The first thing Lucien noticed was the sound.
Not silence. Not the birds he usually heard outside his window. Instead—screams, sobs, the crackle of fire. Voices rose and fell in jagged waves, like the world itself was trying to mourn.
His eyes fluttered open. For a second he was convinced he was still dreaming.
Above him stretched a sky so clear and blue it almost hurt to look at. White clouds drifted peacefully, painting an image that belonged to another world—a world that hadn't shattered the night before. It was wrong. Beautiful in a cruel way.
Lucien stared, chest rising and falling sharply, until the memory slammed back into him.
The crack. The crushing weight. The endless second before his body finally gave out.
He sat up fast. The ground spun. His palms dug into dirt and grass, and he realized he was outside, a few meters from his house. His head throbbed like it had been split in two.
"Not a dream," he whispered hoarsely. "Definitely not a dream."
A man sobbed nearby, clutching something limp in his arms. A woman screamed a name into the open air. Further down, a child cried as someone shook an older man who wasn't moving.
Lucien's stomach twisted. He forced his eyes down, searching. His phone.
He remembered dropping it right beside him last night, but now it lay four meters away, half-buried in dirt and ash. He dragged himself toward it and picked it up, brushing grime off the cracked screen.
"Don't you dare break on me," he muttered, fingers trembling.
First call—Mom. No signal.
Second call—Dad. No signal
Max. Nothing
"Figures," he muttered, voice rough. His laugh cracked at the edges. "End of the world, and cell towers still find a way to screw me."
Panic gnawed at him. His chest hurt with every breath. He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled forward, legs trembling. He had to find Max.
---
The road he knew felt alien.
On one side, a line of houses stood untouched, quiet, as if nothing had happened. On the other, flames devoured homes where fuel tanks had exploded in the night. Smoke blackened the sky, stinging his throat and eyes.
Cars and trucks lay overturned like toys, metal twisted, glass shattered. One vehicle had plowed straight through a wall, leaving rubble scattered like bones. Another still burned, its tires melted into the ground, a thick stench of rubber and flesh rising from the wreck.
People staggered through the destruction. Some carried buckets of water to throw at fires, their efforts desperate and hopeless. Others knelt in the street, clutching bodies—parents, grandparents, siblings. The elderly were hit the hardest; their frail forms had crumpled under the force last night, unable to withstand what younger bodies had endured.
Lucien saw a man in his thirties pull his mother's body out of a collapsed doorway, her gray hair caked in ash. The man screamed, a raw, guttural sound that tore into Lucien's chest.
Lucien swallowed hard, forcing his eyes away. His legs carried him faster. He didn't want to see anymore.
---
Max's house wasn't far. Lucien knew the route by heart, but today it stretched longer than ever, every step heavy, his lungs burning with smoke.
Max lived near the road where people came in and out of the city, so even at night it was usually busy. Now that road was a graveyard.
Dozens of vehicles littered the street—some piled against each other in chain collisions, others rammed into buildings. Fires ate at the wrecks, black smoke coiling upward. The heat pressed against Lucien's skin. He heard crying, shouting, the occasional boom of another vehicle igniting.
When Max's house finally came into view, Lucien froze.
Half of it was gone. A massive truck jutted through the wreckage, its cabin crushed, its cargo spilled across the street. The house looked like it had been bitten in half, splinters and stone jutting outward like broken teeth.
His chest constricted. His stomach churned. "No… no, no, no."
Then—
"Lucien!"
The shout cut through the chaos.
Lucien's head whipped to the right. Max was there, half-buried under debris, dirt and blood streaking his face. Beside him, a little girl no older than eight was pinned under a slab of collapsed wall, her small hands clawing at the dirt. Her cries were sharp, piercing, almost animal.
"Help me!" Max's voice cracked but held steady, desperate.
Lucien staggered forward, dropping beside him. The slab was heavy, far heavier than it had any right to be. His palms burned as he dug his fingers under its edge.
"On three!" Max gritted out, his arms trembling. "One, two—three!"
They heaved together. Muscles screamed, veins bulged, the slab moved an inch, then another. Lucien thought his arms would snap, but finally the rubble shifted enough. until at last Max dragged her free.
They heaved. The rubble shifted an inch, then another.
Again! Don't you dare quit on me now, shorty!" Max's voice cracked but his grip held firm.
Lucien's teeth ground together, his arms screaming. The girl wailed, her voice piercing, until at last Max dragged her free.
She threw herself into his arms immediately, sobbing. Max's entire presence changed. His rough edges melted. His voice dropped, calm and steady.
"You're okay," he whispered, rocking her gently. "You're safe now. I've got you. No one's gonna hurt you."
The girl's sobs softened into hiccups, her small fists gripping his shirt like he was the only thing tethering her to life.
Lucien stood there, breathing hard, his palms raw and bleeding. He watched the way Max's rough edges melted away, how naturally his voice soothed the girl.
Max always had that. That natural pull, that warmth. The kind of thing people trusted without thinking. The kind of thing MCs in stories had.
Lucien? He cracked jokes when he was terrified.
"Of course," Lucien muttered bitterly under his breath. " Ofcourse he gets the hero moment. Shocker."
Max looked up, still carrying the girl. "There's a camp," he said. "People set it up down the road. Come with me."
Lucien nodded stiffly, shoving the sour taste back down.
---
They walked together, weaving through smoke and rubble. Lucien saw more of it—houses untouched standing beside others gutted by fire, cars stacked like toys, flames licking at broken walls. Bodies lay scattered—some crushed, some burned. The air reeked of ash and rot.
But alongside death, there was something strange.
Children.
Everywhere he looked, children were alive. They clung to older siblings, wandered alone in tears, or huddled in strangers' arms. Some cried until their voices broke, others sat silent in shock, but they were there. So many of them.
Lucien's stomach twisted harder than when he saw the corpses.
That crushing force last night—it had nearly broken him. It had felt strong enough to squeeze the air out of his lungs forever. He was sure—almost certain—that kids this young shouldn't have survived. Fragile bodies, weaker than his own. By all logic, the pressure should have taken them first.
But here they were. Alive. More alive than the adults.
It wasn't luck. It couldn't be.
The thought gnawed at him as they reached the camp—a cluster of makeshift tents stitched from sheets and tarps. People huddled together, some bandaging wounds with scraps of cloth, others holding each other as they cried. The air was heavy with grief, but under it ran a fragile current of survival.
Lucien stopped at the edge, his gaze sweeping the broken gathering. The sky above was still a clear, innocent blue.
The night was over. But its shadow hadn't left.
And deep down, Lucien knew—children surviving like this couldn't be a coincidence.
*Author note*
guy u can start commenting now and tell how u find this story so far and if u don't i promise
"I WILL FIND YOU"☺️