Part 3I Awakened the Cursed Water Affinity

The scavengers rushed over in a panic. Lyla was pointing a trembling finger at her own face. The mirror slipped from her grip and shattered on the rocks.

"My eyes. What is happening to my eyes?" Her voice was a hysterical, terrified quiver.

The people closest to her leaned in. They gasped. The skin around the corners of her eyes, which had been flawless and tight that morning, was now etched with deep, unmistakable crow's feet.

"You're probably just exhausted, Lyla. You've been working way too hard for us lately," one of the men offered, his voice lacking conviction.

Lyla snatched up a broken shard of the mirror, her panic skyrocketing by the second.

It wasn't just the wrinkles. Her vibrant, glowing hair looked completely fried. It was dull, brittle, and lifeless.

A dark, terrifying premonition twisted in her gut. But the sheer addiction to the camp's worship pushed the fear down.

To secure her crown and prove to everyone that she was perfectly fine, she decided to pull a massive stunt.

"Everyone, watch this!" Lyla climbed onto the roof of an abandoned transport truck. She took a deep breath, pushing the hijacked power to its absolute limit. "I am going to bring a true oasis down upon us!"

Dark clouds aggressively materialized overhead. A torrential downpour crashed into the desert camp.

Men and women danced in the mud, screaming her name, chanting for their goddess.

Lyla stood perfectly in the center of the deluge, soaking in the god-like worship with a deeply satisfied smirk.

What she couldn't feel was the massive, terrifying volume of life force being violently sucked out of her marrow to fuel the storm.

The rain stopped.

When the clouds parted and the blinding desert sun illuminated Lyla's face, the cheering died instantly.

A graveyard silence fell over the camp.

Absolute horror was painted on every single face in the crowd.

Lyla's previously youthful, delicate face was literally sagging before their eyes.

Her cheeks were hollow and drooping. Deep, heavy laugh lines carved into her face like ravines. And the most terrifying part of all: thick strands of her hair had turned a stark, sickly gray under the sunlight.

She no longer looked like a vibrant twenty-year-old. She looked like a haggard, exhausted woman pushing forty.

Lyla sensed the dead silence. Her hands shot up, frantically feeling her own face.

"My face. Oh my god, what is wrong with my face?!"

Overnight, the wasteland goddess mutated into a monster.

No one dared to flatter her anymore. The entire squad avoided her like the plague, casting fearful, paranoid glances her way.

"Look at her. I swear she aged another year just walking over here."

"That power is cursed. Do you think she's trading her actual life for the water?"

"Shut up! Keep your voice down, or she'll cut off our supply!"

The whispers acted like toxic needles, driving themselves deep into Lyla's fragile psyche.

She locked herself in her tent. She shattered every reflective surface she could find. She spent her days entirely consumed by the suffocating terror of her own rapid decay.

Finally, she completely snapped.

"Bobby! Get your ass in here right now!" a hysterical, demonic shriek erupted from the tent.

Bobby rushed inside, only to find a woman who looked like a deranged asylum patient.

She lunged at him, grabbing him by the collar with claw-like fingers. "What the hell is happening to me? What kind of demonic curse did you put inside my body? It is eating my life! It is eating me alive!" Lyla sobbed, her voice raw and jagged.

Bobby was equally horrified. Staring at Lyla's sagging, aged face, a spike of pure ice drove straight up his spine.

He wasn't an idiot.

Remembering how violently Serena had convulsed during her awakening, and seeing Lyla's rapid decay, the truth slammed into him like a freight train.

Serena's Water Affinity demanded lifespan as payment.

"I. I had no idea it would do this." Bobby's voice shook violently. He tried to peel her off him, but she clung to him like a rabid dog.

"You didn't know?!" Lyla viciously slapped him across the face. "You jammed this death sentence into my soul. And now you tell me you didn't know?!"

She hammered her fists against his chest like a maniac. "Give it back to her! Right now! Do it right now! Give this fucking curse back to that bitch! I don't want it! I refuse to get old! I don't want to die!"

Her paralyzing fear of aging entirely obliterated her lust for power.

Right now, her only goal in life was to throw this ticking time bomb back into the hands of its original owner.

Under Lyla's violent demands, and driven by his own rising terror, Bobby caved.

He stumbled out of the tent and marched straight over to where I was sitting in the dirt, idly drawing circles with a dried twig.

"Serena."

I looked up slowly, meeting his eyes with absolute deadpan silence.

"It seems this ability is better suited for you," he panted, out of breath. "Lyla's body can't handle the strain. I am returning it to you."