"Haaaaa," Owen gasped again, the sound tearing from his throat, raw and desperate. He clawed at the heavy weight pressing down on him, his fingers scrabbling against cold, unyielding stone and twisted metal. Panic surged through him, a suffocating wave that threatened to overwhelm the fragile tendrils of consciousness that had just returned.
He was buried. The realization slammed into him with brutal force. Not just trapped, but truly buried. The darkness around him was absolute, a thick, cloying void that pressed in on all sides. The air was heavy with dust, each ragged breath a painful reminder of his precarious situation.
But beneath the crushing weight and the suffocating darkness, something had changed. He could feel it, a strange energy thrumming through his veins, a power that had been dormant before now stirring within him. The red glow emanating from his eyes wasn't just a figment of his imagination upon waking; it was real, a constant, internal illumination in the black abyss. He could see the immediate space around his head, a small, dust-filled pocket within the larger tomb of debris.
He tried to move, to shift the weight on top of him, but his limbs felt leaden, unresponsive. Every inch of his body screamed in protest, a symphony of aches and sharp stabs of pain. Yet, beneath the pain, there was a strange resilience, a feeling that he should be far more broken than he actually was.
How long have I been here? The question echoed in the suffocating darkness, a silent scream against the crushing silence. Time had no meaning in this subterranean prison. Hours? Days? It felt like an eternity had passed since the world had gone red, since Mia had vanished, since the explosion had ripped through the city.
Mia. The thought of her pierced through the fog of his panic, a sharp, agonizing reminder of what he had lost. Was she still out there? Had she survived? The uncertainty was a heavy weight in his heart, adding to the physical burden of his entombment.
He had to get out. He had to find her. The thought ignited a spark of determination within him, a refusal to succumb to the despair that threatened to engulf him. He focused on the strange energy he felt coursing through him, trying to understand it, to control it.
He clenched his fists, and the red glow from his eyes intensified, casting eerie shadows on the dust motes dancing in the small space around his head. He could feel a warmth building within him, starting in his chest and spreading outwards through his limbs. It wasn't a comforting warmth, but a raw, potent energy, like holding a miniature sun in his core.
With a surge of will, he focused this energy on the debris directly above him. It felt like trying to push against a mountain, an impossible task. But then, something shifted. The air around the debris shimmered, a faint red outline appearing around the jagged edges of the concrete. A low groan, not from his own body but from the very earth around him, echoed in the darkness.
Slowly, agonizingly, a small chunk of concrete above him began to crack. Then another, and another. Dust rained down on his face, gritty and unpleasant, but he barely noticed. A sliver of a darker blackness appeared above, a pinprick of potential freedom in his prison.
He pushed harder, focusing all his will on the obstruction. The cracking intensified, the groans of the earth growing louder. Finally, with a deafening rumble, a larger section of debris shifted, creating a small opening above him.
The air that rushed in was thick with dust and the acrid smell of smoke, but it was air nonetheless. Fresh air. Hope.
He could see a sliver of the blood-red sky through the opening, a terrifying yet welcome sight. He was still buried, but now he had a way out.
With renewed determination, fueled by the thought of Mia and the strange power that now coursed through him, Owen began to dig, using his hands, still clumsy and weak, to clear away the remaining debris. Each movement sent jolts of pain through his body, but he pressed on, driven by an instinct to survive, to find answers, to find her.
The red glow from his eyes illuminated his efforts, a beacon in the darkness. As he dug, he noticed the strange red energy seemed to be affecting the debris, weakening it, making it easier to move. It was as if the power within him was reacting to his will, helping him in his desperate struggle for survival.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he managed to clear enough space to wriggle free. He pushed himself upwards, emerging from the earth like a creature crawling from its grave.
He lay there for a moment, gasping for breath, his body aching in every conceivable way. The blood-red sky swirled above him, casting an eerie glow over the utter devastation that surrounded him. Buildings were reduced to rubble, twisted metal reached towards the sky like skeletal fingers, and the air was thick with the smell of smoke and ash. The city he knew was gone, replaced by a nightmarish wasteland.
He was alive. And something within him had changed. He could feel it, this raw, untamed power thrumming beneath his skin. He didn't understand it, but he knew, with a certainty that resonated deep within his bones, that this was just the beginning.
He slowly pushed himself to his feet, his legs shaky but holding. He looked out across the ruined city, his red eyes scanning the horizon. He had to find Mia. He had to understand what had happened. He had to survive.
The silence of the ruined city was broken only by the distant crackling of flames and the whisper of the wind through the debris. Owen stood alone amidst the destruction, a figure with glowing red eyes in a world bathed in crimson light.