The world didn't end with a bang. It didn't roar. It just… folded.
One minute, Icaris was alive. The next, the sky cracked open like old glass, and gravity forgot what it was doing.
He stood alone on the roof of an observation deck—a place he used to visit just to breathe, to get away from cities, people, everything. He was an explorer once. The kind who slept in jungles and climbed cliffs just to see what was on the other side. He hated crowds, hated routine. But he didn't hate Earth. Not until now.
Now, the horizon was gone. Blown away. A jagged tear in the sky revealed something behind reality, like peeling back the skin of the world to see the bone underneath. There were wings. Not bird wings, not insect wings. They didn't flap. They just existed. Mothlike. Vast. Hanging there like they'd always been.
And then the stars started dying.
Not blinking out. Just… ceasing. Like they'd never been lit in the first place.
Icaris's heart didn't race. His brain didn't scream. Maybe it was shock. Maybe it was instinct. But all he could do was stare.
A wind blew past—soft, warm. Like breath. It carried a smell that wasn't smoke or ozone, but something oddly nostalgic. Dreams. He didn't have a better word for it.
Something brushed against his chest. Gentle. Final.
The moth's wings shimmered with symbols that felt too familiar. Like he'd seen them in his dreams since childhood but never remembered them until now. The moment he looked too hard, they shifted, like they knew he was watching.
And then everything collapsed.
Not into black. Into light.
White, searing, silent light.Breath.
His lungs pulled in sulfur and wet air. It burned, but not in a human way. Something heavy pressed against his sides—muscle, scale, bone. He moved, and stone scraped against his limbs. Too many limbs. Too sharp. Too large.
He blinked—once. The darkness around him wasn't empty. It was full. Aether. Magic. Life. It tasted electric on his tongue.
The fire in his chest… wasn't fire. Not entirely. It pulsed. It responded to his breath, his thoughts. It was alive.
Somewhere deep inside, a thought surfaced. Not a word. Not even a sentence. Just a feeling.
"This isn't the end."
There were others nearby. Breathing. Waiting. Watching. He couldn't see them, but he knew they were there. Hatchlings. Like him. Dragons. Born of the same clutch, but not the same.
His vision adjusted. The walls around him shimmered with heat lines. Something deep and molten. His claws flexed against the stone.
He didn't panic. There was no screaming, no thrashing. Just a slow realization that the human part of him wasn't gone—it was quiet. Dormant. Watching from the back of the room.
He had died as a man. He was reborn as something else.
No voices welcomed him. No gods whispered in his ear. No system chirped in his mind.
Just breath. Flame. And the cold taste of the world outside.
A part of him wanted to sleep again. Curl up and forget. But the stronger part—the explorer, the one who had always wanted to know what was beyond the next mountain—twitched his wings.
They weren't metaphors anymore.
He was going to find out what was waiting beyond this stone. This mountain. This world.
And if it tried to kill him?
He'd burn it.