The Door
Thin air. Cold. It stung Kaen's lungs with each shallow breath. Riku's house remained here like a tombstone in the destruction of their street.
Kaen arrived in front of the home. His breath misted lightly, a specter in the dawn. The front door was already broken, hanging loose. A low, rasping creak of wood, swaying on broken hinges, split the eerie silence.
It's too quiet. Every sound—the creak, the wind whistling through the cracks, the faint, metallic drip of moisture—it's all amplified. The world is holding its breath for me.
Kaen's eyes were wide, haunted. His grip was white-knuckled: one hand tight around a smooth stone charm, the other around a splintered spear shaft—the only weapons he had left. This isn't Riku's home. It's the last strand. The last, tenuous shred of hope I'm holding on to.
He lifted a shaking hand and pushed the door open. The wood creaked more loudly, resisting the intrusion. I do not want to look away. My chest feels heavy with memory, a weight that crushes. The last door I opened revealed my brother's broken body. My sisters, dead. My mother's final, soft fall.
"Please… please tell me she's alive," he whispered. He blinked, drew one rough breath, and entered.
Scene 2: The Stench of Iron
The second Kaen stepped inside, the air attacked him. It was heavy, suffocating, and pervasively metallic. Iron. Blood. It lies on my tongue, chokes my throat. It surrounds me.
He stepped slowly. The room was in shambles. The table was knocked over, legs broken. Pieces of shattered pottery crunched softly under his boots. Blackened claw marks marred the wooden walls, deep scratches showing the plaster beneath. It hadn't been a sudden attack; it was a struggle.
His eyes finally settled on the back wall. Riku.
Crouched in the corner was a small, dirt-streaked girl. Her body shook, tears etching clean channels down her face.
But she was not alone.
A monster. It was smaller than the huge, city-burning brutes of Orvale, but just as frightening—a raptor-like creature with scaly, dark green flesh that rippled and shifted. A low, dry rasp of claws against wood filled the air.
The creature hunched low, tail spastic. Fangs were exposed in a soundless, cold hiss. Its eyes—a grotesque, sulfur yellow—burned with raw, famished hunger, fixed on Riku.
Move. Act. Save her. The words rang in his head, a desperate alarm bell. But his body… his legs locked. His spear-hand was frozen mid-air. The images flooded back—the deafening roar of the massive dinosaur that night, the sickening crunch of bone, the crimson stain spreading across the earth. His mother's eyes, dulling.
I can't breathe. My vision blurs. The air is scraping my lungs as if I'm drowning in dust and iron. I'm paralyzed. Again.
Sweat ran down his temple, blending with the ghost scent of blood. His knees thudded against each other in a violent rhythm. The creature repositioned itself, a predator weighing the final, inevitable leap.
Riku let out a faint, high-pitched whimper. She bound herself closer to the wall, eyes wide and locked onto the eerie yellow hunger inches from her nose.
I clench my fists. I bite down hard on my nails. Pain shot through his own hand. Blood rose. Move. MOVE! But memories' chains bound him, icy and impenetrable.
Scene 3: The Ember Roars
The numbing was cut through by sheer, apocalyptic velocity. A swift, slashing lunge!
The raptor was a flash of scales and muscle. Kaen had time only to glimpse the glint of its fangs falling towards Riku's small, exposed neck. Her lips opened in a silent, last scream, fear fully dilating her pupils.
And in that instant—
A whisper. My mother's dying breath. Louder than the beast's roar, clearer than my own racing heart.
"Don't cry, Kaen. Be someone who guards the weak… My ember."
Something shattered within Kaen. The chains that bound him broke. The ember. It was just a spark once. Now, it burns. Fear did not disappear—it lingered, a burning coil in his gut—but was immediately eclipsed, overpowered by a wave of raw, blinding desperation and fury to defend.
Kaen's eyes flared wide, lit with a fierce, animal light. He didn't reason. He responded. His hand lashed out, grabbing the closest available weapon: thicker, broken wood, an old spear, lying abandoned alongside a pile of rubble. His knuckles turned white as he held it, the splintered wood digging into his skin.
Time expanded and distorted. The fangs of the raptor were almost an inch from Riku's flesh. The deafening thudding of Kaen's own heart overwhelmed all else. His body lurched. A primal, instinctive push forward.
Scene 4: The First Kill
"HRRAAAHH!" Kaen's raw, guttural scream ripped from his throat, splitting the stillness and the chains. He was no longer the crippled boy. He was raw, untempered power.
He rushed forward, the spear flashing out, a wild, fumbling thrust. The beast turned its head—too late. A sickening, wet crunch! The pointed, serrated tip sliced deep into the monster's front left leg. Bone shattered and muscle ruptured. A high-pitched, anguished shriek came from the raptor.
