The city did not recover.
Emergency broadcasts blared for hours after the night sky split open. Officials spoke of "energy surges," of "unexplained atmospheric phenomena," of "mass hallucinations caused by electromagnetic fields." But no words could cover the truth.
People had seen it.
The shadows that had poured into the streets. The crimson fire that had pushed them back. The impossible silhouette looming from the wound in the sky.
And though no one said his name, Ethan knew whispers were spreading. Somewhere, on a dozen shaky phone screens, pieces of him existed in grainy red light. A boy standing in fire. A boy who should not exist.
---
He didn't go to school the next day. His body was too broken, his chest raw where the Stone had fused again. Every breath hurt. His skin glowed faintly, fissures spidering across his arms like cracks in porcelain.
He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
The whispers did not torment him this time. That almost frightened him more.
The silence felt like waiting.
---
By evening, the silence broke.
A figure stood at the foot of his bed, cloaked and faceless, the shard glowing faintly in their hand.
Ethan jolted upright. "How—"
"You called me," the layered voice said. "The fire carries farther than you realize. When you burned, every shadow heard it. So did I."
Ethan clenched his fists. "Then teach me. If this Stone is killing me, tell me how to control it."
The figure tilted their head, studying him. "Control is a lie. The fire cannot be caged. It feeds. It consumes. That is its nature."
Ethan's chest burned, the Stone pulsing as if to agree. He grit his teeth. "Then why give it to me?"
The shard in the figure's hand glimmered. "Because you are not the first."
Ethan's heart stuttered.
---
The world blurred. He was no longer in his room.
The grove surrounded him again, but changed—older, darker. The trees twisted into skeletal spirals, the ground split with wide cracks glowing faint red. The air tasted of ash.
The cloaked figure stood before him, their shard blazing brighter.
"This is where the fire always begins. Every vessel is drawn here. Every defiance is born here. Do you know how many before you have carried it?"
Ethan swallowed hard. "How many?"
The figure's silence was answer enough.
Images bled into the clearing—flickers of others who had stood where Ethan stood. A woman with flames dripping from her hands. A soldier whose veins blazed like molten steel. A child no older than Ethan, screaming as the fire consumed him whole.
One by one, they burned, their bodies fracturing, their fire stolen back by the infinite shadow.
Ethan staggered. "They all lost."
The figure nodded slowly. "The fire devours. That is its truth. You will not win by feeding it as they did."
"Then how?" Ethan shouted. His voice cracked, but the rage was stronger than his fear. "Tell me how to fight him before he tears the world apart!"
The cloaked figure stepped closer, lowering the shard until it burned level with Ethan's chest. The Stone inside him pulsed in response, the two flames resonating.
"The hunger does not vanish," the voice whispered. "But hunger can be turned. Fire consumes. Fire destroys. Yet fire also forges. You must learn to shape what it eats."
Ethan stared at them, trembling. "Shape it into what?"
The figure's voice deepened, layered with something almost like reverence.
"Into yourself. Not weapon. Not sacrifice. Will."
---
The ground shook violently. The trees groaned, splitting with cracks of red light. The air grew heavy, suffocating.
Ethan's breath caught. He knew that weight.
The villain was pressing in. Even here.
The cloaked figure turned their faceless head toward the sky, voice sharpening.
"He watches. He presses harder with every moment you resist. He knows you are weak still."
The wound above the grove split open, crimson light spilling through. Ethan saw the shadow moving behind it, vast and endless, straining against the chains.
His knees buckled. The Stone blazed in his chest, but the fire felt thin against that immensity.
The cloaked figure grabbed his wrist, forcing his hand toward the burning cracks in the ground.
"Then forge, boy! Feed the fire your fear. Shape it into something else before he breaks you!"
Ethan screamed as the Stone flared. The fissures roared open, fire spilling upward like a tide. His vision went white, his body splitting, his fear flooding the flames.
But beneath it—something steadier.
Not fear. Not rage.
Defiance.
The fire twisted, bending, shaping itself around that single spark of will. For the first time, it did not consume him. It answered.
When the light dimmed, Ethan was on his knees, gasping, his chest blazing. The cloaked figure stood above him, their shard flickering faintly.
"You have taken the first step," they said. "The fire bent. It obeyed you for a breath. That is enough—for now."
Ethan wiped blood from his mouth, his body trembling. His eyes burned crimson, but his voice was steady.
"If it can bend, then it can break him."
The figure tilted their head, almost like a smile beneath the hood.
"Perhaps. If you survive long enough to learn the rest."
The grove faded. The vision collapsed.
Ethan woke on the floor of his room, his sheets scorched, his chest still burning. The Stone pulsed faintly, calmer than before.
Outside his window, the wound in the sky glowed brighter, trembling as though it had heard his vow.