The blade carved through empty air with such perfect stillness that reality itself seemed to pause, waiting for permission to continue. In that frozen moment between motion and consequence, Invia saw what others couldn't—the tragic beauty of control in a world spinning toward chaos.
He'd watched his father practice this exact sequence a thousand times from their apartment window. Each movement had burned itself into his memory with uncomfortable clarity, as if his mind was trying to tell him something his soul already knew. Now, perched on a rusted fire escape three stories above the street, those memories felt like accusations.
Why can't I stop watching?
Below, two Harmonics danced their violent ballet against a pack of Entropy beasts. Their swords flickered—weak, barely Physical Realm, but still more than he would ever have. The woman moved like she was performing for an audience, each flourish begging for applause. Her partner fought with the mechanical precision of someone who'd learned swordplay from a manual, never understanding that perfection without instinct was just another form of death.
"Pathetic," Invia whispered, his striking grey eyes heavy with an exhaustion that went deeper than physical fatigue. The word tasted bitter, directed as much at himself as at them.
The air trembled with the Rift's discordant hum, a jagged tear in reality spilling Entropy beasts like ink from a broken quill.
Three years since the Shattering, and Earth still hadn't learned how to properly bleed. The tear was small—a category-two at most—but even minor Rifts could birth nightmares when the wrong Harmonics showed up to play hero.
He shouldn't be here. The evacuation sirens had wailed their warnings twenty minutes ago, sending sensible people scurrying for shelter. But the craving had its hooks in him tonight, deeper than usual, pulling him toward danger like a moth to flame.
It wasn't bloodlust or death-seeking—he'd examined his own psychology too many times to mistake it for something that simple. It was harder to define: a gnawing hunger for something his soul recognized but his mind couldn't name.
They chose this, he thought, watching the Harmonics circle their prey. They woke up today and chose to matter.
That was what he envied—not their power, but their ability to choose. To step out of the audience and onto the stage, even if the play ended in tragedy. Every swing of their swords was a declaration: I am here. I matter. My choices shape the world.
The male Harmonic executed a perfect crescent slash, textbook-clean. One of the smaller beasts—a Shatterling, all writhing limbs and luminous eyes—dissolved into ash.
Slash-focused specialization, Invia noted with the clinical detachment of someone who'd studied combat from a safe distance his entire life. Impressive form, terrible tactical awareness.
The prediction formed in his mind like an equation solving itself. The math was cruel in its simplicity.
"And now he's dead," Invia murmured.
The Aberrant moved like a skip in reality's recording. One moment it hulked by the Rift, the next its jaws clamped over the swordsman's shoulder and half his torso. Bone cracked like breaking kindling. The man's sword arm still rose in defiance—muscle memory's final insult—before the light faded from his eyes.
But even that futile gesture was a choice. His choice. More than Invia had ever been allowed.
The woman's scream carved through the air, raw enough to make Invia flinch. Lovers, he realized. Or family. Or just two people who'd promised to watch each other's backs in a world that ate promises for breakfast.
Her blade erupted with desperate Resonance, brighter than anything she'd shown before. The surge was beautiful in its futility—a candle flaring before drowning in an ocean of dark. She carved wild patterns through the air, each strike wilder than the last, grief transmuting into fury transmuting into nothing as an Aberrant's claw punched through her ribs.
She fell facing the sky, eyes searching for meaning in stars obscured by light pollution and Rift-glow. Her sword clattered across asphalt, the sound somehow louder than her final breath.
Invia watched the light leave her eyes with the same detached fascination he'd watched everything else. Then something twisted in his chest—not grief exactly, but a sharp awareness of waste. They'd felt it, at least. That moment of perfect clarity when choice and consequence aligned. They'd been given the freedom to write their own endings.
"Better than nothing," he said to no one. "Better than this."
His fingers found the silver sword pendant at his throat, a gift from his father years ago. The metal was always warm, as if it held some secret heat. He'd worn it so long it had become part of him, unnoticed until moments like this when the craving peaked and his hands sought anything to anchor him to the present.
The Rift's light dimmed as the last beast retreated through it. Within minutes, the tear would close on its own—too small to maintain without active feeding. Life would continue its limping march toward whatever came next.
