BAB3 -Chapter 4

# Chapter 4: The Birthday

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Xay found himself floating in a sea of darkness, surrounded by tiny, multicolored lights. A familiar, ancient presence enveloped him—but stronger than ever before.

In front of his eyes, the lights spun and flowed rapidly toward him. They touched his body, flowed inside, and coalesced into a powerful eruption of energy.

From within him, a complete world even more spectacular than the Dream World poured forth.

A brilliant blue sky stretched as far as he could see, dotted with a few wispy clouds drifting lazily across it.

Crystal-clear oceans flooded the space beneath, pushing into the distant horizon. Their gentle waves lapped against pristine white beaches, rapidly forming alongside massive landmasses.

Towering trees, with trunks as wide as houses and leaves shimmering like emeralds, grew toward the sky.

The air filled with the sweet scent of blooming flowers—each one a beautifully impossible color.

In the distance, majestic mountains rose, their peaks hidden in mist, with waterfalls cascading down their slopes like veils of sapphire and amethyst.

Warm, golden light from a perfect, perpetual sun cast a soft glow over the entire landscape.

Xay looked around, disoriented, struggling to make sense of what was happening—when a sudden shout shattered the dream.

“Happy Birthday!” Lexi, Kimi, and Tyra exclaimed in unison, jolting him awake.

He blinked, finding himself back in his room at the academy.

The memories of last night’s dinner with the Blakes drifted back. He’d come back late, and after talking to the ladies about visiting the monastery and clearing the dungeon, he went straight to bed.

“Wait, what?” he mumbled, still half-asleep. “Whose birthday?”

“Yours, idiot,” Lexi scoffed, rolling her eyes. “You always do this.”

The three of them stalked over and yanked the covers off him.

“Now come on,” Lexi said, grabbing his arm and pulling him out of bed. “Get showered and get ready—we’ve got a full day planned.”

“It’s going to be so fun,” Tyra added cheerfully.

“I’m excited to give you my gift,” Kimi murmured, kissing his cheek as they shoved him into the bathroom.

Xay stumbled inside, half-grumbling about being manhandled.

Lexi was right, though—he always forgot his birthday. He hadn’t even celebrated it until he met her.

As an orphan, the day he was registered with the city had become his default birthday. It always felt mechanical and impersonal, so he used to ignore it.

But about a year after Lexi declared herself his friend, she had Talulah track down his real birthday.

Using his biological data—the age of his cells, or something weird—Talulah pinpointed the exact second he was born.

Lexi and her family had celebrated that day ever since.

Just as Xay got the shower running and stepped in, the door behind him cracked open. A disgruntled Dragon was unceremoniously tossed inside.

Xay shook his head. “They got you too, girl?”

Dragon stomped over to the waterfall shower, utterly indignant.

Xay snorted. “Don’t worry—it usually gets better.”

The two of them got cleaned up and stepped back into Xay’s bedroom. It had been completely cleaned, and someone had lit one of his Mindful Incense.

Laid out across the freshly made bed was a brand-new Quantium hoodie fleece set.

It was a glossy black, covered in a grid design of slanted Quantium sneakers in every colorway.

Bold letters in a stylistic script across the chest read: “It’s My Birthday!”

Xay laughed as he pulled the set on, it was amazingly corny in all the best ways.

A new pair of white, black, and silver low-tops were waiting for him as well.

He quickly slipped a black hoodie over Dragon before they left the room.

The apartment was quiet, the ladies had already gone. On the kitchen counter sat a note and one of Tyra’s signature green smoothies.

The note simply read: “Meet us at Tunnel Reach,” written in big, swooping letters and surrounded by several hand-drawn hearts.

Xay grinned. He loved Tunnel Reach.

It was an underwater amusement park built beneath a man-made island.

The entire park was an aquarium—encased in glass and surrounded by a living panorama of sea creatures, including sharks.

If Xay had to pick a favorite animal, it was sharks. If he didn’t have to pick a favorite animal, it was still sharks.

