The Most Useless Awakening in History

Streetlights, broken concrete, drifting ad flyers, the buzz of drone rotors in the distance - everything turned eerily sharp for a single beat. He heard a click inside his head, like a hidden switch had finally flipped. Inside the collapsing wall, a warped glass panel was tearing loose from its steel frame, angled directly toward the ground. Beneath it stood a woman with a stroller. She had no time to run. Aiden did not think. He simply reached out and put a hand on the flying panel. The entire street froze. The panel did not crash down. It was as if the object had its “keep moving forward” impulse ripped out of it. The momentum that should have flattened two cars instead stuttered, paused, and then slid away, skidding off at an angle into a