The final pressure from the Abomination's clawed palm intensified. Rex's world dissolved into a crimson, agonizing haze as the immense force splintered his sternum. His eyes, wide with pain, rolled back slightly, losing focus on the ceiling above. Just as the final, agonizing pressure was about to crush his heart, his consciousness snapped—not outward, but inward, pulling him into the silence of memory.
FLASHBACK: SEVEN YEARS AGO
The pain was gone, replaced by the soft, steady rhythm of life—a faint, beloved melody from a past he was dying to save.
He wasn't pinned against a bank wall; he was standing in the warm, late-afternoon sunlight of his old apartment living room. The air smelled of dust motes dancing in the light, and Lily's favorite strawberry soap.
He wore his old, worn-out gray hoodie and jeans. His arms weren't broken, but wrapped around two people who were laughing.
"Daddy's home!"
A tiny, high-pitched giggle echoed in the small room. Lily, all five years of her, with a riot of bright, yellow-streaked hair, leaped into his arms, her small hands clutching his neck. He swung her gently, a massive, genuine smile cracking his face. He felt the familiar, pure surge of joy that was worth more than every gold bar in the world.
"Did you behave for Mommy today?" he whispered, pressing a kiss to her temple.
"Perfectly!" Lily declared, her nose wrinkling with indignation.
He turned his head, his eyes meeting the gaze of the woman who held his heart captive. April, his wife, a striking woman with kind, weary eyes, stood leaning against the kitchen doorway, a spatula in her hand. Her beauty was still there, but shadowed by the ever-present fatigue that had become their third resident.
"She was a little terror, as always," April murmured, pushing off the doorframe with a sigh that tried and failed to hide her pain. She tried to smile, but a sharp wince flashed across her face as she straightened up too quickly.
Rex gently set Lily down. He crossed the short distance to April, his large hands carefully cupping her face. He saw the new, thin lines of worry around her eyes and the sallow pallor of her skin beneath the makeup. She was frail, fading under the weight of her illness.
"How's the pain today, babe?" he asked, his voice rough with anxiety.
"Fine, Rex. The usual," she lied easily, trying to pull away. "Just... tired. Dinner's almost ready. Go play with Lily."
But he didn't move. He gently took the spatula from her hand and laid it on the counter. His gaze searched hers, desperation clawing at his throat. The doctor's words—the escalating cost of the experimental medication, the grim prognosis without it—screamed in his mind. He knew he didn't have much time left to find the money.
"It's not enough, is it?" he whispered. "My paycheck, the side jobs... it's not enough for the new round of treatment."
April's eyes, usually so sharp and defiant, finally broke, filling with glistening tears. "We'll figure it out, Rex. We always do. We'll sell the car. We'll sell the—"
He cut her off, his voice firming with a terrible resolve. "No. You deserve to live, and Lily deserves her mother. I'm going to fix this."
Lily's distant giggle drifted from the living room, a reminder of the life he was fighting for.
Rex looked down at his large, powerful hands—hands meant to lift and protect, not hurt. He saw his reflection in the sheen of the granite countertop, no longer a loving husband, but a man driven to the edge.
He pressed a final, fierce kiss to April's forehead, then turned away before she could see the raw, lethal desperation in his eyes.
He had one idea left. One score. The ultimate gamble for the highest stakes.
Rex sat in the driver's seat of a battered, pale blue sedan, the cheap vinyl seat sticking to his back. The car was parked across the street from a brightly lit financial institution: The First Federal Bank of Riverview.
The city was muted by a heavy, gray downpour, the windshield wipers struggling to keep pace. Each pass of the wiper was a metronome counting down the seconds to his decision.
He wore a dark hoodie pulled low, sweat cold on his temples beneath the fabric. In the passenger seat lay a gym bag, and inside that, a cheap handgun—clumsy and heavy, a terrifying foreign object in his hand.
He reached inside his jacket, pulling out a faded photograph. His daughter, Lily, was a gap-toothed, laughing five-year-old in a park swing. Next to her was his wife, Aprile, whose beautiful smile was now gaunt from months of pain. The expensive medication. The specialists. They had all bled them dry. This was the only option left.
It went wrong. I killed him. The memory of his confession to Kyle echoed, but here, in the car, only the desperation was real.
Breathe, Rex. Just get in and get out.
He inhaled sharply, but his breath hitched, ragged and shallow. He looked at his hands gripping the steering wheel—they were trembling violently, the tremors of a man about to commit a mortal sin. This was it. The point of no return. The sacrifice.
He had to trade his life, his freedom, his soul, for theirs.