There were several reasons Shark Mountain was his favorite ride—and 99% of them were shark-related.

Not wanting to wait any longer, Xay gleefully teleported himself and Dragon downstairs.

He summoned his A1-X, and they took off as fast as the law allowed within city limits. The flight took only fifteen minutes.

Soon, Xay was descending to street level, diving smoothly into the entrance of the underground tunnel.

Not long after, the tunnel walls transitioned to glass, revealing vibrant coral reefs and swirling schools of colorful fish.

The park’s towering roller coasters and the iconic Observation Wheel appeared next, just before a nearly empty parking zone.

Only two Auralises were parked there—one unmistakably Lexi’s, and the other looking a lot like Aunt Gwen’s.

Xay parked beside them and stored his A1-X.

Dragon, meanwhile, was completely enamored with the bioluminescent jellyfish drifting lazily through the waters nearby.

Xay hurried over to the ticket counter, where a single staff member and two security guards waited. They quickly verified his identity through GRID and waved him through.

He and Dragon had barely taken a few steps when a loud shout rang out.

“Surprise!” all his friends yelled from beneath the park’s entrance archway.

Lexi, Kimi, Tyra, Rox, and Ezra stood at the center, each wearing a sundress in a vibrant, complementary color to their hair.

Willow perched gracefully on the arch above them, wings tucked and looking down.

To one side stood Peanut, Bev, Winnie, and Juniper, all beaming warmly.

On the other, Amy, Valiant, Sasha, Sophia, and Remington offered kind smiles of their own.

The sight of everyone gathered just for him brought a small tear to Xay’s eye. A wide grin spread across his face as his friends swarmed around, ushering him joyfully into the park.

Several birthday wishes and a fist bump quickly followed, sending Xay’s spirit soaring.

“We rented out the whole park for the day,” Lexi announced, bouncing excitedly at his side.

“It’s fully staffed too, so you can enjoy everything to your heart’s content,” Kimi added with a bright smile.

Xay grinned but cut in, pointing toward Rox. “I just want to know one thing—how’d you get that one in a dress?”

Rox scoffed, her cheeks flushing. “Shut up,” she muttered.

Lexi smirked knowingly at the two of them.

“Aren’t they so pretty?” Tyra asked, giving a playful twirl.

Xay certainly thought so.

The dresses were all thin and shapely, with low-cut necklines and open backs.

Though the short skirts were loose, they clung snugly to their bodies—capturing Xay’s attention with every jiggle and sway.

He was nearly hypnotized by Tyra’s twirl.

“We were unaware of such costumes,” the twins, Sasha and Sophia Diamond, said in perfect unison.

While teaching Xay the basics of psionics, they’d become friends.

They had also grown close to Amy and Valiant, often visiting them at Quantium’s penthouse.

“Sorry,” Lexi said, turning to them. “It was kind of last minute. We promise to include you next time.”

“It’s my fault,” Ezra admitted with a small blush. “I suggested it late last night.”

In the Dream World, the twins loved matching costumes and often swapped outfits for fun.

But in the real world, their personalities were more subdued, and they always spoke in sync.

Today, they wore pink and purple blouses with crisp white jeans—a cute pairing with their recently acquired white cat ears and tails.

Like Amy, they’d undergone Sable’s GenoMorph procedure for animal features. But Amy had gone with a bunny, giving her light pink bunny ears that matched her hair.

Xay assumed it was Remington, Aunt Gwen’s assistant, who brought the three of them in her Auralis. She was probably busy with work right now.

Valiant suddenly jumped onto Xay’s leg. He was the ocelot cub that had stayed with Amy after they left the lab.

“You’re getting big, aren’t you?” Xay asked, bending over to scoop him up.

“He’s growing faster and faster every day,” Amy said, exasperated. “He eats everything.”

Xay laughed, scratching under his chin.

“Yo, bro, what’re we riding first?” Peanut asked, looking around. “Free rein of the entire park is a little daunting.”

