen—didn't die with the shutdown. It responded. It moved. The absence of input was not its end—but its freedom.
And then—Swoosh.
The world changed.
A wave—faster than light, silent yet deafening—erupted from the heart of the facility. In an instant, the lab was reduced to dust. The wave stretched outward, invisible but unstoppable, and in less than a second, it covered the entire Earth.
And yet… nothing else was destroyed.
The buildings remained. The machines still whirred. But every living thing—every person, animal, and organism—collapsed.
Unconscious.
Silent.
The world slept.
Within that instant, humanity was changed.
The energy Alexander had created—had called mana—didn't vanish. It fused. It embedded itself into the very matter of Earth, binding with the atoms of life itself.
Some paid the price.
Over a thousand humans died instantly—exploded from within by pressure their bodies couldn't bear. But most… survived, bleeding light from eyes, ears, mouths—collapsed in a sleep deeper than coma.
Carmen. James. Dr. Grey.
All still. All changed.
But Alexander… was dying.
His eyes had liquefied. His pores bled. His skin cracked. His organs collapsed. No one could have survived what was happening to him.
And yet… he lived.
The energy surged through him like a second soul, burning, tearing, rebuilding. The body that had been Alexander Moore was being undone—and remade.
Not by science.
Not by faith.
But by something older.
By mana.