I became a Parallaxer the day the bombs fell. Not during the explosion – during the silence after, when the dust was still hanging in the air and my little sister wasn't breathing. The doctors call my ability "localized atmospheric manipulation." The aid workers call it a miracle. I call it not enough.

My name is Amir Bishara, and I learned how to hold air like water in my hands while digging through the rubble of our apartment building. It started as desperation – trying to create a bubble of clean air around Leila's face as I pulled her from the debris. By the time I got her out, I could feel every molecule of oxygen around us, could shape it, direct it, force it into her lungs.

She lived. Others didn't.

Now we're part of the endless river of refugees flowing north, my family among thousands fleeing the war. The borders are closing, but word spreads through the camps about a man who can carry breathable air through the smuggler's tunnels. Who can keep children from suffocating in overcrowded truck compartments. Who can pull the poison gas back from protest crowds.

"You have to be more careful," my father whispers as we huddle in the back of a rusted shipping container. Thirty people crammed into a space meant for cargo, all breathing the air I'm continuously purifying. "The army is looking for powered people. They're taking them."

He's right. Three days ago, they caught a woman who could purify water with a touch. She's "helping the war effort" now, according to state television. Yesterday, they took a boy who could make plants grow in barren soil. His family received a medal and a promise of citizenship. Nobody's seen him since.

I press my hands against the container's metal walls, feeling the air currents outside. We're moving north, but slowly. The driver is taking back roads to avoid checkpoints. Through the vibrations in the air, I can sense other vehicles – military patrols, probably. I've gotten good at reading air patterns. You can tell a lot from the way wind breaks around objects, from the heat signatures that disrupt atmospheric flow.

My mother notices me tense. "What is it?"

"Helicopter," I murmur. "Two kilometers east, moving parallel to us."

Leila grabs my hand. She's eleven now, too old to cry but too young to hide her fear. The scar tissue on her throat pulls tight when she swallows. "Can you hide us like before? With the dust cloud?"

I managed that trick two days ago when a drone spotted our group crossing the desert. Created a sandstorm out of nowhere, obscuring us from view. It worked, but the effort nearly killed me. Manipulating air is one thing – manipulating that much particulate matter is another.

"Save your strength," my father says. He's watching me with that mix of pride and worry that's become his permanent expression. "We'll need it for the mountain crossing."

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He means the pass ahead, where the altitude and thin air kill dozens of refugees each season. Where the smugglers charge extra for oxygen tanks, and most families can't afford them. Where I'll have to maintain a bubble of pressurized, oxygen-rich air around our entire group for six hours of climbing.

I haven't told them I'm not sure I can do it. The power takes a toll. Each day I feel a little more hollow, like I'm somehow using up my own air to give it to others. The nosebleeds are getting worse. This morning I coughed up something that looked like frost.

The container hits a bump, and someone's baby starts crying. Without thinking, I reach out with my power, gentling the air around the infant. Add a touch of lavender scent, a slight warming effect. The baby settles. Its mother gives me a grateful look.

That's when I feel it – a change in the air currents outside. The helicopter has turned, is moving closer. And below us, the vibrations of multiple vehicles converging on our position. A lot of them.

"Checkpoint ahead," I say. "Not a regular one. They're looking for someone."

Looking for me, probably. Word of the "air-shifter" must have reached the wrong ears. The army wants powered individuals to weaponize, and my ability would be particularly useful. Imagine being able to suffocate enemy positions, or create corridors of poison gas, or...

I stop that line of thinking. Stand up, unsteady in the swaying container.

"Amir, no," my mother begins, but I can see in her eyes that she understands.

"Get everyone ready," I tell my father. "When the truck stops, wait for my signal. I'll draw their attention. The forest is two kilometers north – I can feel the difference in the air over the trees. Get them there."

Leila's gripping my arm now. "You can't."

I kneel down, brush her hair back like I used to when she was small. "Remember how to breathe like I taught you? In through the nose, slow and steady?"

She nods, crying silently.

"Good. Because in about one minute, I'm going to create the biggest dust storm this country has ever seen. I'll fill the whole valley with it. It'll be hard to breathe, but I'll leave a clean air corridor running north. The soldiers won't be able to see it, but you'll be able to feel it. Follow that."

"But what about you?"

I don't answer. Just pull her close, memorizing the pattern of her breathing. My parents embrace me next. No words left to say.

The truck is slowing down. Through the air currents, I can feel the checkpoint's layout. Twenty soldiers. Three armored vehicles. The helicopter circling lower. They're ready for a powered person, but they're expecting someone weak and desperate.

They're not expecting someone who's spent the last month learning exactly how the air moves over every inch of this land. Who can feel the huge temperature differential just waiting to be exploited. Who knows that if you spin air fast enough, with enough pressure behind it, you can cut through steel.

The container doors open. Flashlights beam in. And I step forward, pulling all the air in the valley into my lungs for one final manipulation.

I am my sister's clean air after the bombing. I am my mother's cooling breeze in the desert. I am my father's swift wind beneath a burden. I am every refugee's breath, carried across every border.

I raise my hands, and the sky comes down.