The beast fell, its lunge foiled, claws flailing wildly on the blood-slicked floor as it attempted to maintain balance. It wasn't a clean shot. It was panic. But it worked. Keep moving.
Powered by nothing but instinct, Kaen yanked the spear loose. He disregarded the spray of thick, hot blood that splattered on his face and arms. The coppery scent burned his nostrils. He spun his body, taking the momentum of the pull and slamming the heavy, serrated shaft sideways. A heavier, wet ripping sound.
The edge of the spear tore the other front leg of the beast. The raptor fell totally onto its chest, its legs useless, kicking out only air. A raging, thrashing scream erupted. Furniture crashed as the beast's tail lashed wildly. Don't relent. It's not dying. Keep going. Each wound I bear tonight is a load Riku will not have to bear.
Kaen slashed brutally, harshly. He sliced downward repeatedly, ripping into the monster's rear legs, his attacks motivated by nothing but survival and anger. Blood streaked the walls, the floor turning slick and deadly. His arms screamed with searing exhaustion, his lungs were ripped. But he was a machine now, unable to stop.
With one last, raw shout, Kaen launched the final blow. He brought the spear up high and drove down with all of his last strength. A heavy, muffled THWACK, followed by a gruesome, splintering crack. The point of the spear thrust between the creature's ribs, into its heart.
The dinosaur thrashed, its last scream gagging and gargling, before crashing entirely with a sound that shook the floor. The silence that fell was not the eerie one that comes with dawn, but a weighty, ringing emptiness left in the wake of brutality.
Kaen's chest rose, gasping, painful breaths of air. His hands, still smeared with blood and dirt, shook wildly, hanging onto the spear lodged in the body. His ears were ringing. His eyes blurred with adrenaline. This… this was my first kill. Not an accident. Not a fight for survival. I fought. I killed. And… I won.
His knees folded under the sudden letdown of tension and physical fatigue. The spear slipped from his hand, clattering impotently against the carcass. He stumbled, not toward the body, but toward the corner.
Scene 5: The Embrace
Riku remained frozen, eyes wide, fixed on the smoking, bloodstained weapon beside the dead creature.
When Kaen fell at her feet, a shuddering, desperate heap, the paralysis at last broke.
"Kaen…!" she cried, a sobbing sound.
She rushed upon him. She did not notice the blood on his clothes, on his face. She noticed only deliverance. Kaen grasped her, his arms around her tiny, quivering body, holding her close to his chest. His own body shuddered with a fierce and uncontrollable shaking, not of fear, but with the devastating blow of what he had just endured and accomplished. The blood on his tunic spread onto her back, but she held on to him, a lifeline in the ocean of death.
"I… I thought I was going to die! I thought… they got me…" she choked out, sobbing. Her tears fell into the collar of his shirt.
He hid his face in her hair, eyes closed. The burning in his eyes wasn't from the fight, but from the first real, uncomplicated emotion he had permitted himself to have since the massacre: Relief.
"You're safe. You're safe now. I… I arrived in time," he said, his voice hoarse and breaking.
She just wept louder, holding on to him with desperate force. For several minutes, they sat there, the two little figures clutched in the mangled wreckage, survivors of a horror that had engulfed the world.
Scene 6: Their Burden, Her Love
Once the sobs finally faded into gentle, rattling whimpers, Riku drew back a little. Her red-rimmed, tear-stained eyes scanned his face, trying to make sense of the fire and the weariness she saw.
"Kaen… my parents… they… they're gone," she whispered, cracked. Her words burst out in fractured gasps. "They picked up the axes… called me to run. They attempted to keep the beasts at bay… but then I heard them… their cries…"
She waved in a general direction behind the room, unable to look. "The little one… it was with me. It had me trapped here. I believed… that was over." She glanced down at her hands, guilt replacing fear immediately. Her voice cracked again, small and defeated: "If I weren't here… if I didn't have to be protected… they'd still be alive."
Kaen held her shoulders tight. The shake was still coursing through his system, but his gaze was hot, unwavering. He would not let this idea take hold.
"No. Don't even think about blaming yourself, Riku. Look at me," he said, his voice cutting, with no room for debate. He held her gaze up to his. "They didn't perish due to you. They perished due to monsters invading our home. They perished due to the world being shattered, not due to your presence."
Her lip quivered, but he continued, his tone gentling, appealing to the memory of his own mother's last resilience. "If you're still alive, that means they succeeded. They guarded what was precious to them. That is not your responsibility, Riku. That is their love."
He drew her back into his arms once more, not with desperation at release, but with the firm resolve of a promise newly forged.
"And I'll defend you now. Whatever happens next. I promise it," he whispered, unshaken.
Kaen shut his eyes. He was no longer Kaen. He was the Ember—a flame fired by sacrifice, stoked by fury, and pledged to guard the vulnerable. Outside, the dawn was growing brighter, but the shadow of the fallen beast in the room was long and absolute.