“Peanut, my guy,” Xay said grandly, dropping Valiant to chase after Dragon’s sparkles, “no matter who’s here or what time of day it is, we go to one place first.”

Bev narrowed her eyes. “Why do I feel like this is about to be ridiculous?”

“Because it is,” Lexi snorted.

Xay inhaled deeply and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Shark Mountain!”

He’d been secretly guiding the group in that direction the whole time, and the second he yelled it, he activated *Psychic Blink* and teleported them all the rest of the way.

Using Awakened abilities in public was normally frowned upon, and combat abilities were outright illegal unless in self-defense.

But with an empty amusement park, there was no one to complain. Even better, there were no lines to wait in.

Xay charged ahead and got seated quickly. The cars sat three to a row, and he took the middle of the first row, with Lexi and Kimi on either side of him.

Rox, Tyra, and Ezra took the row behind him; Amy and the twins were next; then Peanut and Bev in their own row; and Winnie and Juniper in the last.

Remington chose not to partake. His loss in Xay’s opinion—and a massive one at that.

A moment after the safety bars clicked into place, the cars shot upward with a whoosh.

The enclosure around them narrowed, and at the peak, they could reach out and touch the glass separating them from a dozen magnificent hammerhead sharks.

They hung suspended at the top for a few seconds—then dropped forward at high speed. Xay threw his hands up as several in the group screamed out loud.

The frictionless rail twisted and turned them through a series of loops and corkscrews.

After the fifth twist, the car banked sharply, tipping them sideways as they dangled helplessly beneath a school of tiger sharks.

Eventually, the cars straightened, launching them into high-speed flips as they circled through a glowing tunnel of reef sharks.

Then, they plunged straight down into darker waters. Beneath the rest of the park, the car slowed as they passed through the massive whale shark territory.

Beyond it, the ride accelerated again, spiraling rapidly upward toward the towering glass enclosure of a majestic great white.

With one final drop, they came crashing back down toward the start of the ride, their adrenaline still pumping.

Everyone laughed and exclaimed how exhilarating that was, while Xay just nodded along knowingly.

They rode a few more times, then the group took the rest of the park by storm, riding every single ride twice—and several, far more than that.

Xay, Rox, Juniper, and Peanut tore through the Submarine Drift Row, turning every lap into a race.

Lexi, Kimi, Bev, and Ezra lingered at the Petting Pool, where they took turns gently touching the silky wings of manta rays.

Amy, Sasha, Sophia, and Tyra kept returning to the Marine Theater, captivated by the synchronized sea creature shows.

Dragon, Willow, and Valiant frolicked through the open gardens near the food court, where Winnie held a hotdog eating contest with herself.

After a collective ride on the Water Line—a chill maglev track that circled the entire park, offering a panoramic view of the marine life just outside the outer dome—it was finally time for lunch.

Lexi checked the map. “There’s a new restaurant attraction called Chomp Chomp Café,” she said, pointing into a dark corner of the park. “Want to check it out?”

As the birthday boy, the decision was left up to Xay. “Chomp Chomp it is,” he laughed.

When they arrived, Xay immediately understood why it was considered an attraction.

The double doors were shaped like a pair of massive shark jaws, and a glowing sign above them blinked in an animated sequence, reading:

“Chomp Chomp Café. You Look Delicious!”

A hostess greeted them at the entrance. She wore a skimpy maid uniform with an aggressively aquatic flair.

Reflective blue and black frills lined her outfit like fish scales, her sleeves were trimmed with tiny tooth-shaped lace, and a soft, flexible shark tail swayed behind her.

Her dark blue hair was tied into twin braids, and her eyes were entirely black—set against pale skin dusted with silvery freckles. Silicone fins jutted from the sides of her head like ears.

“Welcome, prey,” she said with a bow and a sharp, predatory grin. “This is Chomp Chomp Café, and I’m Bait. I’ll be feeding you to—I mean, serving—you today.”

Xay snorted, and Peanut doubled over chuckling. Tyra clapped her hands in delight, and even Rox cracked a smile.

