Kelly drove through the damp streets, heading to the ballet auditorium to pick up Lizzie. Still, that didn't stop her eyes from drifting now and then, catching the world outside with a quiet sort of melancholy.
Ever since the third world war took nearly two billion lives, the world hadn't been the same. Technology had taken a hit—regressed, even—and the sky never really went back to its old self. It used to be bright and blue. Now it held a constant ash-grey tint, like it couldn't quite wash away the scars left behind.
Kelly remembered the war. The screams. The chaos. The way death didn't knock, just barged in and stayed. She remembered her brother burning in the fire—his voice, calling out her name. And she remembered watching. Frozen. Feeling... nothing. Because whatever part of her that could scream or cry had already died with him in those flames.
It was always there—that reminder of why she was hurting. Of how weak she had been. Of how cruel the world could be when it really tried.
After that day, everything inside her shifted. She was filled with hate—hate for the greedy bastards who threw the world into chaos just to chase more power. But more than that, she hated herself.
For being useless. For being weak.
So she shut down. Closed herself off. She stopped letting people in and flat-out refused to see a therapist. Not because she didn't need help, but because she didn't think she deserved it. She thought she needed to suffer. That it was her punishment.
She welcomed the nightmares. On the nights when she was lucky—or unlucky—enough to see her brother again, burning in the flames, she let it crush her. Let it drown her in guilt and grief.
That was her hell. And God, what an agonizing hell it was.
The global catastrophe dragged on for three years, leaving only blood and death in its wake. By 2031, the world started trying to piece itself back together. Africa was gone—wiped out after getting dragged into the heart of the conflict once uranium was discovered beneath its soil. The rest of the world wasn't completely destroyed, but it was broken enough to feel the chill of what had happened.
Some people survived. But survival didn't mean the same thing anymore. War changed everything. Kids barely out of diapers already knew how to curse. Teenagers never left the house without a gun. And crime? Crime became the new normal.
But slowly, painfully, change came. The law tightened its grip. Regulation came back. The no-guns policy was pushed hard. And little by little, the world started to resemble what it used to be—just enough to pretend the cracks weren't still there.
But some effects of the war didn't fade—not even with time. And one of those had latched onto Kelly like a parasite, refusing to loosen its grip.
The hatred never left. Hatred for her own weakness. Hatred for the world that had ripped everything she loved away from her.
As she drove past burnt-down houses being cleared out for reconstruction and mangled, rusted vehicles piled along the roadside, her mind couldn't help but wander. How many people had died in those very flames? How many had screamed the way Tommy did?
She shook the thought off and pulled up in front of a tall, glass-walled building. Parking the car, she stepped out and walked inside, where a ballet class was in full swing behind a glass partition. A group of girls moved gracefully across the polished floor while an instructor paced among them, giving guidance and corrections.
Kelly glanced at her smartwatch. Still a few minutes until the session wrapped up.
Her eyes returned to the dancers, and the contrast hit her hard. Their lives versus hers. Their childhoods—safe, structured, soft. While she, at their age, was scrapping for food in ruins, listening to gunfire lullabies, and wondering if death would show mercy before she worked up the courage to seek it herself.
They were lucky. Even if they'd lived through the war, they were probably too young to remember it—still in cribs, with someone there to protect them.
Someone they didn't have to watch burn.
Lizzie waved at her from behind the glass partition, flashing a big smile. Kelly waved back. The little girl returned to her practice but not before drawing a circle on her palm with her forefinger—her silent code for ice cream.
Kelly smiled at the gesture, but before the warmth could settle, a sharp wave of pain hit her head—sudden and violent. It nearly made her scream. With shaky steps, she made her way toward the restroom, blinking back the tears that had already welled up from the intensity.
She was relieved to find the bathroom empty. But that relief barely lasted a second before her legs gave a slight buckle beneath her. She caught herself on the sink, turned on the tap, and splashed cold water on her face.
