Pain woke him.
Not the sharp sting of a cut or the dull ache of a headache - this was burning. His whole body was burning. His ears rang with a high endless whine swallowing all other sound. He was lying on something hard, something pressed against his chest, making breathing feel like work.
The air was filled with smoke and ash. Tasted like copper.
Where-?
What-?
The thoughts came slow.
He tried to move. His left arm responded, but his right - trapped. He turned his head, sent more ash tumbling. Through the haze, he could make out shapes: broken wood, chunks of concrete, something that might have been part of a wall.
The ringing in his ears made it hard to think. He pulled his right arm. Felt pain and resistance. Pulled harder. Something shifted. Pain lanced through his shoulder, but his arm came free.
Both hands were burned. The skin was red, blistered, worst across his palms. He stared at them for a moment - his hands, but damaged - before the pain fully registered.
He needed to get up.
Pushing against the debris, he felt it shift. The weight on his chest eased. He dragged himself forward, inch by inch, until he was clear. Every movement sent fresh waves of pain through his hands.
Finally, he was free. He lay on his back, breathing hard, staring up at-
The ceiling was gone.
Where there should have been plaster and light fixtures, there was just... nothing. A hole. Beyond it, sky filled with smoke and ashes.
He sat up slowly. His head swam. The ringing in his ears was still there, constant, drowning out everything else.
He was in a room. Or what used to be a room.
Everything was covered in gray dust, so thick it looked like snow. The walls were cracked, some sections missing entirely. Rubble everywhere - chunks of ceiling, broken furniture, shattered glass.
Through the dust, he recognized shapes. The corner of a couch, cushions torn and burned. A bookshelf, toppled, its contents scattered. A television, screen shattered, half-buried in debris.
This was... This had been...
His living room.
The thought came with a spike of confusion. What happened? A gas explosion? An earthquake?
But the sky. That black sky.
And the silence. Even through the ringing in his ears, he could tell there was no sound. No car alarms. No sirens. No voices calling for help.
Nothing.
"Mom?"
His voice sounded strange. Muffled, like he was underwater. He tried again, louder.
"Mom! Sara!"
Nothing. Just that terrible silence.
He stood there, legs shaking.
His burned hands throbbed with his heartbeat. He had to find them. They had to be here. They were always here at night. Mom in her room, Sara with her, him on the couch because he'd fallen asleep watching-
What had he been watching?
He couldn't remember.
He stumbled forward, through the wreckage of the living room toward the hallway. Or where the hallway should be. The walls were cracked, listing at angles. Doors hung off hinges.
"Mom!"
Please answer. Please.
His foot caught on something. He looked down.
A stuffed rabbit.
It was burned. One of its ears was gone, and the fur was singed black in places.
His hands started shaking.
He found them in Sara's room.
The doorway was barely there. Charred wood. A crooked frame. The ceiling had collapsed inward, crushing the bed beneath layers of concrete and dust.
For a moment, the room looked empty.
Then his eyes adjusted.
There was a shape on the floor.
His mother lay beside the bed. On her side. Her body was curled inward, turned toward the wall, arms wrapped tightly around something held against her chest.
He took a step closer.
Sara.
His mother's body was burned beyond recognition. The fire had erased her face, her skin, the familiar shape of her. There was nothing left that looked alive. Nothing that looked human.
She should not have been able to move.
But her arms were still there.
Still holding.
Sara was pressed against her chest. Her mouth was still latched.
Still drawing.
Feeding.
He stood there, unable to move.
The ringing in his ears swelled until it felt like pressure, like something about to burst. The room tilted. He grabbed the door frame, breath hitching as pain flared through his burned hands.
"Mom?"
The word came out small.
Quieter than before.
Because he already knew.
He stepped into the room. His legs carried him forward without asking. He knelt beside them.
His mother's eyes were closed. Dust clung to her face, settled into her hair. For a second - just a second - she almost looked like she was sleeping.
Except-
"Mom. Wake up."
He reached out, hands shaking, and touched her shoulder.
She was cold.
Cold.
Sara was still in her arms. His little sister. Her face turned away, pressed into their mother's chest, like she had been shielded when-
When it happened.
Whatever it was.
"No," he whispered. Then again. "No. No."
