Engines rumbled in the streets.
Ethan pressed himself against the window, heart hammering. Military trucks crawled between the apartment buildings, their headlights cutting the night. Soldiers spilled into alleys, radios crackling. Helicopters swept the sky, their searchlights slicing across rooftops.
And beneath it all, louder than the sirens, came voices. Chanting. Human voices.
Ethan's skin prickled. He leaned out farther. Beyond the military blockade, a crowd had gathered. They pressed against the barricades, their eyes wide and glowing faintly red in the helicopter beams. They weren't shouting in panic. They were singing, their words jagged and wrong:
The vessel has come. The fire is born. The wound will open. The shadow will reign.
The soldiers aimed rifles at them, but the cultists didn't flinch. They raised their hands to the sky, to the crimson scar overhead, as if it were the only thing that mattered.
Ethan's stomach turned. Both sides wanted him. Neither side wanted to save him.
The Stone pulsed against his chest, hard and steady, like a second heartbeat.
---
A knock rattled his door.
Ethan froze.
It wasn't his mother—she had left town two days ago, one of the thousands who fled after the scar split wider. It wasn't a neighbor—no one had been around long enough to knock.
The door rattled again. A voice followed, smooth, almost kind.
"Ethan Marlowe. We know you're there."
Ethan's throat closed. Soldiers.
The Stone seared hot, and he staggered back. Whispers slid into his skull, weaving through the pounding in his chest.
They will bind you. They will cut you. You are their tool. You are my vessel.
He pressed his palms to his head. "Shut up," he hissed. "Not now."
The voice outside the door hardened. "Open it, Ethan. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."
The Stone flared. Fire tickled his fingertips. He couldn't fight soldiers. He couldn't face the chanting mob outside.
He couldn't breathe.
---
The shadows stirred.
The cloaked figure stepped out of the corner as if pulled from the wall. Their shard glowed faintly. "They are here sooner than I expected."
Ethan spun, his voice breaking. "What do I do?"
The figure's faceless head tilted. "Decide."
The knock turned to a crash. Boots thundered in the hall.
Ethan's chest heaved. His palms burned. "I can't fight them all!"
The figure's voice cut like a blade. "Then don't fight. Shape."
The door burst inward. Soldiers flooded the room, rifles raised. Their shouts blurred together—"Hands up! Down on the floor!"
Ethan stumbled back. Fire licked his arms, wild, hungry. His vision flared crimson.
And then he remembered: not rage. Not fear. Will.
He threw his arm forward.
Flame whipped into the air, not an explosion but a lash of fire. It cracked across the room, tearing rifles from hands, shattering glass. Soldiers cried out, stumbling.
The fire curved back, wrapping his arm like a serpent. It strained against him, begging to burst free, but he held it.
For the first time, Ethan felt control.
---
The soldiers regrouped. One raised a tranquilizer gun. A dart hissed through the air.
The Stone pulsed. Fire snapped outward, a shield that burned the dart to ash before it touched him.
Ethan's chest heaved, his eyes burning red. "Don't—" His voice shook. "Don't come closer."
The soldiers hesitated. They saw it now. They had seen the videos, but seeing the boy himself, standing with fire coiled around his body—that was different.
One whispered, horrified: "It's him."
The Stone pulsed again, hungrier.
The cloaked figure's layered voice filled the room. "Good. Now choose what burns."
---
A crash outside cut through the standoff.
The chanting mob had surged against the barricades. Some had broken through, flooding the street below, their voices rising in manic worship. Red light bled from their eyes, painting their faces in feverish glow.
Soldiers turned their rifles toward the windows, torn between orders and survival.
The cultists screamed: The vessel is ours! The fire returns!
Chaos erupted.
Gunfire split the night. Cultists surged forward, some falling, others climbing over bodies with inhuman strength. The helicopters above veered off as shadows rose from the scar, writhing shapes tumbling like ash from the sky.
The wound was widening.
And Ethan stood in the center of it all, the Stone burning in his chest, soldiers and cultists both reaching for him.
---
The whispers inside him roared.
Give in. Burn them all. Break the chains. Open the wound.
Ethan clutched his head, fire flaring wild, shattering the ceiling. He saw flashes of futures—himself chained on a table, the Stone ripped from his chest; himself leading the chanting mob, fire in his hands and eyes hollow; himself nothing but ash beneath the shadow's heel.
The fire begged to choose for him.
But through the roar came another voice.
The cloaked figure's.
"Shape."
Ethan staggered upright, his body trembling. He forced the flames inward, forced them to coil tighter, tighter. His arm blazed, the whip reforming. He slashed it outward, carving a line through the floor. Fire surged into a wall, splitting the room in two.
Soldiers on one side. Cultists crashing through the window on the other.
Ethan stood between, fire burning steady at last.
His voice shook, but it carried. "Stay away from me."
For a heartbeat, both sides froze.
And then the scar screamed.
The sound wasn't thunder, wasn't wind. It was a tearing cry that split the clouds, rattled bones, shattered windows. Everyone—soldiers, cultists, even Ethan—fell silent, staring upward.
The wound was opening wider, the crimson fissure stretching until the stars themselves seemed to bleed. Shapes writhed within, massive, infinite, pressing against the veil.
The villain was closer than ever.
And Ethan knew: this was only the beginning.