It didn't help.
Gripping the edges of the sink, she trembled, biting down on the cries threatening to tear through her throat. This was bad—really bad. She should've gone to the nurse when she had the chance.
The pain only worsened. Her head felt like it was being split open. She tried to endure it, to convince herself it was nothing serious—but it reached a point where the pressure broke through her control, and she screamed.
The sound of her own voice echoed painfully in her ears, but even that felt too soft compared to the agony roaring in her skull.
"Stop. Please, stop," she cried, slamming her palm against her temple. But it didn't. It just kept going.
Somewhere, deep in the fog of pain, she wondered why no one was coming. Surely someone had heard her? But that thought—like everything else—felt distant, like a luxury she couldn't afford.
Crying, she dropped to her knees, clutching her head and rocking slightly, hitting herself again and again in some desperate attempt to fight the torment.
In that moment, she could almost smell death. It was near. Close enough to taste. And what surprised her most wasn't relief—or even fear.
It was resistance.
She didn't want to die. Not now. Not yet.
There was still so much to live for. So much she hadn't done. She thought of her adoptive parents, of how kind they'd been to her. She couldn't leave them like this.
Kelvin and Brian would be wrecked. And rather than remember her with peace, they'd probably resent her—for leaving too soon.
It was in that moment—right on the edge of death—that Kelly was hit with a truth more painful than the headache itself:
'I don't want to die.'
'Stay alive. I have to stay alive.'
'I must not die.'
The pain began to dull, slowly fading into a strange numbness. Her vision blurred, her body giving in. She stopped screaming, her head tilting as everything around her started slipping into black.
Only… she didn't fall.
Someone caught her—arms sliding around her waist, holding her up. Her head was spinning, too fuzzy to make sense of anything, but oddly, the pain that had been ripping through her moments ago was now slipping away.
"Interesting," a voice said.
It was deep, calm, and way too casual for the situation.
"That a being from a world without Cosmic Dust would manage to break into the first phase of the Accumulation Zone... it shouldn't be possible. But what can I say? As expected of you. I had my doubts before—but with talent like this, that vision makes a lot more sense."
Kelly squinted through the haze, trying to make out the face of whoever was holding her. The pain might've been fading, but she was far from okay—and also far from comfortable.
For one, she really didn't like being touched. She had always been a bit of a germophobe—well, except during the war, because clinging to that mindset was a fast track to starving to death—but generally, yes. She hated body contact.
And worst of all?
This wasn't just any kind of touch. Whatever it was, it sent weird, unwelcome tingles through her chest and made her heart skip a little too fast for comfort.
With whatever strength she had left, Kelly pulled herself away from the stranger. She didn't like the contact—never had—but she was grateful. Grateful the pain was gone. Grateful she didn't die. And yet… startled.
Startled by how different she felt.
There was this weird clarity in her body, in her mind. She felt stronger. Sharper. Like she'd been crawling her whole life and suddenly learned how to walk. It was... surreal. Like being high without ever touching a drug.
She decided to shelve that feeling for now and focused instead on the person in front of her.
Only—it wasn't a man.
It was a boy. That boy.
"Jay... Jayden," she muttered, still dazed.
He smiled, and she saw that same unsettling glint in his ruby-colored eyes. "In the flesh."
Kelly frowned. She should've been worried. But if he wanted to hurt her, he'd had the perfect chance a few minutes ago. "Are you stalking me?" she asked bluntly.
Jayden clutched his chest dramatically, like she'd just stabbed him. "No, no, little girl, that's not the way to talk to someone who just saved your life."
Kelly was starting to get annoyed. "We're the same age," she said flatly, resisting the urge to tack on a bastard at the end. But his last few words caught her attention, and against her better judgment, she asked, "Do you… have something to do with why the migraine suddenly stopped?"
She knew how dumb that sounded, but still—coincidence? Really? The pain vanished the moment he touched her. It felt too clean. Too suspicious.
