The oven at Patrick's Pizza house was a primitive, roaring god that demanded constant sacrifice. Finn stood before its glowing maw, his arms coated in a fine, white dust of flour that made his skin look like unpolished marble. At sixteen, he was already a tower of a boy, reaching one point nine meters, which made him look tragically out of place in the cramped, low-ceilinged kitchen. He moved with a cat-like stealth, a fluid, silent grace that allowed him to drift between the swearing line cooks and the bubbling vats of marinara without ever bumping a shoulder.
"Shift's over, Finn. Get some air before you turn into a breadstick," Marco grunted, tossing a few crumpled bills onto the counter.
Finn nodded, wiped his floury palms on his denim trousers, and stepped out the back door. The transition was a physical blow. The air in the alleyway was thick and stagnant, smelling of old grease and the damp, heavy heat of a city built on a marsh.
He began his walk, and for a boy like Finn, a walk was never just a movement; it was a meditation. He moved toward the old center, the part of the city that had survived the wars and the cold, grey decades of communism. To his left and right, the buildings were limestone giants from a forgotten era of elegance. They were five stories tall, decorated with stone gargoyles and sagging balconies of wrought iron that looked like frozen lace. These were the pre-communist aristocrats of architecture, their facades peeling like sunburned skin to reveal the dark red brick beneath.
He adjusted his sunglasses. His eyes, a piercing, stormy grey, were sensitive to the mid-afternoon glare. He passed the Great University of Psychology and Philosophy, a gothic fortress of red brick and ivy. He watched the students on the steps, youths his own age or slightly older, clutching thick textbooks and arguing about the nature of the soul. Finn felt a strange, disconnected empathy for them. They studied the mind in books; he lived in the reality of the senses.
He took a right by the Train Museum, where the rusted iron skeletons of 19th-century locomotives sat behind a high fence, looking like fallen titans. Then, he turned left onto the Iron Bridge.
The bridge was a black, skeletal ribcage of metal, built two hundred years ago when the river was the city's lifeblood. Finn stopped for a moment, his hand resting on the hot railing. He looked down at the river, the Cerna. Following the massive storm two days ago, the water was no longer a clear stream; it was a thick, churning ribbon of chocolate-colored mud, carrying shattered branches and city debris toward the horizon. Two centuries ago, this water had been high and violent enough to drive the massive wooden wheels of the bread factory downstream. Now, the factory was a hollow shell of broken windows, and the river was a sluggish, tired thing, struggling to breathe under the weight of the silt.
As the city buildings began to thin, replaced by sprawling gardens and wilder patches of earth, Finn felt the tension in his shoulders begin to melt. He wasn't poor, not in the way the people in the shelters were. He had the house Lena had left him, a small, sturdy place filled with the scent of dried herbs and the memory of her humming. But he worked because he liked the rhythm of it, and because the city's noise helped drown out the strange, silent frequency that always seemed to hum in the back of his mind.
He reached the Great Oak. It stood in a sea of wild grass, its canopy a vast, emerald umbrella that had survived centuries of lightning.
Finn collapsed onto his back, the dry grass crunching beneath his weight. He pulled off his sunglasses and stared up through the shifting layers of leaves. He was wearing his favorite blue T-shirt, the one with a fading yellow sun on the back and the words Sunny Days Ahead in bubbly, optimistic script. On his wrist, a thick bracelet of braided leather and oxidized metal sat heavy against his skin. He traced the strange, interlocking emblems on the metal, symbols that felt ancient and familiar, though he had no idea what they meant. Beside it, a simple silver ring he'd found in a pound shop caught the flickering light.
His heart, which usually beat with the steady thrum of a clock, gave a sudden, sharp flutter as he remembered the terror of two days ago.
The sky had turned a bruised, sickly purple. The air had grown so heavy he felt like he was breathing underwater. He had been standing right here when the ozone hit him, a metallic, biting scent that made the hair on his arms stand straight up. A deep, primal instinct, a voice from a cellar in his soul he didn't know existed, had screamed at him to move.
He had run. His black shoes had skidded on the mud as he sprinted for the road. He had been exactly twenty seconds away from the tree when the world vanished into a blinding, holy white. The lightning hadn't just struck; it had detonated. The sound was a physical fist that slammed into his chest, vibrating his very bones.
Lying there now, the contrast was almost too much to bear. The sky was a flawless, mocking blue. The birds were singing as if the earth hadn't tried to incinerate him forty-eight hours prior. He felt a profound, aching sense of luck, but beneath it, a sliver of ice.
