Thunder rolled through the clouds in response. The truck smashed into their car and crushed his father over and over. A single terrible moment in time held Jaeson prisoner as a scared twelve-year-old boy with blood splattered across his face.
Jenny shook him. "Jaeson, talk to me! What's happening?"
"It... should have been me," he whispered.
With a soothing tone, she got closer and asked, "What should have been you? What do you mean?"
Jaeson felt as though he was on the verge of passing out. He needed to get home, away from her. It was a little further down Carpenter Street and a left on Mason Way, half a mile between him and his sanctuary. If he had his way, he'd never leave.
"Jaeson, c'mon. You're scaring me. Just let me..."
Jaeson snapped. "You can't do anything! Nobody can!" He struggled to get up, and now frantic, Jenny tried to help him stand. But he wasn't having any more of her pity. He had meant to push her away, but he pushed too hard and knocked her to the ground.
Jenny began sobbing with her beautiful hair now soaked from the rain. "Don't go," she begged. "Please... please don't let it end like this."
Jaeson had no idea what she was referring to. To his knowledge, this was the most they'd ever spoken to each other. Still, even in his elevated state, he knew he'd gone too far. Seeing her there, soggy and defeated, was just another example of how toxic he was to everyone around him. Jenny might have been his last chance for something better. But now, he'd ruined that too.
His headache intensified briefly, making him grab his forehead. "Just...forget about me. Forget I ever existed. Just... just leave me alone." With that, he turned and shuffled away from her.
He didn't get far before he heard Jenny's voice from behind. "Fine," she screamed. "Just walk away from me! I don't care anymore! You hear me! I don't... I don't..."
Jaeson didn't look back even as Jenny's tirade suddenly stopped. Alone once again, Jaeson apologized to her silently. She deserved better than a wreck like him. Things might have been different if they had known each other years ago. But he had made up his mind. It was better this way.
Chapter 3 - A Need to Want
Lightning flashed through the Everhart house, followed by distant thunder. Its vacant halls and dust-filled rooms echoed with the oppressive rain outside. Near the front entrance hallway, a bucket silently collected the runoff from a leaky roof, one of many such receptacles placed strategically throughout the house. Jaeson's family had never been wealthy, but they had been comfortable enough to afford maintenance on the old house when required. But ever since Henry had died and Jaeson's medical expenses had skyrocketed, a bucket was all the effort to be spared. The house had accepted its fate without complaint. It would fall slowly into ruin, sheltering the last of the Everhart clan until it couldn't. And that would be that.
The front door practically burst open, and Jaeson collapsed just inside. He'd endured pain, humiliation, and self-hatred to his limit and had used what little strength he had left to make it to the safety of his home. But he could go no further. As the infernal heat threatened to consume him from the inside out, Jaeson lay on the bare hardwood floor curled up in the fetal position and twitched with each wicked twinge. His only company was the quiet drip into the bucket nearby.
He was there for what seemed like hours, begging, pleading, praying that it would stop. But the pain kept getting worse, twisting and molding itself into new tortures before Jaeson could get used to them. He was hot and cold, his heart skipping a beat one moment, then painfully slow the next. He struggled to breathe, even as every strained intake of breath was filled with knives. Was this it? Was his body finally giving up and shutting down? Was the pain coming to an end? He hoped so.
"Not here," he grunted. He didn't want to die cold and wet, splayed on the ground like a piece of roadkill for his mother to stumble upon. He raised his gaze to the stairs leading to the upper floors. He'd made the climb to his bedroom thousands of times, yet suddenly, the creaky central staircase seemed entirely too steep for a home. But there was a letter he'd written for his mother hidden in his desk that he wanted to make sure she found, should the worst occur.
The sun, heavily obscured by the dark clouds, had all but set by the time Jaeson had saved up the strength to stand. "C'mon, loser. One more time," he said and finally shut the door, quieting the storm outside. The climb to his attic sanctuary was arduous, the thunder forcing him to hold onto the railing for balance as his father's voice echoed through his mind.
"It should have been you..."
Finally, he made it to his room. He locked the door behind him instinctually - a habit he'd acquired after the bullying had started. Jaeson knew his mother hated it, but she eventually stopped getting on his case when she realized it made him feel safer, even if Jaeson couldn't admit that to her. Valerina had the key anyway, but to her credit, she'd never used it. He wasted no time stripping off his wet clothes and tossing them to the floor without a care. He grabbed a grungy towel from the wash basket and dried himself, then put on a pair of fresh sweats and a t-shirt. They were his favorite sleepwear, comfy and cozy under any other circumstances, but even this tiny luxury seemed off. The shirt felt tight in the wrong places, and the sweats were scratchy and rigid like thick canvas.
He felt like his head burst open, and soon he felt like his vision started to become red; he felt like there was something crawling inside of him, a sensation of creepy energy welling up in him.
He staggered around the room, catching his head, and then fell on his bed, his consciousness slipping away.
-
Jaeson drifted in and out of nothingness. There was no ceiling above him, no walls, not even the familiar creak of the old Everhart house. He became aware of himself slowly, the way a dream dissolves when morning light forces its way in.
The first thing he noticed was the pressure — or rather, the absence of it. His back wasn't against his mattress. His limbs weren't sprawled across his bed. He tried to turn, to shift, to move, but found his body utterly unresponsive. Panic clawed at his throat. He couldn't even twitch a finger.
