The world shattered into spinning fragments, pain blooming bright and merciless through cracked ribs and splintered arm in relentless waves that left no room for anything else. A high, ceaseless ringing flooded his ears, swallowing every other sound in its endless whine, turning the chaos into muffled, distant echoes.
Cold asphalt pressed against his back like a jealous lover, raising goosebumps across bare skin in sharp prickles, while warm blood traced slow, intimate paths down his cheek—the road's only apology, tender in its cruelty.
Thoughts drifted in slow, fractured pieces through the haze, but one cut through with cruel clarity, cold as the ground beneath him.
He was teetering on death's narrow threshold, waiting for the inevitable push.
Faint screams pierced the ringing from somewhere beyond—voices of strangers bearing witness, raw and desperate. Soft hands cupped his bloodied face, a woman's plea repeating like a broken prayer.
"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..."
The words grew muffled, distant, fading into the growing dark until darkness rose gentle and absolute, folding over him like a final blanket, and silence claimed everything that remained.
***********
"Wake up, Tyler… wake up."
The voice dragged him back from the void, low and persistent, threading through his skull like smoke under a door. He opened his eyes with a groan, pushed himself upright despite the fresh fire igniting in his ribs. White walls gleamed sterile around him, monitors tracing steady green lines, translucent curtains swaying in a soft morning breeze that carried the faint scent of antiseptic and false hope.
The scratchy patient gown confirmed the suspicion already settling in his gut.
Hospital. Of course.
He lifted a hand to scratch his head and regretted it instantly—agony flared through bandaged torso and casted arm, every injury announcing itself in sharp, unfamiliar chorus.
"Guess I jinxed myself," he whispered, a crooked half-smile tugging at lips that tasted of copper and regret.
The door slid open with a soft hiss. A nurse stepped in, eyes widening at the sight of him conscious, then vanished in hurried retreat. She returned soon after with a doctor in tow—bald, beard neatly trimmed, white coat draped over crisp shirt and pants, shoes silent as judgment on the tiled floor.
Questions followed in measured tones. Fragments of memory. Pain in specific places. Gaps where time should have been. Tyler answered with shrugs and deflections, keeping the persistent voice locked behind his teeth—some secrets even doctors couldn't prescribe away.
The doctor was murmuring polite reassurances when Tyler cut through the facade.
"No need for the gentle act, Doc. If it's bad, just say it. Patients deserve the truth more than pretty lies."
The man paused, something weary flickering behind professional calm. He dismissed the nurse with a subtle nod, waited for privacy, then drew a dark sheet from his clipboard and handed it over without ceremony.
X-ray. Tyler's own skull, rendered in ghostly negative.
The fracture sprawled wide and unforgiving—deep enough to promise instant oblivion, edges jagged as broken promises.
His heart plummeted, heavy and cold. "How am I still here?"
The doctor passed a second sheet in silence. Same angle, hours later. The crack had diminished dramatically, bone knitting itself in ways medicine couldn't explain.
"We set the arm, bound the ribs," the doctor said softly, voice stripped of pretense now. "But this healed alone. Without intervention. Without time." His gaze sharpened, almost pleading. "Tell me, Tyler—what are you?"
The door opened again before words could form.
Three men in immaculate black suits entered like shadows given form—dark glasses devouring light, loafers whispering across tile, presence thick enough to choke the room's stale air. Tyler recognized the archetype from countless midnight movies: the kind that erased people neatly, quietly, permanently.
Escape routes flickered through his mind and died. Window too high. Door blocked. Body too broken.
"How much did they pay you, old man?" he asked, voice low but steady.
The doctor offered a thin, tired smile. "Resistance is pointless. Sleep will come soon, willing or not."
A treacherous warmth bloomed in Tyler's veins, heavy as sinking mercury. Limbs grew distant, muscles slackening against his will. He fought for anger, for curses, but the bed rose to cradle him as darkness returned—this one clinical, induced, inescapable.
Wake up, Tyler… wake up.
He surged upright, fists raised against threats that weren't there.
The world answered with fire.
Flames roared in every direction, a living sea of orange and crimson that devoured everything it touched, heat rolling in waves that blistered the air itself.
The sky hung heavy and bleeding, deep wet red torn open by flashes of lightning that illuminated the horror below in merciless strobes. Buildings groaned like dying beasts, collapsing inward in thunderous avalanches of steel and glass, showering the streets with glowing debris that hissed and sparked on the ground.
And the people—God, the people.