He jammed the photograph back into his pocket, his hand brushing against the cold steel of the gun beneath the seat. He reached for the door handle, the cold metal shocking his fingers.
"For Lily. For April. Always. May the almighty forgive me."
He didn't know he had powers. He was just a terrified, desperate man.
With a final, desperate heave, he forced himself out of the car and slammed the door shut, the sound muffled by the pouring rain.
The fluorescent lights of the bank lobby were harsh, exposing every tremor in his hands. The air conditioning was too cold.
"Everyone, on the ground! NOW!" Rex roared, surprised by the desperate, hoarse sound of his own voice. He waved the pistol wildly, trying to project a confidence he was far from feeling.
The ensuing chaos—the screams, the scrambling, the sound of the vault alarm—was a symphony of his failure. He was clumsy, his demands garbled. The teller, a young woman with wide, terrified eyes, moved too slowly, her hands trembling as she bagged the cash.
The moments stretched into an eternity. He was hyperventilating now, the air thick and useless in his lungs. The panic was a physical force in his chest, making his entire body twitch.
Then, through the haze of terror, he saw movement.
A man, mid-forties, heavy-set, and clearly a hostage, had pushed himself off the ground and was creeping toward a security button under the desk. Rex didn't think; he just saw the rebellion, the refusal to obey, the threat to his escape and his daughter's life.
A furious, incoherent rage—a blinding, purple heat—erupted from the center of his chest. It was the crushing terror, the desperation, and the immense pressure of the moment all coalescing into a single, devastating discharge.
He didn't aim, he just screamed, "Sit the fuck down!" and waved his gun toward the man. His finger instinctively tensed and pulled the trigger.
The charged bullet ripped across the lobby. It didn't just pierce the man's chest—it exploded on impact, right where his heart was, blasting a torrent of blood and tissue across the polished marble. The body flew backward, lifeless before it even hit the ground.
Rex stared, his breathing seized. The fading purple light on the pistol was the only thing moving in the absolute silence. He hadn't just shot him; he had obliterated him. He looked down at his own trembling hands, his mind reeling as the sirens began to wail their grim arrival in the distance.
No, I... I didn't mean to. It was an accident. But I killed him.
The shame, the horror, the sickening realization of what he had taken.
That's what caused the downfall of my life...
END FLASHBACK
Rex's consciousness slammed back into the cold, agonizing reality of the bank lobby. He wasn't breathing the clean air of seven years ago; he was choking on pulverized dust and the metallic tang of his own blood.
Of course, he thought, the word a bitter, ragged whisper in his mind. Of course, in my dying moments, I get the highlight reel. The one I kill to forget.
The immense, crushing weight on his chest was a grim, final punctuation mark on his life of sacrifice and failure. The sheer cosmic absurdity of it made him want to laugh, a desperate, wet sound that died in his throat.
And why that one?
He forced his eyes to focus on the horrifying, emotionless face above him. The empty black eyes. The creature was the embodiment of the unforgiving universe, silently judging the man pinned beneath its palm already starting to squeeze harder, feeling the sluggish beat of the heart.
Maybe it's because my action was a sin that couldn't be redeemed. A sin that outweighs the scale of judgment, deeming me to hell.
It was over. The pain was too much. The power had failed. He was a dead man.
NO.
A raw, primal scream tore through the fading crimson haze in his mind. He wasn't thinking of April or Lily now; he was thinking of the two terrified faces he'd just pushed to safety, the two friends who needed him right now more than any dead man needed forgiveness.
With a final, desperate heave of his remaining strength, Rex's functional arm shot out, his fingers locking onto the Abomination's immense, sinewy wrist.
The moment their skin touched, the built-up kinetic energy that had vanished in his moment of doubt—the energy of Kinetic Absorption—exploded back to life. It didn't bloom around him; it erupted from him. A vibrant, blinding bright purple light erupted from every seam, every wound, every pore of his body. The agonizing pain was instantly consumed by the overwhelming, scorching heat of the uncontrolled discharge.
Rex's voice, a raw, inhuman bellow of fury and agony, drowned out the screaming of the buckling steel:
"This isn't how I die, I WON'T allow it. I will live, for them, for her and for Lily... my little sun flower... I promise to get rid of all that could ever harm you. That includes..."
The light was pure annihilation. The kinetic energy burst outwards in a massive, searing wave that blew the Abomination backward like a rag doll. The force instantly vaporized the marble floor beneath Rex and fractured the supporting columns around them. The bank structure groaned, metal screaming against stone, before the entire building collapsed in on itself, consumed by the devastating, indiscriminate discharge.
Rex's final, defiant roar echoed through the thunderous rubble:
"ME!"