Then his eyes fluttered open.
The sight that greeted him sent cold dread through his veins. The floorboards were right there — not inches away, but directly in front of his face. He stared at the scuffed woodgrain, at the dust, at a half-dead moth resting on its side… as though he were lying flat on the floor. But he wasn't. The realization crept in like ice down his spine. He wasn't on the floor.
He was floating.
Jaeson's eyes darted frantically. He lifted his gaze, straining every nerve, and found no bedroom. No posters, no desk, no attic window rattling with rain. Instead, blackness pressed in on every side. It wasn't simply dark — it was a vast, cavernous void. The floor stretched endlessly beneath him, shifting like wet stone one moment and ash the next. His breath came shallow, ragged, but he couldn't hear the sound of it. He couldn't hear anything.
Until the silence broke.
A low hum vibrated through the chamber, like the tail end of thunder. And then, from the gloom, a shape pulled itself into being. At first, it was just a blur, a wavering distortion in the air. Slowly it thickened, coalesced, until Jaeson's stomach dropped with recognition.
"Dad?"
The figure of Henry Everhart stood before him. Not as he'd been in those last broken moments in the wreck — no mangled body, no frozen terror in his eyes. Here, he looked whole. His jaw was strong, his shoulders broad, his brown hair touched with gray. But his form flickered faintly, as though he were made of candlelight about to gutter out.
Jaeson's throat constricted. "You're dead. I saw— I—"
Henry raised a hand. His voice was steady, but quiet, like words carried on smoke."This is no miracle, son. It's only the last wisp of me. A thread I left woven into your soul when I died. I've lingered, waiting… waiting for this night."
Jaeson's vision blurred with tears. His chest ached with a different kind of pain now, raw and desperate. "Why? Why now? Why here?"
Henry's eyes softened, yet a grim weight pulled at his expression. "Because you've carried too much, Jaeson. My death. Your guilt. The torment of your body. You were never meant to bear it as you have. Tonight, the chains break. But know this—" His hand trembled slightly. "Awakening isn't gentle. It will rip you apart before it remakes you."
A pit yawned open inside Jaeson. His pulse quickened. "What are you talking about?"
Henry's gaze locked on his, fierce and unflinching. "Brace yourself, son. This will hurt."
The words had barely settled when Jaeson's body convulsed.
At first, it was heat — a blistering tide flooding every vein. His muscles seized so hard he thought his bones would snap from the tension alone. His jaw clenched until his teeth squealed. Then came the tearing.
His veins bulged, cords of fire crawling beneath his skin. He could see them, pulsing dark-blue and crimson, glowing like molten rivers. They writhed as though something alive was burrowing through them. Jaeson wanted to scream, but his throat locked tight, his own voice strangled inside him.
Then his bones began to shift.
It wasn't the clean snap of a break. It was grinding — marrow twisting, bones lengthening, joints splintering and then slamming back into place. His spine arched unnaturally, vertebrae cracking one by one like a row of knuckles popping. His chest split with pressure, ribs warping outward as though trying to claw free.
Every nerve lit up. His skull felt too small for the storm raging inside it. Colors and sounds collided — flashes of lightning behind his eyes, whispers clawing at his ears, the metallic taste of blood flooding his tongue though he hadn't bitten it.
Jaeson writhed, suspended in that chamber, a puppet on invisible strings. His fingers curled and lengthened, nails blackening for a moment before snapping back. His heart thundered, then stuttered, then thundered again in jagged rhythm. Sweat — or was it blood? — seeped from his pores, sizzling on his skin.
Through it all, Henry's voice cut like a blade. "Stay with me, Jaeson! This pain is not your end — it is your beginning!"
Something inside Jaeson broke. He felt his chest cave, then expand, lungs tearing before knitting anew. His vision went black, then flared white, then cleared again sharper than before. Every crack, every burst of agony seemed to strip something away — the weakness, the chains, the years of silent suffering. What remained was raw, alien, terrifying.
Finally — after what felt like hours but could only have been minutes — the storm inside him quieted. His body hung limp, smoke curling faintly from his skin. His breathing came ragged, but steady. For the first time in years, the gnawing pain in his stomach was gone.
He was reborn.
Henry's form flickered violently now, the light of him breaking apart like ash in the wind. He knelt, though his knees never touched the ground, and cupped Jaeson's face in both ghostly hands. Jaeson sobbed, hot tears spilling, his father's touch both there and not there.
"My time's run out, son," Henry whispered. "But hear me well. Someone will come for you soon — from the Academy. They'll know what you've become. Follow them, learn, grow stronger. But never forget your mother. Never forget Ana Rin. Protect them both, no matter what it costs you."
Jaeson shook his head desperately, choking on grief. "Don't leave me again. Please, Dad. Not again."
Henry's fading eyes softened, sorrow and pride warring in their depths. "I never left you, Jaeson. I've been here, all along, in every breath you've taken. And I'll be here still — in the strength you've claimed tonight."
His father's thumb brushed his cheek one last time. Then the figure dissolved, scattering into sparks that winked out one by one until there was only darkness.
Jaeson's sobs wracked his chest. He reached for the empty air, but his arms finally obeyed him only to grasp nothing. Exhaustion swallowed him whole.
And as he drifted back into unconsciousness, he whispered, broken and small, "I'll protect them. I promise."
Sleep claimed him.