Jayden chuckled softly. "It's amusing how you call a breakthrough dysfunction just a migraine. That kind of mental resistance… that kind of willpower... honestly, it makes me a little jealous." His eyes sparkled with something between awe and hunger. "What on earth did you go through to become this way?"
Kelly didn't get a word of what he meant, but she decided to round it all up to: Yes, I did something to stop your migraine. That was good enough.
"Thank you," she said quietly, and she meant it.
Maybe she'd been too quick to judge him earlier. But even now, she wasn't letting her guard down. No one follows you into a bathroom during a meltdown just to be nice. Still, she had no gun on her hip or knife hidden in her boot. So she decided, for her own sanity, to believe—for now—that Jayden was a decent person.
If she'd been armed, this conversation would be going very differently.
But then… her thanks clearly didn't land the way she expected.
Jayden's expression twisted, and suddenly his whole presence changed. He leaned forward just a bit, but it was enough to make her feel like the temperature in the room had dropped ten degrees.
His eyes held a cold, bone-deep madness.
Covering half his face with his right hand, Jayden started laughing—low, velvety, and deeply unsettling. His voice echoed off the bathroom walls like some kind of cruel melody.
"Hahahaha... this—this is the funniest joke I've heard in all my existence. Me? Trying to save you? Hahahaha… what a joke."
Kelly instinctively stepped back. Then another step. Something about the way he laughed chilled her to the bone. She just wanted to leave now.
Only… she couldn't. Her legs wouldn't move. Neither would her hands. It was like her entire body had stopped responding.
Oddly, she wasn't panicking. Not yet. She just stared at him, a strange calm washing over her as curiosity crept in. Is he doing this? How? What the hell is he?
Jayden had stopped laughing. His expression had gone blank, but his eyes were ice. Kelly's curiosity instantly gave way to dread. Was he going to kill her now? She'd just narrowly escaped death not ten minutes ago, and here it was circling back.
"Don't get the wrong idea, girl," he said, and this time his voice came from everywhere. It wasn't just his mouth—it was the air, the walls, the floor. The room vibrated with it.
"I just arrived in this world—this garbage excuse for a planet. And you think I'd let you die so soon?" His tone turned darker. Hungrier. "That would be such a waste."
Then, with a voice that sounded like a thousand whispers folded into one, he added. "No… I refuse to accept that. You, Kelly Drexler, will die. But not today. You'll live for as long as I want… and die when I say so. Until then, your only purpose is to entertain me—keep me amused… and chase away my boredom."
Kelly stared at him, her expression unreadable. She still couldn't move or speak, but somehow that didn't matter—because she knew what she was feeling.
Hatred.
A deep, burning, all-consuming hatred aimed straight at the boy in front of her. It wasn't panic or fear anymore. It was raw, unfiltered rage. It drowned her thoughts, stripped away reason, and left behind only one thing—an overwhelming urge to destroy him.
"Oh, I see it," Jayden said, his voice rising with twisted delight. "It's in your eyes. That bloodlust… I can feel it crawling into my bones." He laughed again—low and sharp. "But you're still too weak. There's no thrill in it. Not yet."
He stepped closer, and his voice dropped into a whisper.
"So here's what I'll do… I'll make you stronger. Strong enough to kill me. Strong enough to 'scare' me." His eyes gleamed, and the corner of his mouth curled into a smile that wasn't human. "Strong enough to chase away my boredom."
He closed the distance until barely a breath separated them.
"Say goodbye to Earth," he whispered.
Then he snapped his fingers.
And they vanished.
********
Authors Note: Hey guys, I just want to thank you for choosing Cosmic Rage. Your opinion means a lot to me, so I would love to see it in the comment section. Don't forget to leave reviews and vote for 'our' story, your Author over here could really need a little motivation.
Update frequency remains 2 to 3 chapters a week.