Elias had learned, over the years, that the safest way to exist was to be forgettable.
He left school when the corridors were already thinning, the noise bleeding away into scattered laughter and the metallic echo of lockers slamming shut. The building itself felt tired at that hour, like an animal settling into sleep. He liked that feeling. It meant fewer eyes, fewer chances to be noticed. He adjusted the strap of his backpack on his shoulder and stepped outside into the late afternoon air.
The sky was wrong in a way he could not immediately explain.
Not storm-dark. Not threatening. Just… heavy. As though something vast were pressing down from above, unseen, testing the strength of the world beneath it. Clouds stretched low and gray, unmoving, and the light that filtered through them was flat and dull, draining color from everything it touched.
Elias started walking.
The road away from the school curved gently, slipping past a line of thinning trees and an abandoned lot where weeds had grown tall enough to hide rusting fences and broken concrete. His footsteps were steady, familiar. He took this route every day, the same turns, the same cracked pavement, the same quiet stretch where the town seemed to forget itself for a few minutes.
He was thinking about nothing of importance.
What he would eat for dinner. Whether his mother would be home before dark. Whether he had left his math book on the kitchen table again. Ordinary thoughts, deliberately small, the kind that kept the world manageable.
That was when the pressure began.
It started in his chest, subtle at first, like the moment before a deep breath when the lungs hesitate. Then it spread outward, tightening around his ribs, crawling up his spine. The air felt thicker with every step, as though the space around him were slowly closing in.
Elias slowed.
The sounds of the road faded—not all at once, but unevenly. The distant hum of traffic dulled. The rustle of leaves stopped mid-motion. Even his own breathing sounded wrong, too loud inside his head.
Someone was standing ahead of him.
A man, positioned just off the road near the treeline, half-shadowed by the overcast light. He looked unremarkable at first glance: dark coat, average height, hands tucked casually into his pockets. But the longer Elias looked, the more the unease sharpened.
The man wasn't watching the road.
He was watching Elias.
"You're Elias," the man said, stepping closer.
It wasn't a question.
Elias stopped walking.
"Yeah," he replied after a moment. His voice sounded smaller than he expected. "Do I know you?"
The man smiled.
It was the wrong kind of smile. Polite, practiced, entirely empty.
"Your mother sent me," the man said. "She was worried. Said you walk alone."
Something cold slid down Elias's spine.
"My mom doesn't—" he started.
The world shattered.
The sound came first—a tearing, crushing roar that ripped the air apart. Then the impact hit, violent enough to lift Elias off his feet and slam him onto the pavement. Heat washed over him, followed by a pressure so intense it drove the breath from his lungs in a strangled gasp.
He hit the ground hard, pain exploding through his shoulder and ribs. His vision blurred instantly, smoke and dust choking the air, turning the world into shifting gray shapes. His ears rang, a high, piercing tone drowning out everything else.
He tried to push himself up.
His arms shook and failed him.
Through the smoke, something moved.
Heavy. Deliberate.
The smell reached him next—burnt feathers, scorched metal, and something ancient and foul beneath it all, like rot exposed after centuries of burial.
The man screamed.
Elias twisted his head just in time to see him stumble backward, terror distorting his face. The man's scream cut off abruptly as a shape emerged fully from the smoke.
It was not human.
The creature stood taller than any man, its body wrapped in jagged black armor that looked grown rather than forged, plates overlapping like the shell of some enormous insect. Its limbs bent at angles that made Elias's stomach churn, joints moving in ways that suggested bones were optional. Where its face should have been was a smooth, obsidian mask carved with symbols that pulsed faintly with sickly green light.
Above it, the sky darkened further.
A shadow passed overhead.
Elias looked up and felt his blood freeze.
A raven descended from the clouds, vast beyond reason. Its wings stretched wide enough to blot out the light entirely, feathers blacker than night itself. Each beat of those wings sent gusts of air crashing down, scattering smoke and debris like toys. Its eyes burned with a cold, alien intelligence.
The man tried to run.
The creature moved.