They were led past shark-shaped booths and aquatic glass dividers etched with feeding diagrams and fun facts like: “Did you know sharks can detect a heartbeat from two miles away?”

Each table had underwater lighting from beneath the glass floor, but theirs overlooked a submerged coral ridge.

Bait clapped twice, and a group of fellow shark maids emerged from the back.

Each had a unique shark theme: one with mako aesthetics, another resembling a nurse shark, a hammerhead with a sculpted headpiece, and even a petite girl in a great white outfit, complete with triangle teeth painted on her cheeks.

The girls assembled in a crescent and delivered a rehearsed chant in perfect unison: “Fresh meat is here! Let’s chew, let’s tear, let’s serve with flair! We feed with grace, we bite with class—Chomp Chomp Café, where nothing lasts!”

Xay laughed in pure happiness while Lexi leaned over to inform them it was his birthday.

A maid named Mako stepped forward, holding a notepad. “Would the birthday catch like to choose the first victim—I mean, menu item?”

Xay grinned and flipped through the shark-shaped menu. “I’ll take a Kraken Roll, some Shark Fin Fries, two Manta Waffles, and a Megalodon Burger—no tomatoes.”

“You got it, chum.” She winked. “And for your drink?”

“Blood in the Water soda,” he snorted.

Everyone ordered, and the food soon began arriving on trays shaped like treasure chests.

Xay’s Megalodon Burger was, somehow, the juiciest, most flavorful burger he’d ever had.

The patty was glazed in citrus-honey and dusted with lava salt. Even though he ordered Dragon some sushi, she still stole half of his burger.

Lexi got the Predator’s Delight, complete with prey fish and bite-marked red sauce. Kimi had the Siren’s Sampler, a platter of glowshrimp and scallops.

Tyra ordered the Gentle Herbivore, some kind of seaweed salad. She also got some prawns for Willow.

Rox tackled the fiery Hammerhead Heat Bowl, smashing through ghost chili aioli with a grin.

Ezra went for the moody Whale Fall Pho, its glowing broth casting eerie shadows across her bowl.

Bev grabbed the Shirmp Pizza, while Peanut embraced chaos with the Apex Predator Platter—a massive board of fried sea creatures he had no intention of sharing.

Winnie devoured the Krill Me Softly Melt, a patty melt stacked high and sprinkled with plankton. Juniper nibbled on her pastel-hued Sea Glass Garden, calling it “anima food.”

Amy’s Bubble Nest Bento came in a betta fish-shaped box, with jellyfish dumplings and coral sweets. Valiant’s Shark Pup Meal even came with a free fin-shaped hat.

Sasha and Sophia mirrored each other with Duo Fang Frittatas—spicy and sweet in perfect balance.

Even Remington quietly ordered the Financier’s Filet—sea bass in a sleek black box, topped with gold leaf.

He didn’t like to eat while on duty, but his food managed to vanish while no one was looking.

Between bites, the maids returned for “Feeding Time,” where they dramatically battled the guests over their food.

When Xay reached for his second Manta Waffle, Mako slapped his hand with a foam trident and demanded a password.

“I don’t know the password,” he laughed.

“Then give me your best roar,” she challenged.

Xay looked her dead in the eye and let out a goofy, high-pitched screech, making everyone laugh.

“Acceptable,” she grinned, handing him the waffle.

During dessert, a bubblehorn blared from behind the bar, and the lights dimmed to a moody, shifting blue.

The staff gathered at the center of the café and performed a choreographed dance to a silly anthem titled: “Sink or Swim, Baby.”

At the end of the number, they swarmed the table again—this time to deliver a birthday cake shaped like Shark Mountain.

It had edible roller coaster cars, whipped cream reefs, and a chocolate whale shark on the side.

Xay didn’t speak for a moment, he just stared at it.

“I want to live here,” he finally managed to say.

The group sang a birthday song—twice, because the staff had their own horrifying remix.

After the candles were blown out, it was officially time for gifts.