The city reeked of smoke, blood, and cheap liquor—my kind of perfume. Neon signs flickered overhead, buzzing like they were begging to die. I lit a cigarette off a burning trash can and thought, Yeah, this place is already fucked. Might as well join the party.
That's when the bastards jumped me.
Three of them, cloaked head to toe, moving like they had something sharp up their asses. Cultists. Always cultists. They wanted shards, relics, whatever scraps of divine bullshit they thought would bring the gods back. I just wanted to get drunk in peace.
"Hand over the shard," one of them hissed.
I grinned, flicked ash at his cloak. "Sure. Which pocket's it in again? Oh right—the one you'll never reach."
The first idiot lunged with a rusty blade. I sidestepped, grabbed his arm, and snap—there went his elbow. His scream echoed through the alley like bad opera. The second one hesitated, which was smart. The third? Not so much. He pulled a shard knife, glowing faintly with divine residue.
Shards are dangerous things. Touch one raw, and you're either blessed or broken. Usually broken. But when that blade came swinging, something in me cracked open.
The world bent. Neon lights stuttered, shadows twisted, and chaos itself wrapped around me like a drunken lover. Shard energy—my shard—roared to life for the first time.
I didn't even think. I laughed. The kind of laugh that makes people question if you've lost your shit.
The shard knife shattered before it touched me, shards flying out like burning glass. The cultist stared, eyes wide, before I buried my fist in his face.
Blood sprayed. He hit the pavement. Silence.
I looked down at the fragments still glowing in my hand. My skin didn't burn. Didn't break. Instead, it pulsed with orange-red veins of chaotic light, flickering like fire.
"Well, shit," I muttered, shaking the shards off. "Guess I'm a goddamn chosen one now. Lucky me."
Sirens wailed in the distance, cops finally realizing this alley existed. I kicked the nearest corpse for good measure and headed into the night, shard power still humming under my skin.
The gods were dead. Everyone knew that. But whatever the hell just woke up inside me?
Yeah. The story wasn't over. Not by a long shot.