But they'd chosen their chapter in that march. Written it in blood and folly, perhaps, but written it themselves.
Invia climbed down from the fire escape, his movements automatic after years of practice. The streets were empty, cleared by evacuation protocols, but he knew the back ways where even disaster couldn't quite reach. His feet carried him home through alleys that smelled of garbage and broken dreams, past buildings that wore their scars like badges of survival.
The apartment building stood like a tired soldier, still upright but clearly exhausted by the effort. He climbed the stairs—the elevator had been broken since before the Shattering—counting each familiar creak and groan. Third floor, second door on the left.
He paused with his hand on the knob, listening. Rose was humming—an old song from before the Shattering, something about love and loss and the way the world used to be. The sound pulled at something in his chest, a warmth he couldn't quite name.
This is enough, he told himself. This is all I need.
The lie felt comfortable, worn smooth by repetition.
He opened the door and stepped into the golden pool of lamplight. Rose sat at their tiny table, folding laundry with the patience of someone who'd learned to find peace in small rituals. Her hair was streaked with premature gray, her face lined by three years of worry, but her smile was genuine when she looked up.
"There you are," she said, setting down a worn shirt. "I was starting to think you'd decided to join a circus."
"The pay's terrible," Invia replied, settling into the chair across from her. "And the performers keep getting eaten."
"Sensible boy." Rose's eyes crinkled with humor, but he could see the worry beneath. "Speaking of getting eaten, you were out near the Rifts again, weren't you?"
There was no point lying. She always knew. "Just watching. There was a breach near the old shopping district. Two Harmonics responded."
"And?"
"And they're not responding to anything anymore."
Rose's hands stilled. "Oh." The word carried the weight of accumulated loss, three years of small tragedies that had worn her down to the bone. "Were they... young?"
"Yeah. Probably early twenties. Sword Resonance, both of them. They fought well, just..." He shrugged. "Not well enough."
"I'm sorry."
He looked at her, really looked. Saw the lines around her eyes, the careful way she held herself, the subtle tremor in her hands that spoke of sleepless nights and constant fear. Rose had a Resonance - Singing. A gentle gift that once filled quiet rooms with warmth, now as useless against Rifts as a whisper against a hurricane. Before the Shattering, it made her the soul of parties; after, it became a cruel joke in a world that valued only violence. She was one of the forgotten—discarded by the new world's calculus that measured worth in killing power.
But she'd made her choice too, hadn't she? To stay. To wait. To fold laundry and hum old songs with a voice that could still make the air tremble – not with force, but with forgotten beauty. To pretend, for a moment, that the world hadn't ended. It was its own kind of courage. A defiance sung in the key of the mundane.
"Why do you do it?" she asked quietly. "Why do you keep watching?"
The question hit him like a physical blow. He'd been asking himself the same thing for months, circling around an answer he didn't want to face.
"I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe because someone should. Maybe because they deserve to be seen."
"And maybe because you're hoping to see something else?"
He met her eyes, saw the gentle understanding there, and felt something crack inside his chest. "Maybe."
"What if you never find it? What if there's nothing to find?"
The words hung between them, heavy with possibility. For a moment, Invia imagined accepting that truth—giving up the search, settling into the quiet life of a survivor. Working a safe job, finding a nice girl, having children who might inherit the Resonance that had skipped him.
It should have been comforting. Instead, it felt like drowning. Like accepting that he would never have what those two Harmonics had died with—the freedom to choose something that mattered.
"Then I'll keep looking anyway," he said. "What else is there?"
Rose smiled, sad and proud and infinitely patient. "There's this," she said, gesturing at the warm circle of lamplight, the folded clothes, the simple fact of them being together. "There's choosing to be grateful for what you have instead of mourning what you don't."
"Is that enough for you?"
"Most days." She reached across the table, took his hand in hers. Her skin was rough from work, warm with life. "But I'm not nineteen and angry at the world for forgetting to give me the chance to choose."
"I'm not angry."
"Aren't you?"
He was about to answer when the floor shuddered beneath them. The lamplight flickered, casting dancing shadows across the walls. In the distance, a sound like breaking glass multiplied by a thousand.
Rose's grip tightened on his hand. "What was that?"