One moment the man was alive, scrambling backward, hands clawing at empty air. The next, the creature's arm had driven straight through his chest. There was a wet, final sound as bone shattered and blood sprayed across the pavement.
The raven screeched—a sound so sharp and wrong it felt like it cut straight through Elias's skull.
The man collapsed, lifeless.
Elias stared.
His mind refused to accept what his eyes were showing him. This wasn't real. It couldn't be. Monsters did not step out of smoke on quiet roads in New York. Giant ravens did not circle suburban neighborhoods. People did not die like this.
The creature turned its head toward him.
The green runes along its mask flared brighter.
It advanced.
Elias tried to move.
Pain screamed through his body as he dragged himself backward, palms scraping against the pavement. His shoulder felt wrong—loose, burning. His ribs ached with every shallow breath. Panic flooded him, thick and suffocating.
The creature struck him with casual force.
Something slammed into his chest, and the world spun violently. Elias flew backward, crashing into a roadside barrier with a sickening crack. Agony tore through him, white-hot and absolute. He screamed, the sound ripped from his throat without permission.
The raven landed behind the creature with a heavy thud, folding its wings slowly, deliberately, as if savoring the moment.
Elias slid down the barrier, his body no longer responding the way it should. His vision tunneled. Dark spots danced at the edges. Every breath felt like it might be his last.
The creature loomed over him.
This was how he was going to die.
Not in some great accident. Not in a hospital bed. But here, on a forgotten stretch of road, torn apart by something that should not exist.
Mom, he thought dimly.
Then the voice came.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
It rose inside him like something long drowned, pushing its way back to the surface.
Enough.
The word carried weight beyond sound. It pressed against his thoughts, his memories, his bones.
Elias gasped as heat surged through him—not warmth, but fire. Pain flared, intensified, then twisted into something else entirely. The agony did not vanish. It transformed.
You are not meant to end like this.
His heart hammered wildly, each beat echoing like distant thunder. The air around him vibrated, humming with restrained force.
You have been bound long enough.
Lightning cracked overhead.
Elias screamed as the pressure inside him exploded outward. Light tore through his veins, searing and brilliant, burning away fear and hesitation alike. His wounds burned as if cauterized by raw energy, flesh knitting together with horrifying speed.
His clothes shredded, dissolving into sparks and ash. Something else formed in their place—armor shaped from living lightning, crawling and shifting over his skin, wrapping his body in crackling arcs of power that refused to be still.
He rose.
Not because he chose to.
Because the ground could no longer hold him.
The creature recoiled, its confidence breaking for the first time.
Elias looked down at his hands.
They were no longer just hands.
Lightning danced between his fingers, responding to his thoughts, his fear, his rage. The storm above bent toward him, clouds spiraling inward as though pulled by an invisible force.
This wasn't control.
This was violation.
Power poured through him faster than he could understand, faster than he could resist. It filled every part of him, drowning out everything else.
He moved.
The distance between him and the creature ceased to exist. One moment he stood broken against the barrier, the next his fist crashed into the creature's chest. Thunder erupted outward, the sound deafening, the force annihilating.
The black armor shattered, runes screaming as they died.
The raven shrieked and lunged.
Elias turned instinctively, terror and fury merging into something terrible and unstoppable. He raised his hand.
The sky obeyed.
Lightning speared downward, engulfing the raven in blinding light. When the thunder faded, nothing remained but drifting ash and falling feathers.
The creature tried to rise.
Elias brought the storm down on it.
The world went white.
When the light faded, Elias collapsed.
The power tore itself away, leaving him shaking, gasping, human once more. He lay on the broken road, staring at the gray sky, unable to move.
A car screeched to a halt nearby.
Footsteps rushed toward him.
A man leaned over him, eyes sharp, urgent, afraid.
"Stay with me," the man said, hauling him upright. "We're leaving. Now."
Elias barely registered being dragged into the car, the door slamming shut, the engine roaring to life. The world blurred past as they sped away.
Behind them, smoke curled into the sky.
And somewhere far beyond mortal sight, thunder rolled in recognition.