The city didn't move. At least, not in any way Kieran recognized. Dust hung in the air, thick and lazy, coating his throat with grit every time he breathed. Concrete dust, glass shards, burnt asphalt—everything smelled wrong, as if the streets themselves had been dragged through fire and then frozen. He coughed, once, twice, and then willed himself to silence. Panic was a luxury he couldn't afford—not yet.
His hands shook. The heat on his back had gone cold, but the mark remained, faintly glowing beneath his shirt, pulsing like a heartbeat. He pressed a finger to it, half expecting it to burn him again, but it was just warmth now, insistent and alive. He didn't understand it. Not really. Not yet. But he felt it—this was no ordinary scar, no simple injury. Something had claimed him, and he didn't know why.
The woman's body lay a few feet away, broken and still. He forced himself to look, even though nausea rose like tidewater in his stomach. Her legs were crushed under the rubble, an unnatural angle that made him recoil. There was nothing left to do for her. Nothing he could do. The thought should have shattered him, but another part of him—the part that had always wanted to disappear—acknowledged something cruelly simple: he had survived. And now, the world expected him to survive again. Somehow.
He stumbled over to a car that had flipped onto its side, glass scattered like glitter beneath the fractured sky. His reflection shimmered in the window, distorted and broken. There was panic in his eyes, yes, but there was also recognition—he was no longer just Kieran Vale, the boy who wandered the city unnoticed. He was… something else. He didn't know the word for it yet, and that terrified him almost as much as the memory of the falling concrete.
Movement caught his eye. Across the street, a man crawled out from beneath a heap of twisted metal. His clothes were torn, face streaked with blood, but he was alive. And he was looking at Kieran. Not with fear, not with anger. With curiosity. Like he had been expecting him.
Kieran froze. Instinct screamed to turn, to run, to hide somewhere dark and small, but his feet didn't move. The man's lips parted, forming words that should have been impossible in this chaos.
"You felt it, didn't you?"
Kieran's throat tightened. "Felt… what?" The words sounded hollow, even to him.
The man pushed himself upright, revealing a faint glow under his own shirt, a mark on his chest that mirrored Kieran's. Not the same shape—different—but unmistakable. Alive, pulsing, like some secret rhythm only the marked could hear.
"You were chosen," the man said. His voice was calm, unnervingly so, like he had rehearsed this moment for years. "Just like me. Just like them." He gestured vaguely behind him, toward the fractured city streets. "You saw it. You moved. You survived. That's what it does. That's what it always does."
Kieran's stomach churned. "Who… who are you?"
The man didn't answer. Instead, he took a step closer, limping slightly from an injury Kieran didn't notice at first. "Names don't matter," he said. "Not here. Not anymore. What matters is the mark—and the cost it demands."
Kieran's gaze flicked toward the glowing sky again. The fractures had widened. Streams of unnatural light spilled into the streets, highlighting the impossible geometry of the wrecked city. Cars leaned at angles that defied physics. Buildings seemed to fold in on themselves, and yet, in some cruel balance, nothing fell further. Not yet.
He swallowed. "Cost?" His voice was barely more than a whisper. "I—I don't understand."
The man's eyes darkened. "You will. Soon enough. The first mark doesn't teach you gently. It teaches through the world itself. And the world…" He paused, voice dropping to a near hiss. "The world will take what it needs."
Kieran's knees threatened to buckle. Every instinct told him to flee, to hide, to bury his head and pretend this hadn't happened. And yet, he couldn't move. Not when the mark burned softly beneath his shirt, reminding him that he was tethered to something vast, something unknowable. Something alive.
A sudden screech of metal made him spin. A streetlight, twisted and half-toppled, groaned as it gave way entirely, crashing to the ground with a force that rattled the nearby buildings. Debris scattered, dust stinging his eyes. The man grabbed Kieran's shoulder, firm, almost demanding attention.
"They're coming," he said, a note of urgency breaking through the calm for the first time. "They always come. And if you aren't ready… if you don't understand… you'll be next."
Kieran's stomach flipped. "Who? What do you mean 'they'?" Panic clawed at his chest, but a strange clarity cut through it, sharp and undeniable: he couldn't ignore the mark, couldn't ignore what he had seen. The sky. The vision. The slab of concrete. It was all tied together. He was tied to it. And if he didn't move, he would die—again.
The man let go, letting Kieran's hands drop to his sides. "You have one choice, Vale," he said, voice low, almost conspiratorial. "Learn, or be consumed. Survive, or watch everything you love crumble."
Kieran's heart pounded in his ears. His breath came in ragged gasps. The fractured sky above pulsed like a living thing, as if the world itself were counting down, measuring him, judging him. And deep in the marrow of his bones, Kieran knew that nothing—not hunger, not fear, not the city's indifferent streets—had ever mattered like this.
He had been chosen.
And now, the world was coming for him.
A sound, faint but distinct, drew his attention. A whisper, carried on the unnatural wind that hummed between the buildings. It wasn't a voice he recognized. It didn't speak words he could understand. But it carried a weight that made his skin crawl. And it came closer.
Closer.
Kieran's breath caught. His instincts screamed. He turned, and the shadows beneath the fractured light moved in ways that no human should be able to move. Shapes emerged—too tall, too quick, too deliberate. They watched him. Waiting. Patient. Hungry.
The mark throbbed harder. Warmth spread through his chest and back, like it was alive, urging him to act, to run, to fight, to do something. Anything.
And in that moment, Kieran Vale realized the truth of what Chapter One had only hinted at: surviving the first collapse was the easy part. What came next would demand everything.
Everything.
And then, the nearest shadow shifted, detaching from the rest like a predator stalking its prey.
Kieran's heart froze.
The world was no longer just fractured. It was hunting him.