The scar did not fade.
For days it hovered above the city, a jagged fissure of crimson tearing through the heavens, burning through clouds no storm could smother. By day it was faint, a wound half-hidden by the brightness of the sun. But at night, when the darkness came alive, it glowed like a living brand.
Everyone had an explanation.
News anchors repeated whatever experts fed them. Scientists on shaky livestreams held up diagrams of atmospheric refraction and plasma discharges. Politicians promised funding and reassurance. Pastors thundered about judgment and wrath, their sermons carried through radio static. Students in the halls joked nervously, giving it names like "God's scar" or "the end-time crack."
But laughter always trailed off too quickly. Conversations died in uncomfortable silence. People found themselves glancing upward when they thought no one was watching.
The city itself seemed uneasy. Dogs barked until their throats went raw. Flocks of birds rose and abandoned rooftops at once, as though panicked by something unseen. At night, stray cats yowled in alleys, their eyes glowing too bright in the half-light. Even the hum of traffic lights felt wrong—off-beat, faltering.
And Ethan felt it in his blood.
The wound in the sky pulsed like a heartbeat, and the Stone inside him pulsed with it.
Sometimes faint, sometimes unbearable. In class he pressed his palm hard against his ribs, trying not to gasp as heat surged through him. At night it seared enough to welt his skin, leaving raw marks he covered with bandages and loose shirts.
The whispers had multiplied.
No longer confined to the shadows or the mirror, they came from everywhere. His teacher's voice would falter mid-sentence, twisting into a hiss: Give it back. A cashier at the corner store smiled and handed him change, but the voice inside his mind sharpened into venom: You will burn. His reflection lingered too long in glass, his eyes glowing faint red before he blinked and looked away.
Reality was fraying, and he was the only one who could see it.
But beneath the torment, there was always the other whisper. The faint, steady one. The Stone's voice.
Fight.
He clung to that word as though it were the last rope between himself and the abyss.
On the third night after the scar appeared, Ethan climbed to the roof of his apartment. The city sprawled below, alive and oblivious—traffic lights blinking, laughter drifting from windows, television glow flickering behind curtains.
And above it all, the wound glared.
It looked deeper than before. Its jagged edges twitched faintly, as if straining to rip wider. Its crimson light bled across the clouds, staining them like spilled ink in water.
Ethan hugged his arms around himself, teeth chattering despite the mild night air.
"You're pulling me, aren't you?" he whispered to the sky. His voice shook. "Dragging me closer."
The Stone against his chest burned in response. Not words, not even sound—just heat, undeniable.
He shut his eyes. He already knew where he had to go.
The grove.
By the time he reached the grove, the sky was bruised with stormlight, clouds bulging like swollen veins. The trees swayed although the air was still. The ground was slick and sucking, mud clinging to his shoes as he pushed deeper.
It had started here. The night he found the Stone. The night he had first seen the shadow.
The clearing opened before him.
And waiting there was the door.
Ethan froze, breath seizing in his throat.
It rose impossibly high, a slab of black stone slick with rain, far taller than the skeletal trees around it. Carved into its face was the same jagged mark as the wound in the sky. Crimson veins pulsed faintly through its surface, glowing like fire beneath obsidian. The edges of the door shimmered, blurred, as though the world itself rejected its existence.
He staggered forward, unable to resist. The Stone inside him dragged him closer. Heat seared his ribs. His heart slammed against his chest, each beat echoing with the pulse of the door.
The whispers grew frantic, a storm of voices clawing at his skull.
Because you are empty enough to hold it.
Because you are broken enough to break again.
Because the fire chose you.
"Stop," Ethan gasped. His hands pressed hard against his ears. "Stop—"
The voices laughed.
The door shuddered. A deep groan reverberated through the clearing. A crack split down its center, red light spilling through like blood through a wound.
And then, with a grinding sound that shook the ground, the door began to open.
Ethan stumbled back, shielding his eyes. Crimson light flared, blinding.
From the darkness inside, footsteps echoed. Slow. Steady. Deliberate.
And then the figure emerged.
They were cloaked in black, the hood shadowing their face. The clearing warped around them, air rippling as though heat waves rose from their body. In their hand they carried a shard of crimson crystal, jagged, alive with the same fire as the Stone in Ethan's chest.
Ethan's lungs seized. The presence was heavy—dangerous—but not crushing like the infinite villain's vast shadow. This was something else.
When the figure spoke, their voice was layered: one human, one echo, one flame.
"You have woken the fire, boy."
Ethan's lips parted, but no sound came. His throat was too dry.
"You feel it," the figure continued. Their shard pulsed brighter. "Burning in your chest. Whispers tearing at your mind. The wound in the sky answering to your defiance. You cannot deny what you are becoming."
Ethan's voice broke free, trembling. "Who are you?"
The figure tilted their head. Their face remained hidden, but Ethan thought he saw the suggestion of a smile in the shadow.
"I am what you will become," they said softly. "If you survive."
The clearing bent inward, the trees bowing as if in worship. The Stone inside Ethan flared white-hot, forcing him to his knees. He gasped, clutching his chest.
The figure stepped closer. With each stride, the shard in their hand pulsed, and the wound in the sky above throbbed in time.
Ethan's vision blurred. In the shard's glow, he saw his reflection—his own eyes glowing red, his own face older, sharper, consumed.
"No…" He shook his head violently, teeth clenched. "That's not me."
The figure's voice lowered, sorrow threading through the echo.
"The fire is not a gift. It is a hunger. And hunger always devours."
Ethan's chest heaved. "Then why me? Why not someone stronger? Someone who isn't—" His voice cracked, bitter. "Someone who isn't nothing?"
For a moment, silence. The figure's head tilted slightly, the shard dimming.
"Because nothing," they said at last, "is the only vessel that can hold fire without shattering."
The words struck deeper than any blade. Ethan felt them echo in the hollow places inside him, the places that had always ached. The years of silence, the laughter of bullies, the gnawing belief that he was invisible, worthless. Empty.
The Stone had found him there.
The figure raised the shard, its glow intensifying. "The fire can consume you, or you can consume it. Choose."
The whispers