The morning after the grove, Ethan could not breathe without pain.
Every breath dragged fire through his lungs. His skin burned as though sun-scorched, though the day was gray and cold. His hands trembled when he tried to hold a pencil. The Stone no longer pulsed faintly against his chest—it roared, its heat ebbing and surging like tides.
He stayed home from school, feigning illness. His mother left broth outside his door and whispered through the crack, "Rest, sweetheart."
He answered with silence. If she stepped inside, she would see the truth.
The mirror told it all.
His veins glowed faintly red beneath the skin, lines of fire webbing across his arms and throat. His pupils shimmered, crimson sparks flickering in the black. When he raised his hand, the air rippled faintly, bending as if reality itself tried to recoil.
He had become something the world did not want.
---
That evening, the scar above the city pulsed again. This time, the whole sky shuddered.
Ethan watched from his window as the crimson fissure throbbed like a wound freshly struck. Lightning forked across the horizon without thunder. The streetlamps flickered and died. For one heartbeat, the entire city plunged into silence.
And in that silence, Ethan heard it.
Not the whispers. Not the Stone.
The villain.
The voice was vast, vibrating through glass and bone, louder than thunder yet spoken directly into him.
"You defy me with borrowed fire."
Ethan's hands clenched. His ribs ached where the Stone burned.
"I will burn you until nothing remains. Then the fire returns to me."
The scar flared brighter, and Ethan staggered back as his room warped. The walls stretched, the ceiling bent, shadows lengthened unnaturally. His reflection in the darkened glass window did not move with him—its eyes glowed blood-red, lips curling into a cruel smile.
"You are already mine."
Ethan shouted, smashing his fist into the mirror. Glass shattered, spraying across the floor. His reflection fragmented, each shard glimmering with red eyes staring back.
But beneath the villain's suffocating voice, the Stone whispered its answer.
Fight.
---
The next day, the city was unraveling.
Students at school huddled around glowing phone screens, replaying shaky videos of the scar's violent pulse. Power surges had rolled through neighborhoods. A commuter train had stalled mid-track, passengers swearing the lights flickered red before they cut.
Teachers spoke in clipped tones, pretending nothing was wrong. But Ethan heard the tremor in their voices, the forced steadiness. He saw the tension in his classmates' shoulders, the way they glanced at the windows too often.
And worse, he saw the cracks.
Thin red fissures crawling across the edges of chalkboards, running like veins along lockers, spiderwebbing across tiles. No one else noticed them, but to Ethan they glowed like embers.
Reality was bleeding.
At lunch, his tray sat untouched. His hand shook as he held a cup of water. When he glanced down, his reflection in the liquid stared back with burning eyes. He dropped the cup, water splashing across the table.
Whispers followed immediately.
They see you.
They know what you are.
You cannot hide forever.
Heads turned. A few students stared at him with that same unease, the same distance they had given him since the fight behind the gym. But now their expressions had sharpened—fear, suspicion, dread.
He stood abruptly and left the cafeteria.
---
That night, the dreams returned.
Not of the grove. Not of the cloaked figure.
This time, he stood in the heart of the city. But it was not the city he knew. Buildings sagged, their steel frames bending as though melted. Windows wept crimson light. Cars lay overturned, their shadows twitching like living things.
Above, the scar yawned open wider, spilling fire into the black sky.
And from it descended the infinite shadow.
Each step cracked the streets like glass, every movement fracturing reality itself. The figure was larger now, more defined, its faceless form bending the horizon. Chains of red light snaked from the wound above, binding its limbs, but not restraining. Feeding.
Ethan fell to his knees. The Stone burned against his chest.
The villain's voice shook the ruined streets.
"You think the fire is yours. It is not. You are a vessel. When you break, the flame returns."
Chains of red wrapped around Ethan's body, pinning him to the ground. His bones screamed, his skin split with glowing fissures. Blood dripped onto the pavement and hissed into steam.
"I will tear your defiance from you," the voice thundered. "And the sky will bleed until nothing remains."
Ethan screamed.
The Stone flared, searing his chest. The chains cracked, fragments scattering like glass. He staggered to his feet, fire racing through his veins, his vision ablaze.
"Then you'll bleed with me," he rasped.
For the briefest instant, the infinite shadow recoiled. Its form blurred, retreating from the fire in Ethan's hands.
Hope slashed through him like a knife.
And then he woke, gasping, drenched in sweat. His sheets were scorched where the Stone had burned through them.
The scar in the sky still glowed beyond his window, wider than ever.
---
The following evening, he returned to the grove.
The door was gone.
In its place, the trees leaned inward, their branches clawing like desperate hands. The ground was split with fresh cracks glowing faintly red. He walked to the center, heart pounding.
The Stone pulsed, and in its warmth he felt the echo of the cloaked figure's words:
The fire can consume you, or you can consume it.
Ethan clenched his fists. His body trembled, his veins burned, his mind fractured. But inside the terror was a thin thread of steel.
If the villain recoiled from the Stone—even for a heartbeat—then it was not infinite.
And if it was not infinite, it could be fought.
---
Ethan raised his eyes to the wound in the sky. The scar glowed bright, jagged, hungry. It was no longer just a wound.
It was a door.
And one day soon, it would open.