*Side Character: Father Miguel Santos*
The Church of St. Augustine had survived the riots mostly intact. Father Miguel considered this a minor miracle, given that three blocks in every direction looked like a war zone. Now his pews held an impossible congregation: humans, lycanthropes, vampires, and the enhanced who hadn't died yet.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," the young woman whispered through the confessional screen. "I took Chance six times. I... I killed someone."
Miguel closed his eyes. The twentieth such confession this week. "Tell me what happened, child."
"I was nobody. A barista. Could barely make rent. Then I tried Strain B, and suddenly I could lift a car. I felt like... like I mattered." Her voice broke. "There was this vampire. He used to come into the shop, always talking down to me. Making jokes about food service. When I was enhanced, I saw him on the street and I just... snapped."
"The drug influenced your actions—"
"No." Firm now. "The drug showed me who I really was. Angry. Vengeful. Weak in all the ways that matter." A sob. "I can still feel his neck breaking."
Miguel had no easy absolution for this. The old prayers felt hollow against the weight of enhanced violence. "What do you seek?"
"Punishment. Redemption. Death. I don't know anymore."
Through the screen, he could see her hands shaking. The telltale amber veins of a user coming down. Soon she'd need another dose or face withdrawal that might kill her.
"There's a woman," Miguel said carefully. "Maya Chen. She's organizing a support group for enhanced humans. Teaching control, finding alternatives to Chance. Would you be willing—"
"I know about her. The werewolf whose brother died. You think she'll help someone who murdered her kind?"
"I think she understands that we're all capable of becoming monsters. The question is whether we choose to remain one."
The woman left without another word. Miguel emerged from the confessional to find his church fuller than it had been in years. Desperate people seeking something—answers, hope, a miracle.
Near the altar, he spotted two familiar faces: Maya Chen and Melissa Dergors, deep in conversation.
"Father Santos," Maya acknowledged him. "Thank you for letting us use your space."
"God's house is open to all." He studied them. The werewolf who'd killed to save the city. The human whose mother had nearly destroyed it. "An unlikely partnership."
"Desperate times," Melissa said. She looked older than her seventeen years. Grief did that. "We're trying to synthesize my mother's Chance 2.0. Non-addictive enhancement. A bridge instead of a weapon."
"And if you succeed? Won't people abuse it just like the original?"
Maya and Melissa exchanged glances. "That's why we need test subjects," Maya said. "People who understand the cost. Who won't chase power for its own sake."
"You mean people who've already fallen. Who've seen where that path leads."
"Exactly."
Miguel thought of the confessions he'd heard. The guilt, the addiction, the desperate need for redemption. "I may know some volunteers. But Maya, what about Solomon's final strain? Omega?"
Maya's expression hardened. "Omega strips abilities. Returns everyone to human baseline. Some see it as the ultimate equality. I see it as genocide of supernatural species."
"And some," Melissa added quietly, "think we should use both. Omega to reset those who are suffering. Chance 2.0 to elevate those who choose it freely."
The church bells tolled. Outside, National Guard patrols marched past. The city was holding its breath, waiting to see what came next.
"Whatever you decide," Miguel said, "decide quickly. There are rumors of other cities developing their own strains. Chicago was just the beginning."
He left them to their planning and returned to his confessional. More sins to hear. More broken people seeking salvation in a world that no longer made sense.
But perhaps that had always been his purpose. To offer hope when logic failed. To believe in redemption when evidence suggested otherwise.
The next penitent entered. Miguel prepared himself for another tale of enhanced horror, praying that somewhere in the ashes of the old world, something better might grow.