The wound did not sleep.
It pulsed above the city at all hours, crimson veins spreading wider each day. Clouds no longer drifted naturally but spiraled around it, as though the sky itself was being pulled into that fissure. At night, lightning crawled along its edges, illuminating shapes that weren't clouds at all—shadows writhing just beyond the tear.
The city below responded with panic.
Helicopters throbbed overhead. Sirens screamed through the night. People abandoned their homes, highways choking with cars. Government trucks blocked streets, soldiers shouting at crowds that no longer listened. Yet beneath the fear, another current moved. Ethan saw it in the faces of people on the sidewalks, in the crowds huddled beneath the red sky.
Some weren't afraid.
Some were waiting.
---
At first, Ethan thought he was imagining it. A group gathered on a corner near his school, holding their hands up toward the wound, chanting words he couldn't understand. Their eyes glowed faintly, unnaturally, like embers buried in ash.
By the next day, there were more. Not just in one place, but everywhere—outside government buildings, on rooftops, even in alleys. They carried signs scrawled with frantic messages: THE FIRE IS THE PATH. THE STONE RETURNS. THE SKY IS HIS EYE.
It spread faster than panic.
And Ethan understood what it meant: he wasn't the only one hearing whispers anymore.
---
The news made it worse.
Every channel ran footage of the scar. But soon the videos shifted—grainy, shaky recordings shot from rooftops, alleys, windows. The night of fire. The rooftop blazing crimson. The shadows collapsing under waves of flame.
And at the center of it all, half-blurred by light, unmistakable to anyone who had been there—stood a boy.
Ethan.
---
He slammed the laptop shut, heart hammering. His reflection stared back in the black screen, his eyes flickering red for the briefest instant.
"They know," he whispered.
The Stone against his chest pulsed once, faint and steady. Not words, not fire—just a heartbeat.
He pressed his palms against his face, fighting the tremor in his hands. "They'll find me. They'll take me apart. I saw it."
Silence answered. And somehow that silence was worse than the whispers.
---
That night, the dreams returned.
He wasn't in the grove this time. He wasn't in the ruined city of visions. He was strapped to a table, metal bands crushing his wrists and ankles. The Stone burned against his chest, but he couldn't move.
Figures in white coats surrounded him, their faces blurred, their voices sharp and clinical.
"He's the source."
"The Stone is embedded."
"Extract it."
Cold instruments pressed against his chest. Agony tore through him as they dug, pulled, ripped. His own scream echoed back like someone else's voice.
And above the chaos, the villain's voice thundered, amused:
"You are their weapon. You are my vessel. You are never your own."
Ethan woke with a choked gasp, clutching his chest. His shirt clung to him, damp with sweat. The Stone seared hot beneath his skin, as though it too had felt the dream.
Outside his window, helicopters circled the scar. Their searchlights swept the sky, feeble against its glow.
Ethan understood then: the world wasn't trying to save itself. It was preparing to use him.
---
The cloaked figure appeared the following night, stepping from the corner of his room as if peeling themselves from the shadow.
"You have been seen," the layered voice said.
Ethan turned, anger sparking. "You knew this would happen."
The figure's shard pulsed faintly, echoing the Stone's glow. "Every vessel is revealed when the fire answers. The world does not ignore its wound."
"They'll come for me," Ethan snapped. His voice cracked. "I saw it. They'll try to cut it out of me."
The figure tilted their head. "They will try. They always try." Their tone sharpened, edged with something dangerous. "And when they do, you must choose. Will you burn your fear, or your chains?"
Ethan's throat tightened. "Why me? Why not someone else? Why not you?"
The silence stretched, heavy as the scar overhead.
"Because you are the only one left alive," the figure said at last.
The words cut deeper than the dream. Ethan staggered back, the Stone burning against his chest as though it mourned too.
The figure's voice softened, almost human. "That is why he fears you. You have bent the fire without breaking. No one before you has done that."
They stepped closer, shadows rippling with their presence. "The eyes of the world are upon you, boy. Do not let them decide what you are."
And then, as always, they were gone—leaving Ethan alone in the dark, the Stone's steady pulse the only sound.
---
The city raged below, the scar throbbed above, and everywhere Ethan turned he felt them: the eyes of the world, searching for the boy who burned back the dark.