The rain had been falling since morning.
It streamed down the glass walls of the high-rises and spilled off rooftops in silver sheets. The gutters overflowed, carrying with them cigarette butts, plastic wrappers, and the black sheen of oil slick. Cars hissed through the waterlogged streets, their tires cutting ribbons in the endless puddles.
Ethan Cross walked among it all with his hood pulled low, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. He didn't bother with an umbrella. The rain soaked through the fabric and plastered his hair to his forehead, but he hardly noticed.
He'd had days like this before—too many. A long shift at the warehouse. A heavy silence in his apartment. Nothing to look forward to but another morning just like the last.
He was twenty-four years old and felt older. Not in his body—his body was strong, honed by years of drills and discipline—but in the weight behind his eyes.
His father's voice haunted him even now:"Strike again. Again. Until the motion is carved into you like breath.""Discipline comes before strength.""Steel does not question its sharpness. Neither should you."
The family dojo had been his entire childhood. Wooden floors were polished until they gleamed. The thud of bare feet, the sharp crack of bamboo swords colliding. He had learned the forms before he had learned multiplication tables. He had known the sting of a cane across his shoulders when he faltered before he had known the sting of heartbreak.
It had shaped him. It had given him precision, focus, the kind of control most people never touched. But it had also pressed him into a mold so tight he had never learned what it meant to want something for himself.
Now he was free of the dojo. And freedom had turned out to be hollow.
He walked faster, splashing through a crosswalk as the light flicked red. A car honked and veered past, water spraying up across his jeans. He muttered a curse under his breath.
The city felt restless. The storm had driven people indoors, and the streets were nearly empty, lit only by the trembling orange glow of old streetlamps. He passed shuttered stores, neon signs buzzing above them, their colors warped by rain.
The air smelled of wet asphalt, fried food gone stale, and gasoline.
Ethan stopped at a vending machine beneath an awning. The light inside flickered, illuminating rows of drinks. He dug in his pocket, pulled out coins, and let them fall through the slot. The can clattered into the tray, warm instead of cold.
He cracked it open anyway, took a swallow, and grimaced at the metallic tang. He stared at the city beyond the rain while the can sweated in his hand.
What was he doing with his life?
Not training. Not fighting. Not even living. Just walking to and from a job that could replace him in a heartbeat. Just dragging his body through days without weight.
His father would have called him weak. Maybe he was.
He tilted the can back again and finished the drink, the fizz burning his throat. He tossed it into a trash bin and kept walking.
The rain came harder, drumming against the pavement.
That was when he noticed the headlights.
Bright, blinding, cutting through the rain as a truck barreled down the slick street. Too fast. Too close.
The horn blared.
Ethan turned his head, eyes wide. For a single instant, he saw himself reflected in the windshield—a young man, soaked, tired, unremarkable. And then steel met flesh.
The impact was a hammer blow.
The world snapped apart. His ribs shattered like glass. His breath tore from him. Asphalt scraped across his skin as he spun through the rain, weightless for an instant before crashing back down.
Pain exploded through him. Then nothing.
No rain. No sound. No light.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
When Ethan opened his eyes, the storm was gone.
He lay flat on his back on cold asphalt, staring up at a sky he didn't recognize.
It glowed a sickly red, not like any sunset he had ever seen. Thick clouds churned overhead, veined with black smoke. The air carried the metallic taste of rust and the heavy reek of ash.
He sat up slowly, wincing. His body should have been broken, but it wasn't. His jacket was intact. His ribs ached faintly, but when he pressed against them, there were no fractures, no blood. His hands were steady.
Around him stretched a city in ruins.
Skyscrapers leaned at crooked angles, their steel skeletons jutting from the husks of collapsed floors. Windows were shattered into jagged shards. Cars lay abandoned, rust creeping over their frames. Some were overturned, others burned out until nothing remained but blackened shells.
The silence was suffocating.
Ethan rose to his feet, his boots scraping against cracked asphalt. He turned slowly, scanning the street. There was no traffic, no hum of electricity, no voices. Only the faint creak of metal as the wind tugged at loose signs and twisted beams.
His chest tightened.
"This… isn't home." His voice sounded strange in the emptiness.
He swallowed against the dryness in his throat. He touched his chest where the truck had hit him. His heartbeat was steady. Too steady.
Somehow, impossibly, he was alive.
But he wasn't where he had been.