The world ended in fire.
Not slowly, not gently. It ended in an instant, with skies that glowed brighter than the sun and shadows burned into the walls of cities. Towers crumbled, seas boiled, and millions of voices screamed as the old world devoured itself.
But beneath the ruins of Manila, one young man heard none of it.
The building had fallen around him, a storm of stone and glass crushing his fragile body. He had been weak before the war, his legs useless, his days spent staring at ceilings that offered no escape. And now, buried alive, chest tightening, lungs refusing air—he thought only one thing as darkness claimed him.
Finally... It's over.
And with that, his world went silent.
Above him, the city tore itself apart. Nuclear fire lit the sky, shockwaves split the streets, and the dead fell in uncountable numbers. But he was beyond it all, locked in a tomb of rubble, waiting to be forgotten.
A Year Later
The fire was gone. The screams had faded. What remained was silence.
The Manila skyline was a jagged silhouette, towers bent and broken like the ribs of some colossal beast. Windows hung shattered, glass scattered like frozen rain across the ground. Rust spread like a disease across cars abandoned in the middle of the streets. Their doors were still open, skeletons slumped inside, hands gripping melted steering wheels as if still trying to escape.
The smell of fire had long since vanished, replaced by the stench of rust and ash carried by every gust of wind. Rain fell black, soaking the cracked pavement, dripping down hollow skulls that stared forever at the sky.
Manila was a graveyard—a kingdom of bones.
Beneath the ruins of a collapsed building, the young man's body remained. It should have rotted long ago. His flesh should have fed worms and flies until nothing remained but pale bone. Yet his body endured. Not alive. Not dead.
The radiation that poisoned the air seeped into his veins, his marrow, his cells. Where it killed others, it clung to him, reshaping him. Nerves sparked. Muscles twitched. His heart stopped, then beat again. Over and over, death wrestled with life inside him, until something inhuman clawed its way free.
What the firestorm destroyed, the poison rebuilt.
Thunder rolled across the city—lightning cut through the clouds, casting white veins of light across the ruins. Rain fell in sheets, washing soot from the streets and rattling against rusted steel. Each drop hissed with poison, staining the rivers that carved through the cracked pavement.
And in that storm, buried beneath rubble, the young man opened his eyes. He gasped, lungs flooding with air and dust. His body convulsed violently, choking as though drowning. Hands clawed against stone, nails splitting, skin tearing. Blood smeared across broken concrete as he dragged himself upward, desperate for the light above.
The rubble shifted. Stones tumbled aside. With one final cry, he broke through to the surface.
Rain struck his face like needles, washing away dust and blood. He collapsed to his knees, coughing until his chest burned. His arms trembled, his legs screamed, but for the first time in years, they held. Slowly, shakily, he stood.
Lightning split the sky again, revealing the city spread before him. Towers stretched like broken giants across the horizon. Skeletons filled the cars, the sidewalks, the doorways of collapsed homes. Their empty sockets stared into nothing, silent witnesses to the end of the world.
The young man's reflection flickered in a pool of black water at his feet. A gaunt face stared back, hollow-eyed, veins glowing beneath the skin like cracks of molten light running through stone. His clothes hung in tatters—sleeves shredded, fabric eaten by time and ash, until only rags clung to his body.
He lifted his hands. Skin torn, nails broken, veins glowing faintly like molten rivers refusing to die.
For a long moment, he could only stare, shivering, rain dripping from his hair into his hollow eyes.
Then a whisper escaped his lips:
"What.. Am I?"
"What... have I become?"