The sky was on fire.
From horizon to horizon, mushroom clouds bloomed like poisoned suns. The oceans recoiled in boiling waves, cities collapsed into ash, and the silence that followed was louder than the screams that came before.
Adrian staggered through the ruins of a collapsing facility. Glass crunched beneath his bare feet, alarms wailed, and the air was heavy with smoke and chemical stench. His skin was burned, his body trembling, yet he refused to fall. Something inside him—an instinct, a will carved by pain—forced him forward.
Through the broken walls, he saw the sky filled with departing ships. They vanished into the clouds, abandoning the planet they had shattered.
And then came the voice. Broadcasts played on repeat across every ruined street, every dead channel.
"Better ash than slaves," declared Lucious Veynar, son of the World President. "If Earth cannot stand as master, then it kneels to no one."
Adrian clenched his fists. His throat burned, but the words still broke through his cracked lips.
"I'll… find you."
The vow was quiet, but it was all he had left. The orphanage. The matron. His friends. Every life that made Earth his home—gone.
Among the ruins of humanity, a boy stood alone.
Not knowing what he was.
Not knowing what he would become.
Only that he would not forget.