The air burned sharp in my lungs, like I was sucking on coins.
The Red Circle tower didn't just fall—it folded, like some vast beast twisting in on its own spine. The first crack ran down the center like lightning, a jagged fracture that split steel and glass. Windows burst outward, spitting shards across the street in glittering arcs, each pane shattering with a pop that echoed like gunfire.
The foundation groaned, a sound too deep and too long to be anything but death. Concrete buckled. Floors pancaked one by one, collapsing into each other with thunderous, choking blasts of dust. Whole sections of the façade sheared off, plummeting in slow, dreadful arcs before shattering into the street. Signs ripped free, neon sparking, and twisted girders snapped like brittle bones.
Inside, voices wailed. Shouts bled through the roar—panicked, raw, human. Some shrieked names that vanished beneath the crush of stone and fire. Others were cut short mid-scream, silenced as the floors above crashed down. The building devoured them all in its hunger, a mouth of steel swallowing its own people.
A plume of smoke erupted skyward, black and gray coiling together, blotting out the stars. Sparks leapt within, orange veins flickering in the dark haze. Dust rolled through the streets like a wave, coating everything in a choking blanket. The air tasted of blood, ash, and iron.
What stood moments ago as a fortress of power, a symbol of Red Circle's grip, now slumped into a smoldering crater. Its skeleton of twisted beams jutted out like broken ribs clawing for the sky. The screams didn't stop at once—they dwindled, fading into muffled cries beneath the rubble, swallowed into silence.
The tower was gone, not toppled but turned inside out, collapsed by its own weight, leaving the city to choke on its corpse.
Luckily the city was far enough to not get hit by immense radiation at least.
It's still viewable from the city though so they probably losing their mind right now.
-
"I taste metal," I muttered, spitting gray spit onto the cracked earth.
Matt's eyes flicked over the skeletal trees, the faint shimmer crawling over the ground. "Yeah. Radiation. Let's get out before it eats us alive."
We kept walking, boots grinding over gravel, each step taking us deeper into the wasteland's ribs. My tongue still buzzed like I'd licked a battery. Hours blurred together. When the mist finally thinned, Matt raised a hand.
"Here. We camp."
I didn't have much to offer. No pack. No gear. Just the weight of Flicker resting against my palm and the lighter in my pocket beside my ever-lasting smokes. They were comfort, not survival.
Still, I tried. I scavenged what I thought were logs, dragging back an armful proud of myself—until Matt looked over and barked a laugh.
"That's not good, Kai. Wet wood? Green wood? You trying to choke us with smoke?"
I bristled. "I don't know how to do this!"
His sigh cut deeper than the words. "Yeah, I figured."
So he knelt, hands quick and sure, sorting twigs like he'd done it a thousand times. He sparked flint into dry scraps until a flame bloomed small and stubborn. The fire grew under his care, heat pushing back the chill that had been gnawing my bones.
I sat down, Flicker humming in my hand. "Tent," I told him. He stretched awkwardly, shifting shape under Dual Mind's nudges. Took hours, longer than I wanted to admit, but finally Flicker settled into a crude lean-to. Ugly. Crooked. But it kept the rain off.
"Kai you do realized we probably killed hundreds of people just then thousands maybe"
Kai looked surprised. Why didn't he care?
Theyre thugs
"Yeah... Um.. is it bad that I don't feel bad?" Kai asked awkwardly rubbing his hands
"No... It's fine. I'm just scared of conquences"
Matt replied.
When I joined Matt at the fire, his face was orange with glow, shadows twitching at his boots like restless pets.
"Say," I asked, flicking ash into the flames, "how'd you end up in Black Omen?"
Matt's mouth crooked into something halfway between a grin and a grimace. "Oh boy. That's a story and a half."
I leaned forward.
"One benefit of my burden," he said, eyes fixed on the fire, "is no one remembers me. Not really. You're both nothing and everything. A ghost walking among the living. That's how Black Omen found me—slipping through cracks the world didn't even notice."
The shadows curled higher around his ankles, listening like hounds.
"You don't sign up for Omen. They pick you out of the dark, and once they do…" His grin sharpened. "You don't ever really walk away. For me however I chose to join forced it really."
The fire snapped loud in the silence that followed. I rolled a cigarette, lit it with my last real possession, and thought about how some burdens weren't curses. They were invitations. And sometimes, they carved your whole story before you even knew it had started.
Kai continued listening to Matt's story.