He wanted to pull them apart. To shake them. To make them move. But his hands wouldn't obey him. The burns. And something else, deeper. A weight that pinned him in place.
This wasn't real.
This couldn't be real.
He didn't know how long he sat there.
Time felt broken. Seconds stretched into minutes. Minutes collapsed into nothing at all.
At some point, he reached out and took Sara's hand.
It was small. Cold. Still.
He held it carefully, afraid of squeezing too hard with his burned palms. Afraid of hurting her.
Like it still mattered.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. To Sara. To his mom. To both of them. "I'm sorry I wasn't- I didn't-"
Didn't what?
Save them?
He didn't even know what had happened. One moment he'd been on the couch, half asleep, the television murmuring in the background. Then-
Nothing.
Just waking up to this.
Slowly, gently, he let go of Sara's hand. It slipped back into the stillness of the room. He looked at his mother's face one last time. Tried to fix it in his mind. Tried to remember her smiling. Laughing. Alive.
His throat tightened. His eyes burned.
No tears came.
Just a vast, empty ache spreading outward from his chest, hollowing him from the inside.
He stood up.
The movement felt mechanical. Like his body was doing it without asking him.
There was nothing he could do for them now.
The thought should have shattered him.
Instead, he felt nothing at all.
Just hollow.
He left the room. Didn't look back. Couldn't.
The hallway was worse than he remembered. More collapsed. He had to climb over debris to reach what used to be the front of the apartment.
The door was gone entirely. Just a frame, opening onto-
He stepped through and stopped.
The world was gone.
That was the only way his mind could process it.
His building - a four story apartment complex - was partially collapsed. The top two floors had caved in. Across the street, other buildings were just... rubble. Piles of concrete and twisted metal. Some still burning with fires that sent black smoke into the orange sky.
The street itself was cratered, buckled, impassable. Cars were overturned, burned out husks. Bodies-
He looked away.
The sky was wrong. Dark, even though his internal clock said it should be morning. The sun was there, but barely visible through the smoke. A dim red circle, like watching through tinted glass.
Ash fell like snow. Gentle, almost peaceful. It covered everything in gray.
In the distance - north, he thought, though directions felt meaningless now - there was a glow on the horizon. Orange and sickly yellow, like a sunset that wouldn't end. Heat shimmer in the air.
South, the same glow.
East. West.
Every direction.
What could do this?
He stood at the edge of the rubble, staring out at the destruction.
This wasn't a gas leak. Not an earthquake. Not an accident.
The buildings. The fires. The sky. The heat.
The silence.
No sirens. No helicopters. No rescue teams.
Because there was no one left to rescue them.
The thought dropped into his mind like a stone into still water.
This was everywhere. This was... everything.
How many people lived in this city? Hundreds of thousands. Millions, maybe.
All gone.
His legs gave out. He sat down hard on a chunk of concrete, barely felt the impact. His burned hands hung limp in his lap.
Mom. Sara.
Gone.
Everyone.
Everyone was-
Something in his chest cracked.
Not his ribs. Something deeper.
His breath hitched. Once. Twice.
And then he was shaking. His whole body trembling like he was freezing, even though the air was warm. Too warm.
A sound escaped him. Not quite a sob. More like air being forced from his lungs.
Sara. She'd just turned two. She'd clapped her tiny hands at the sprinkles on her birthday cake, smeared frosting all over her face, giggled until she hiccupped.
That was three weeks ago.
Three weeks.
He pressed his burned palms to his face, barely felt the pain.
The world blurred. His eyes were wet.
Everything was-
Gone.
He didn't know how long he sat there.
The ash kept falling. The fires kept burning. The sky stayed that horrible orange.
And the silence-
Wait.
He lifted his head.
Through the ringing in his ears, through the sound of distant fires crackling, through everything-
Voices.
Faint. Muffled. But there.
Human voices.
He held his breath, straining to hear.
There. To the east. Maybe two streets over. People talking. Maybe arguing.
Other survivors.
He wasn't alone.
The thought hit him like electricity. His body moved before his mind caught up. He stood, stumbled forward over the rubble, toward the voices.
Toward other human beings.
Toward anything that wasn't this crushing, terrible silence.
[End Of Chapter - 1]