Long before the fires, before the clocks started counting down, there was Everfield—a flower farm just past the city limits, filled with rolling hills of violet and gold.
Michael could not quite remember the sound of his parents' voices. Not really. But he remembered how the sun had felt on his skin the day before everything ended. He remembered the wind carrying lavender and laughter, as if both belonged to the land.
They had taken him to the fields that day. His mother wore a yellow dress that moved like sunlight, and his father lifted him onto his shoulders, pointing out shapes in the clouds. There had been no warning and no dark cloud on the horizon. There was only warmth and peace, brief and real.
He had been too young to hold onto much memory. The faces eventually blurred into shapes, and their voices had faded into silence. But the warmth had stayed with him, the scent of his parents was gone, while the smell of lavender remained. His father's smile lingered, calm and confident, as if it had said, "You're safe."
That night, the world changed.
The screams came first, then came the light, flickering and wrong, pouring through the windows as if it were searching for something. The wood cracked, and the shadows moved with weight, stretching and reaching across the room. The darkness spilled into the house, expanding from the porch into every nook and cranny, slowly thickening the ambient air.
And then the creatures appeared, creatures that didn't belong here.
They had broken wings shaped like tree branches and voices that scraped like nails across a blackboard. Their faces shifted constantly, refusing to stay still as though reality itself resisted remembering them. Michael saw them, but he could not understand what he was seeing. His mother pushed him into the closet for him to hide, trying not to make any noise, his father gripping a broken chair leg like a weapon, the warmth leaving the room. Then a final scream cut short in the middle of a breath, followed by a silence so deep it felt unnatural.
When morning arrived, he was still sitting there.
Two bodies lay beside him, unrecognizable, but unmistakably his parents. The walls were blackened. Smoke still curled from the beams. The house stood half in ruin and half in memory.
Then a voice reached him.
The voice was low and careful. It did not carry open pity, but it contained something close to compassion.
"Hey, kiddo… You alright?"
A man crouched beside him, dressed in a police uniform. His frame was broad, and his face was lined with age and grief. His eyes bore the weight of someone who knew too many losses. He did not reach out right away and waited instead until a moment passed, and he finally placed a hand on Michael's back. The motion was slow and deliberate, like someone who knew how to handle fragile things.
The badge on his chest read Graves. Michael never remembered his first name. He remembered the warmth of Officer Graves' arm when he picked him up. And what stayed with him was the overwhelming sense of his presence.
In a world that had gone hollow, that single gesture had become something else, another path.
Michael was terrified. He sat frozen in place, unable to move, overwhelmed by a fear he could not name. The memories of the night before surged through him like a wave. He saw the flames. He heard the screams. He remembered the shadows moving with intent, like living things. His chest grew tight. His breaths became shallow. Panic took hold of him before he could stop it.
No one around him reacted.
The officers inside the station moved with practiced calm. A few officer glanced in his direction, their expressions shifting from pity to understanding. Their eyes held something that might have been sympathy, but to Michael, it felt distant and cold. Their faces distorted, far removed from the compassion and warmth Officer Graves had shown him.
The room felt disconnected; the lights buzzed overhead, and the walkie-talkie was echoing through the precinct. In Michael's eyes, nothing seemed real, as if he hadn't woken up from the worst nightmare of his life yet.
Someone handed him a cup of water, but he did not drink it. Instead, he let it rest on the desk beside him. Graves draped a wool blanket over his shoulders. It scratched his skin and trapped a heat that made his nausea worse. Michael sat on a hard plastic chair in the corner of the room, his legs dangling off the edge. His shoes were still stained with filth.
Officer Graves remained close. He did not hover or speak without cause. Instead, he stayed nearby and steady while being quiet and present. When he eventually knelt beside Michael again, he said with a calm and gentle voice.
"You don't have to talk," he said. "Not until you're ready."
Michael did not respond. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor. He did not lift his head or meet the officer's gaze. Even so, something in the man's voice broke through the haze. It was warm like compassion touched a sense of duty, as if he were someone who had endured something similar and had survived it.
Around them, the station continued its work. Phones rang in the distance, and printers hummed. Amidst all the noise and chaos, someone finally mentioned placing the boy in temporary care.
The world did not pause for grief, nor did it wait for healing.
Yet something inside Michael shifted. The change was small, almost imperceptible, but it was real, tic-.
In the days that followed, Michael remained silent. He said nothing to the doctors or to the social workers who insisted he would recover with time, as if it were a standard line they were made to say. But something deeper had taken root. He began to notice things that others missed. A raindrop suspended in mid-air, a hallway light that flickered only when he walked beneath it, and dreams that lingered too long, filled with faces he did not know.
That was how it began.
The story of the boy who would one day be called a savior.
But at the start, he was only a child, quiet and alone, burdened with the unspoken.