Folding up his copy of El País, Jake figured it was time to head back to the hotel, especially considering the “27 Children Missing in 3 days!” headline. The Parque del Retiro had filled with grandparents and kids, and as a single male tourist, he was already getting scrutinized by too many of them. He didn’t want to miss out on his last day of vacation in Madrid, and the cooling breeze off the man-made lake in the 400-year-old park wouldn’t really fight off the June sun for much longer, either. Just as he tried to leave, a woman with an old-fashioned, black baby buggy cut around him as he started to get up, almost knocking him over. “¡Disculpe!” she threw over her shoulder, the excuse almost lost in her twisted dark brown locks. Her long hair fluttered in the breeze and left Jake wondering what her face looked like.

The explosion a moment later shattered the nearby boat shack, shredding the attendants and couples in line, and its force tumbled Jake over the bench as he stood up for a second time. The world spun and trembled for a dozen heartbeats. A groan rumbled through his chest when he first tried to get up, then a bright flash of pain tore the breath out of him. His forearm bent in the middle.

“That’s not … Oh. Shit,” he mumbled. The horizon rocked back and forth in his vision, with scattered people getting off the ground, but too many others lying still. Sirens began wailing from a distance, but Jake couldn’t pick out where. A small boy with blood on his face wandered past while carrying an adult shoe. Jake’s shoe. Jake blinked, and the kid was gone. Strange creatures poked at the bodies near the exploded shack.

Jake could hear a baby crying, and he looked around slowly. The woman from before -- the baby was wailing in pain or fear. Jake cradled his arm and knee-crawled over to the spilled stroller. The baby wasn’t there, though. A weird, glowing box of blue dominoes lay spilled on the ground where the baby should be. Jake tried to shake his head, but that caused a sudden spike of pain. He blinked and found himself lying with his face on the dominoes. Gold spots, he thought. He blinked as something covered his vision. Red spots, too. Weird.

SYSTEM INITIALIZATION … HOST DAMAGE 12% … HOST OPERATING SYSTEM MALFUNCTION … INITIALIZING AUTOREPAIR

Blue screens now. Jake wondered if he was already dead, his mind playing tricks with the last little bit of electricity running through his brain. Then he felt a … well, he wasn’t exactly sure - a pull on his brain, and a cool wave swept through his head.

HOST OPERATING SYSTEM REBOOT INITIALIZED … HOST DAMAGE 4% … HOST OPERATING SYSTEM REBOOT SUCCESSFUL … SYSTEM SHUT-DOWN

Jake grabbed his head and squeezed. “What in the actual fuck?” He could feel the energy pathway inside his head, the one that had gotten rid of his concussion, he was pretty sure. His arm still hurt, but it was no longer deformed. “Triage, man, you’re not that busted up any more.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The woman on the other side of the stroller moaned as she breathed, loud enough to hear now. Jake finally got to see her face -- a straight, thin, Spanish nose stood out along with high cheekbones. A gash on the left side of her forehead bled freely, but it only dimmed her beauty, rather than destroying it.

“Don’t move,” he told her in Spanish. She blinked at him, and cried out when he slid a hand over the left side of her ribcage.

“The baby,” she said, starting to look around.

“Don’t worry. Lay still -- your ribs are broken. I’m Jake. Can you tell me your name?”

“What? Who are … ?” she said, then closed her eyes for several seconds. “I need to throw up!” Jake supported her neck as she turned. A few second later, she laid back again, her eyes closed.

“What’s your name? Do you know where you are?” Jake asked her again, louder. He worried that she had a worse concussion than he did, so he decided to try to fix that -- an aqua blue energy flowed out of his hand and into her head. The woman opened her eyes again, and they glowed a brilliant purple, the color overwhelming the normal brown.

“WHO ARE YOU?” she said, her voice somehow booming and echoing inside Jake’s head for a moment.

“I’m a nurse. You should be okay until the ambulance gets here. Just stay still. I’ll be close by, but I need to look at some other people.”

Jake ignored her protest and moved toward the next person on the ground -- an old man sprawled next to the edge of the Alcachofa fountain. Jake found a thready pulse that felt weak and way too fast. The power in his head throbbed again, but it felt different this time. He focused for a second on the old man’s pulse, then noticed that strange, fractal shapes of yellow warbled through the air around the old man, with black lines mixing in near his heart.

“Looks like v-tach, feels like v-tach…” Jake closed his eyes again, and reached for the energy inside -- it felt smaller now, and cool. He stretched to pull it into his body and down his arm into his left hand. Aqua blue light pulsed into the old man’s chest, and the yellow fractals condensed into simpler waves. Still too fast with a pulse of 110, but probably out of immediate danger, Jake hoped.

Three other bodies lay about 10 meters away. A slow crawl to get to them took nearly a minute. Two elderly women both had strong pulses, but lay unconscious. The third body was a youngish man who had been run through by a meter-long shard of jagged wood. His dead gaze stared back toward the trees that edged the pathways around the lake. Jake looked over to see a boxy ambulance and two police cars turn off the Paseo Argentina from the park’s main entrance. Multiple other emergency vehicles followed a few seconds later. Officers and paramedics spilled out, with the first headed toward the explosion site, the latter checking bodies. Once they got to Jake, he told them about the old man’s heart condition, but didn’t mention anything about blue lights or funny energy waves. When he looked over to point out the first woman with the broken ribs, she was gone.