Invia was already moving, crossing to the window, pushing aside the thin curtains. The city spread below them, a carpet of lights and shadows, and beyond it—
"Oh." The word escaped him like a prayer. "Oh, fuck."
The Rift he'd watched earlier hadn't closed. It had evolved. Where before it had been a narrow wound, now it gaped like a screaming mouth, edges crackling with energies that made his eyes water. The air around it warped, buildings seeming to bend toward it as if reality itself was being stretched thin.
And stepping through that impossible tear—
"Get away from the window," he said, his voice steady despite the ice flooding his veins. "Mom, we need to—"
Light exploded across the city, brilliant and wrong. Through the Rift stepped something that wore the shape of a man but wrong in every detail that mattered. Too tall, joints bending in too many places, a face that was a masterwork of almost-human features arranged in patterns that made the mind revolt. Its eyes—dozens of them, clustered like tumors—swept the cityscape with cold intelligence.
Tyrant-class, Invia's mind supplied with numb efficiency. Minimum Manifestation Realm to engage.
"What is that?" Rose whispered, and he realized she'd ignored his warning, was pressed against his shoulder, staring at the nightmare made manifest.
"Death," he said simply. "Unless someone very powerful chooses to stop it."
Always someone else's choice. Never his.
The Tyrant raised one impossibly jointed hand. Reality curdled around its palm, condensing into a sphere of pure Chaos that hurt to perceive directly. The orb grew with each heartbeat, a black hole of unmaking that promised not just death but erasure—the final negation of choice itself.
"Invia..." Rose's voice was small, frightened in a way he'd never heard before.
He pulled her away from the window, mind racing. The evacuation routes would be clogged. The shelters were designed for Aberrant-class threats, not this. They had minutes at most before—
Thunder split the sky.
Lightning poured from the cloudless heavens like divine judgment, striking the Tyrant dead center. The impact shook their building, sent cracks spider-webbing across the walls. The creature staggered but didn't fall, its many eyes swiveling to find this new threat.
A figure materialized in mid-air, wreathed in crackling gold energy that made the surrounding space writhe. The Harmonic floated with casual defiance of physics, spear already forming in his grip from condensed lightning. His voice boomed across the district:
"EVACUATE NOW! ALL CIVILIANS TO MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE!"
Another choice made. Another hero stepping forward while Invia watched from the sidelines.
"We need to go," Invia said, grabbing Rose's hand. "Now."
They ran for the door, but the building shook again, more violently. Plaster rained from the ceiling. Somewhere below, glass shattered in symphonic destruction. They made it to the hallway before the world went mad.
The battle outside escalated beyond human comprehension. Each clash between Harmonic and Tyrant sent shockwaves through reality itself. Invia caught glimpses through windows as they fled—a hooded figure joining the lightning wielder, their combined assault turning night to day, shadow to substance.
They'd made it down one flight of stairs when the big one hit.
The impact was visible even from inside—a pillar of light that connected earth to sky, turning the world photo-negative for one terrible instant. The shockwave arrived a heartbeat later, and suddenly they were airborne.
Invia wrapped himself around Rose as they tumbled, taking the impacts on his back, his shoulders, his ribs. The world became a kaleidoscope of pain and confusion. When they finally came to rest, they were back in their apartment, thrown through their own doorway by the blast.
He pushed himself up, ears ringing, vision swimming. "Mom? Mom!"
"I'm here," she groaned from beneath an overturned chair. "I'm okay, I think."
Relief flooded through him, immediately replaced by horror as he saw their window—or where it used to be. The entire wall gaped open to the night, glass and debris scattered like deadly confetti. Through the gap, he could see the city burning, the Tyrant's death throes tearing reality to shreds.
And there, picking itself up from their living room floor with too many limbs and glowing green eyes, was a Shatterling.
Of course, some hysterical part of his mind noted. The blast scattered smaller Rifts. It's raining monsters.
The creature oriented itself with predatory efficiency, multiple eyes locking onto the nearest source of warmth. Rose, still struggling to free herself from the chair.
The world crystallized into perfect clarity. Invia saw every option, calculated every outcome. He had no Resonance, no power, no hope of matching even this least of monsters. The math was simple and merciless.
But for the first time in his life, he had something else.
A choice.