Ethan Marlowe could no longer pretend his life was ordinary.
The stone had burned its way into him, reshaping the boy who once drifted unnoticed through hallways and rain-soaked streets. Now, everything hummed with hidden energy. Every flicker of light, every drawn breath of the people around him, every tremor in the ground—it all lived in the edges of his awareness.
But awareness was not control.
That morning, as he sat at his desk in class, his hands trembled under the weight of invisible vibrations. He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms. The Red Stone lay hidden in his backpack, silent, yet its heartbeat pulsed inside him, tethering him to a power he could neither master nor escape.
His teacher's voice blurred into meaningless syllables. Equations scrawled on the board twisted in his vision, symbols reshaping into jagged patterns that whispered meanings far beyond mathematics. He blinked hard, forcing the numbers back into coherence. His temples throbbed.
"Hey, freak."
Ethan stiffened. The voice dragged him out of his haze like a claw through flesh. From the corner of his eye, he saw Travis—the worst of them—leaning back in his chair, smirk painted on his face.
"You look pale. You sick or just finally realizing you're pathetic?"
The class snickered. Ethan said nothing, but the air around him thickened. Something inside him unfurled like smoke, restless and sharp. His chest tightened.
The lights above flickered.
For a heartbeat, the room plunged into shadow. A ripple of unease ran through the class, though most masked it with laughter. Ethan clenched the edges of his desk, his breath unsteady. He hadn't meant to. He hadn't even moved. But the stone's hum inside him had stirred at the sound of his tormentor's voice, hungry.
He forced it back, shoving the sensation into the hollow pit of his chest. The lights steadied.
But Travis's grin faltered. For the first time, Ethan saw unease in his eyes.
---
After school, Ethan fled the building before anyone could corner him. He walked fast, his hood pulled low. The whispers in his mind had grown louder since that night in the grove. Not words exactly, but echoes, impressions—like something infinite trying to fold itself into human language.
You are too small.
And yet, chosen.
The end spreads its wings.
Each whisper was a drop of ink bleeding into his thoughts, staining them. He wanted to rip the stone out of himself, cast it back into the mud where it belonged. But whenever he considered it, the hum within his chest deepened, reminding him: there was no going back.
The grove called to him again. His steps carried him there almost without thought, as if tethered. By the time he reached the skeletal trees, the rain had begun again, fine needles against his skin.
He stood where he had first unearthed it, mud dark beneath his shoes. His fingers brushed the stone in his pocket, and the world tilted.
The grove fell silent. The rain froze midair again, droplets suspended like jewels. Shadows bled from the trees, thick and heavy, twisting into shapes that had no right to exist. Ethan's breath caught.
From the shadows, a figure emerged.
It was tall, impossibly so, though its form bent and shifted as though made of smoke and broken glass. No face, no eyes—yet its presence crushed Ethan's lungs. The infinite weight of it bore down, dwarfing him. This was the presence from his vision, the one that had spoken in the language of endings.
"Child," the voice whispered inside his skull. "You carry what was meant to be mine."
Ethan staggered back, mud splashing. "W-what are you?"
It tilted, faceless head lowering toward him. "The end. The silence that swallows all things. The infinite storm. Call me what you wish—names are dust."
Its words wrapped around him like chains. His knees buckled under their weight.
"You are not strong enough to bear it," the voice continued. "The stone burns in you, but it was meant to rest in me. Give it back, and the torment ends."
Ethan's fingers curled around the stone in his pocket. His heart hammered. "Why me? Why did it—why did it choose me?"
The shadow leaned closer, its form splintering into a thousand jagged edges. "Because the stone is a wound in the world. It clings to the broken. You are nothing, child. Nothing but weakness made flesh. That is why it burrowed into you. Because you were empty enough to hold it."
The words sliced deep, more painful than any fist, any shove against lockers. They were true, weren't they? He was nothing. A nobody. A weak boy abandoned by his mother, invisible to his father, laughed at by everyone else. Empty.
And yet, the stone pulsed harder in his palm. Heat spread up his arm, burning away the shadow's weight. Ethan gasped, straightening, light flickering in his eyes.
The infinite voice recoiled. For the first time, it faltered.
"The stone… defies," it hissed.
Ethan raised his head. His voice shook, but it carried. "I don't know why it chose me. But it's mine now."
The figure trembled, shadows boiling with fury. "Then you have declared war against the infinite. And the infinite devours."
The grove shattered. Rain fell again, splattering against Ethan's skin. The figure was gone, dissolved into darkness. But its weight lingered, its whisper gnawed at the edges of his mind.
---
That night, Ethan sat at his desk, staring at the Red Stone. Its glow was faint now, buried deep within, yet he could feel it. A second heart, an ember in his blood.
His hands shook. He remembered the shadow's words. The stone is a wound in the world. Was that what he was now? A walking wound? A broken vessel holding back something too vast, too dark, too infinite?
But then he remembered Travis's eyes in the classroom, the brief flash of fear. He remembered the dog, trembling until his touch calmed it. He remembered the figure recoiling when the stone burned through him.
Maybe he was weak. Maybe he was nothing. But with the stone, he wasn't powerless anymore.
His reflection stared back at him in the window, rain streaking down the glass. His face was pale, drawn, but in his eyes flickered a light not entirely his own.
The whispers returned, softer now. Not the infinite shadow's voice, but the stone's.
Resist.
Hold.
Fight.
Ethan clenched his fists. The world was changing. The infinite darkness was real, and it wanted everything. But the stone had chosen him, broken as he was.
And he would not give it back.
---
But even as he made that vow, a new sound drifted through his room. A laugh, faint, echoing not from outside but from within.
The shadow was not gone. It was inside him now, waiting.
And Ethan understood: the battle had already begun.