The nature around him was fresh from the rain but baking under the relentless sun. He could smell the damp earth drying, the scent of grass being toasted into hay. He felt peaceful, yes, but he also felt like a man who had been missed by an assassin's bullet. He wondered why the sky had targeted this tree. He wondered why he had known to run.
He closed his eyes, his freckled skin soaking up the heat. For the first time in his life, the "Sunny Days Ahead" on his back felt like a question rather than a promise.
Finn woke slowly, the golden light of the afternoon filtering through the oak leaves in shifting patterns of honey and bronze. He sat up, shaking the dry grass from his raven-black hair, his grey eyes clearing as the grogginess of the nap faded. For a moment, he simply sat in the silence, feeling the weight of the air. Then, with the fluid, effortless movement of a predator or a dancer, he pushed himself to his feet.
He didn't go back the way he had come. Instead of crossing the metal bridge immediately, he kept to the riverbank until he reached the point where the city began to rise in a steep, stony incline. He turned left, his black shoes clicking against the grit of the path as he climbed toward the heights.
The air grew cooler here, shaded by the massive, weathered structures of the upper district. He passed the old firefighter station, a hulking, melancholic building made entirely of deep red brick. It was a relic of a century when the city feared fire above all else. Now, the station was a tomb. The massive arched doorways, once meant for horse-drawn pumps and early steam engines, were sealed with heavy iron chains, their links swollen with orange rust. Finn paused to look at the brickwork; it was stained with soot and time, the grout crumbling in places like old bone. It felt like a place holding its breath, waiting for a bell to ring that had been melted down decades ago.
He pressed on, his stride long and easy, until the asphalt gave way to the black stone. These were the ancient pavers, polished smooth by hundreds of years of footsteps, carriage wheels, and rain. They were uneven and dark, reflecting the sun like dull obsidian. This was the road to the fortress.
The Corvin Castle didn't just appear; it loomed.
Finn entered the outer courtyard, and the sheer scale of the stone giant above him made him feel small, a sensation he rarely experienced at nearly two meters tall. The castle was a masterpiece of Gothic intimidation, with sharp, needle-like spires that pierced the blue sky and high, grey curtain walls that looked impenetrable. The stone was a patchwork of centuries, scarred by sieges and weather. He stood there for a long minute, his neck craned back, watching the crows circle the highest turrets. There was a strange resonance here, a vibration in the ancient stone that seemed to hum against the soles of his shoes, but he shook the feeling off. He wasn't a tourist; he was a local, and the castle was just a landmark in the geography of his life.
He turned back, retracing his steps past the silent red bricks of the fire station. He crossed the metal bridge this time, the rhythmic thump-thump of his footsteps echoing off the iron girders. The muddy river churned below him, still angry from the storm.
Back in the old center, the city felt more alive. He navigated the afternoon crowds with that same "cat-like stealth," sliding through gaps in groups of tourists without ever brushing a sleeve. He took a sharp right at the Kids Park, a place locals simply called Park Place. It was a green lung in the center of the stone, filled with the shrieks of children on swings and the low murmur of parents on benches.
In the heart of the park sat the Vintage Pub. It was a wooden structure that looked like it had been plucked from a mountain village and dropped into the city, its porch shaded by heavy umbrellas. Finn walked to the bar, the cool, dim interior a relief after the sun. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled bills Marco had given him. He bought two beers, heavy glass bottles that were beaded with ice-cold condensation. He didn't drink them there. He tucked them into his bag, the glass clinking softly, a gift for later.
The walk home was a long one. Finn lived on the far outskirts, a distance that would have exhausted most, but he relished it. He walked through the changing faces of the city, from the gothic center to the grey, blocky apartments of the mid-century, and finally to the quiet, dusty streets where the houses had small gardens and sagging fences.
His legs felt the miles, but it was a good ache, a human ache.
By the time he reached the small, familiar gate of his home, the sun was beginning to dip, casting long, orange shadows across the porch. He pushed the door open, the wood giving its familiar, welcoming creak. The house smelled of home, a mixture of floor wax, old books, and the faint, sweet scent of the herbs Lena kept drying in the kitchen.
"I'm back," he called out, his voice low and raspy from the day's silence.
Lena was there, a steady presence in the heart of the house. He offered her a tired smile, a silent salute to the woman who was the only world he had ever truly known. He didn't stay to talk; the weight of the day, the pizza shop heat, the long miles, and the lingering shock of the lightning, suddenly crashed over him like a wave.
He retreated to his room, kicked off his black shoes, and collapsed onto the bed. He didn't even pull the covers up. He fell into a sleep so deep it was like falling into a well.