For a brief, extremely brief moment, Kael 'hoped' that that thing was dead. Not in the heroic sense, more like the tired, desperate kind of hope a man allows himself when he's done everything "right" and he wants the universe to just… pay him back once.
He stared at the mound of shattered concrete and twisted rebar, listening for anything that sounded like movement, anything that sounded like breath.
Nothing.
Dust drifted in lazy sheets through the heat-haze. Small pebbles rolled off the pile and clicked down into the street like timid footsteps. The air smelled like scorched stone and burnt metal, the aftertaste clinging to the back of his throat.
A brief moment it was.
A moment he didn't trust.
His fingers tightened, then loosened, then tightened again, like his body was trying to decide whether to celebrate or sprint. Kael didn't give it the choice. The second that false calm tried to settle, he ripped himself out of it.
Kael jumped back from the rubble.
