"We need to get out of here," Kínitos said, still staring at the gaping hole in the warehouse wall where the killer had disappeared. His hands were shaking as the adrenaline began to wear off.
"Shit this isn't good I should call the police , maybe they'll believe a killer kidnap us," he thought to himself
Sarah was still tied to the chair by her ankles, looking dazed and confused. "Kínitos, what—"
"I don't know," he cut her off, quickly kneeling to untie the ropes around her legs. "But we can't stay here. That thing might come back."
As soon as Sarah was free, Kínitos grabbed her hand. "Can you run?"
"The car just have to get into the car," Kínitos mind raced wildly.
She nodded, though she looked unsteady on her feet. Together, they rushed toward the warehouse's main entrance, stepping over debris and broken machinery. The cold night air hit them as they emerged into the industrial parking lot.
"My car's over there," Kínitos pointed toward his sedan, parked about fifty yards away near a chain-link fence.
They had made it halfway across the lot when the attack came.
A brilliant orange glow erupted from the train yard behind them, growing brighter by the second. Kínitos turned just in time to see something impossible—a massive sphere of fire, easily the size of a car, roaring through the air toward them like a miniature sun.
The fireball carved through the darkness with terrifying beauty, leaving a trail of superheated air that shimmered and warped everything behind it.
"What the fucking fuck," he thought confused by the wild sight.
Sparks and embers peeled away from its surface, raining down like deadly confetti. The heat was so intense that Kínitos could feel it on his face from a hundred feet away, and the sound it made was like a freight train mixed with a blowtorch—a deep, rumbling roar that seemed to vibrate in his bones.
"RUN!" Kínitos shouted, pulling Sarah toward the fence.
The fireball slammed into Kínitos's car with the force of a meteor strike.
The explosion was deafening—a thunderous BOOM that shattered every window in the surrounding buildings and sent a shockwave rippling across the parking lot. The sedan didn't just catch fire; it was instantly vaporized in a column of white-hot flame that shot thirty feet into the air.
Metal fragments turned to molten droplets that rained down like deadly hail. The asphalt beneath where the car had been was now a bubbling, black crater that glowed cherry-red at the edges. The heat was so intense that the chain-link fence behind the explosion began to warp and sag, the metal links fusing together.
Kínitos and Sarah were thrown to the ground by the blast wave, their ears ringing from the concussion. Pieces of burning debris scattered across the lot around them, some still glowing orange-hot. The acrid smell of melted plastic, rubber, and metal filled the air, mixed with something else—something that smelled like sulfur and ozone.
"Holy shit," Sarah gasped, coughing as smoke billowed over them.
From the direction of the train yard came the sound of heavy footsteps on gravel. The killer was approaching, no longer bothering with stealth. Through the smoke and flames, Kínitos could see the armored figure walking calmly toward them, completely unharmed by their crash through the warehouse wall.
But this time, they weren't holding a blade. This time, small flames danced around their gloved hands like living things.
The killer raised both hands, and what happened next was like something out of a nightmare. Fire erupted from their palms in a massive cone, not the wild ball of flame from before, but a controlled, devastating stream of superheated death.
The flames roared toward them in a perfect triangle of destruction, twenty feet wide at the base and growing larger as it approached. The fire was so hot it turned blue-white at the center, with orange and red edges that licked hungrily at the air. Everything in its path—loose papers, bits of metal debris, even the asphalt itself—ignited instantly.
Kínitos threw himself over Sarah, knowing it was useless but unable to do anything else. The heat was already unbearable, and the wall of fire was only seconds away from incinerating them both.
Then the world became a blur.
Something moving faster than humanly possible slammed into both of them, and suddenly they were no longer in the parking lot. Wind whipped past Kínitos's face as the ground rushed by beneath him in a dizzying stream of color and motion.
When everything finally stopped spinning, they were crouched behind a concrete barrier near the edge of the industrial district, easily two hundred yards from where they'd been standing.
A young man with dark hair and wearing a black tactical suit knelt beside them, barely breathing hard despite having just moved at superhuman speed.
"You two okay?" Dante asked, his eyes already scanning the area for threats. "Sorry I'm late. Traffic was murder, even at my speeds."
Behind them, the entire parking lot was now a sea of flames where the killer's cone of fire had struck. But through the smoke and heat distortion, they could see the armored figure standing in the center of it all, completely unaffected by the inferno they'd created.
"Damn you know formulas," said Dante
"And what of it," said The killer
"Well you're finna be a problem," said