Salt and steel hung heavy in the air. Eryndor's coastal breeze tangled with the faint buzz of zyrite-powered lights in my study. I'm Joseph Hallo, fifty-five, staring out a bulletproof window at the neon spires of my capital. My city. My miracle.
Eryndor, a speck on Africa's edge, gleams with clean streets, solar schools, zyrite mines that make the world drool. Built it from nothing, I think, chest tight as a drum. Blood, sweat, and promises. And it's still not enough.
A century-old wine bottle sits on my desk, unopened, dust clinging to its faded label. Next to it, Lila's photo. Her smile, frozen at seventeen, stabs my heart like a shard of glass. She's gone. A bus crash abroad, they called it. A damn lie. I know the truth. The Concord killed her. My daughter. My light.
How did it come to this? My mind drifts, hazy, like a memory from a life I never lived. I was born for better days, in a city of glass and faith. Mom, a doctor. Dad, an engineer. Sparks flew over textbooks in their varsity years. Mom dropped out, pregnant with me, clawed her way back to graduate. Dad worked double shifts.
At two, I had a tutor. Their wealth paved my path. I wasn't blind to it. Grandfather Luke, Pastor Luke, named me despite shunning Dad for the sin of an unwed pregnancy. His sermons, bellowed in a crumbling church, drilled into me: do right. Help others. Seek truth.
At seventeen, high school done, I sat with Luke on his porch. His gray eyes sharp as ever.
"Grandfather, what should I do?" I asked, my future a fog thicker than Eryndor's morning mist.
He pulled me into a hug, hands rough as sandpaper. "Follow your heart, boy. You're the smartest Hallo yet."
I groaned. "That's vague as hell, Grandfather." But I pressed, stubborn: "What's it take to fix the world?"
His voice turned hard, like stone. "Power. I'm just a pastor, Joseph. My reach is a speck. Presidents have power but they're corrupt, twisting it for themselves."
My jaw set, young and dumb. "Then I'll be a president. A good one."
Stupid, stupid kid. I shake my head now, staring at the wine bottle. I studied politics, my mind slicing through theory like a hot knife. My parents' money built six orphanages. My voice led strikes for the poor, boots pounding dusty streets. By forty, my party swelled to 500,000, chanting my name like a prayer. At fifty-five, I took Eryndor's helm, banned corruption, turned zyrite's wealth into schools, hospitals, hope. Crime vanished. The world called it utopia.
"Utopia." I snort. What a joke. Utopias draw wolves.
The Concord a shadow cabal of presidents, tycoons, and bastards with smiles like knives coveted our zyrite. The mineral powering quantum tech. They invited me to their "branch," a cesspool of greed and secrets. I saw Lila's smile. Luke's prayers. And refused.
"I don't share your ideologies," I told them. Voice steady. Hands shaking under the table.
Their answer came in the dark. Assassins hit my convoy. Blades glinting. Silenced guns spitting. I survived. My family paid the price. Michael, my sixteen-year-old son, a lanky genius who hacked systems for kicks, stopped school, locked in the mansion under guards who shadowed him like ghosts. Lila, abroad for an academic contest, beyond my reach. The Concord knew it. Her bus "crash" was their message: join us or lose everything.
I brush the wine bottle, its label peeling like my hope. My reflection in the glass shows a man chewed up by grief, eyes red from nights without sleep.
Flora doesn't know. Neither does Michael. My throat burns. How do you tell your family their light's gone? Lila's braids, like Flora's, her laugh echoing in my skull it's too much. I want to scream, smash the bottle, burn the Concord's world to ash. But I'm just one man.
One weak, stupid man.
"Joseph?" Flora's voice, warm but fraying at the edges, yanks me back. She leans against the study door, braids loose, her minister's poise cracking like thin ice. "You've been in here for hours. Talk to me."
I force a smile, weak as a dying bulb. "Just… reports. Budget nonsense."
Liar. Lila's photo mocks me from the desk. I failed her. My followers begged me to rise, to be a "king" and torch the Concord's corruption.
"There's a limit to what one man can do," I'd told them, voice steady then. "Innocents would suffer." Now, my innocent suffered most.
Flora steps closer, hand grazing mine, warm against my cold fingers. "You're scaring me, Joseph. Is it the threats? The Concord?" Her voice drops, barely a whisper. "Lila's safe, right? She's coming home tomorrow?"
My heart splinters, a crack I feel in my bones. I open my mouth, but words choke. The truth—Lila's death, the Concord's checkmate would shatter her. I pull her close, her warmth a flimsy shield against the ice in my chest.
"I love you," I whisper, all I can scrape together.
"Dad?" Michael's voice, sharp and teenage-rough, cuts through the haze. He's in the hall, headphones dangling, laptop tucked under his arm like a shield. Eyes narrow. "You look like absolute crap. What's going on?"
"Michael, go to your room," I snap, too harsh.
He flinches, jaw tight. "No way. You've been weird as hell since those goons started tailing me. Spill it, Dad."
My hands clench, knuckles white. I see Luke's face, years ago, urging power. I see orphanages, kids laughing in new uniforms. I see the strikes, fists raised, voices roaring. I see Eryndor's rise, zyrite glowing in streets. All for nothing. The Concord outplayed me, their reach slithering across borders I couldn't guard.
Lila's death was my fault. My weakness. My refusal to fight dirty.
I thought I could be good. I thought good was enough.
Tick.
I freeze. A faint pulse, mechanical, slithers from the walls. What the hell is that?
Tick. Tick.
The wine bottle slips from my hand, shattering on the oak floor, red splashing like blood across my shoes.
"Flora, Michael, move!" I roar, grabbing Flora's arm, shoving Michael toward the door.
Flora's eyes widen, breath hitching. "Joseph, what "
"A bomb!" My voice breaks, raw with terror, scraping my throat.
Michael stumbles, laptop crashing, screen cracking like my sanity. The ticking grows louder, a heartbeat counting down. I see it all childhood city, glass towers catching sunlight; Luke's prayers; crowds chanting my name; Lila's smile, bright as zyrite.
I built a paradise. But paradise burns.
"Dad, what's happening?" Michael's voice cracks, young and scared. Defiance gone.
Flora grips my hand, strength crumbling like walls closing in. "Joseph, talk to me!"
"I'm sorry," I choke, pulling them close, arms shaking. "Lila… she's gone. They took her. And now "
The world screams.
A white-hot blast tears through the mansion. Zyrite dust ignites in a crimson blaze. Glass shatters, shards flying like daggers. Walls crumble, oak and steel twisting. My family vanishes in fire.
Luke was right. Power. My last thought is a bitter prayer. Too weak. Too good.
I'm sorry, Flora, Michael, Lila…
Darkness swallows me.