Screams filled the air, a cacophony of raw terror and agony that clawed straight into the soul, rising and falling in waves that never broke. Men, women, children stumbled blindly through the inferno, clothes igniting in sudden bursts, turning them into living torches that staggered and fell.
Skin bubbled and blackened before Tyler's eyes, peeling away in sheets as fat sizzled and muscle exposed itself to the merciless heat. Some ran with arms outstretched, mouths wide in silent howls as flames stole their breath; others curled into fetal balls on the pavement, flesh sloughing off bone in wet, steaming layers until only skeletons remained, briefly glowing before crumbling to ash scattered by the superheated wind.
A woman staggered past him, hair ablaze like a halo of fire, her face melting into unrecognizable ruin as she reached toward a child already collapsed ahead of her—both reduced to smoldering heaps before they could touch.
A man tried to beat out the flames on his legs, but the fire only climbed higher, consuming him from the feet up, his cries sharpening into something inhuman until his throat charred and silence fell. Desperation painted every movement: people trampling one another in blind panic, clawing at blistered faces, collapsing mid-stride as lungs filled with smoke and superheated air cooked them from the inside.
The air itself was poison—thick with the stench of burning hair, cooking meat, and the acrid tang of vaporized life. Every breath seared Tyler's throat, every heartbeat echoed the chorus of dying screams that rose and fell like a tidal wave of suffering.
He stood frozen amid the apocalypse, horror rooting him in place as the world ended in fire and agony around him.
Then one thought pierced the shock, sharp and colder than any flame.
Adrian. Ashley.
His friends. His family.
He ran, feet pounded over buckling pavement strewn with the fallen—some frozen mid-flight as blackened statues, others torn apart by forces beyond fire alone. Heat scorched his lungs with every desperate breath, blistered exposed skin, but he pressed forward through the chaos, clinging to the same fragile mantra whispered like prayer.
They're fine. They're fine.
The café emerged from the haze eventually—or its ruined skeleton, half-collapsed and crowned in roaring flames.
His legs gave out beneath him. He collapsed to the scalding ground, tears rising hot and helpless against the blaze.
Outside the shattered entrance stood a cluster of ashen figures, eternally paused at the edge of escape. Two drew him forward like magnets: one tall and broad-shouldered, the other smaller, more delicate. Their charred hands remained fused together, the larger forever pulling, forever trying to drag the smaller into a safety that never arrived.
A few strands of hair survived the inferno on each—miraculous, defiant wisps still clinging to what remained of their heads. On the taller figure, golden blonde threads glowed faintly at the tips, smoldering slowly like embers refusing to die. On the smaller, burnt chestnut curls hung in singed remnants, edges curling and blackening even now as the heat claimed the last of them.
Tyler crawled closer on trembling knees, the ground searing his palms. He reached out with shaking fingers and brushed the taller silhouette's cheek. Ash flaked away softly, crumbling into fine gray dust that the scorching wind scattered like forgotten prayers.
Rage ignited in his chest then, hot and sudden. He lifted his gaze to the bleeding sky.
There.
A solitary silhouette hovered high above—featureless against the crimson torrent, wreathed in dark and red shadowy aura that swallowed light and form alike. No face. No robes. Only pure, piercing eyes visible through the void, golden, infinite, etched with ancient symbols that seemed to shift and writhe like living script—eyes that could birth galaxies or unravel existence with a single, indifferent glance.
He glared up at them, fists clenching until knuckles split and bled. Hatred boiled through him, raw and wordless.
The gaze held.
Longer than it should have.
Something deep in his chest ruptured, as though his very life was too profane, too worthless to withstand such divine scrutiny. Pain exploded outward, heart bursting in a wet, final betrayal. He collapsed forward, mouth filling with thick blood that clogged his throat, stealing any chance for screams or curses.
Vision dimming, he lay still on the burning ground, one arm stretching weakly toward the two ashen figures. Fingers clawed at empty air, inches from where they stood eternal vigil.
"I'm... so... sorr—"
The words drowned in crimson, unfinished forever.
The red sky faded to black. Silence rushed in.
The last thing he saw, as the ashen forms of Adrian and Ashley finally crumbled and blew away on the superheated wind, were those eyes—golden, symbol-marked, unblinking. The eyes of the one who had taken everything from him.
His throat was clogged but his mind was burning clear with a single thought.
"This isn't over. I'll find you no matter what... and I'll kill you bastard.I swear I'll ki—"