Meteor Over Michigan

Power arrived without kindness. Wounds closed in black stitches. Muscle fibers rewove themselves too tight. His hearing sharpened until the survivors' heartbeats became a roomful of drums. The gain solved the immediate danger and created the next one, which was how evolution mocked victory. He could smell nearby mutations now. He could feel the crater far away, pulsing under North American stone. He could hear a question in the static between thoughts: vessel, rival, or seed? Eli answered by choosing people. He chose the coughing woman who could barely walk. He chose the boy hiding behind a vending machine. He chose Pike's exhausted soldiers and Mara's blood-slick hands and Lena's terrible need for one more sample because truth mattered even after