The sky had long lost its familiar blue; now bearing the color of a fresh bruise, purple and packed with clouds, thick with the soot of a thousand burning cities.
Explosions rocked both the heavens and the earth like supernovas, and life dimmed from the eyes of both allies and enemies in droves.
"You traitor!"
An enraged shout came from below, and a man took to the sky with speed that left sonic booms in his wake. His fist collapsed on the face of a Veyruun, shooting the alien down and burying him numerous feet below.
BOOOM!
A large crater bloomed at the point of impact, the shockwaves pulverizing every structure and living being in its path.
"You bastards! After all we've done for you!!!"
The hoarse roar of the man was accompanied by his fist coming down upon the bleached-bone-looking Veyruun.
BOOM!
The crater widened even more, and even the earth groaned in pain... Or maybe that was just his ears playing tricks on him. However, the Veyruun was no longer there.
"They are the inevitable, Elias!" The Veyruun roared, his voice amplified by pure panic. "Why do you burn the world just to delay the sunset? Let it go! We did, and we can keep our lives!"
"You sold your souls for a front-row seat to a massacre! The massacre of the people who saved your pathetic lives!" Elias spat, pushing himself up.
"I did what was necessary for my people and our survival. Ve'er fell! Earth would be no different!" The Veyruun shot back, the locks of hair-like flesh on his head straightening up into spikes..
"Curse you and your damned people." Elias growled in disgust.
He didn't waste words. He lunged.
The two powerhouses collided like tectonic plates.
The Veyruun's telekinesis shattered the street beneath them, sending slabs of asphalt flying like shrapnel. At the same time, the spikes on its head shot out like spears, trying to overwhelm Elias with the combined assault.
Elias countered with his fists, muscles coiling and relaxing with each movement. He didn't need a weapon... His body was his weapon.
But things were not looking good for humanity, and Elias knew that. He was powerful, but their enemies were even more so.
He was hailed as humanity's strongest, but even amongst the Veyruuns there were some close to his level of strength, not to mention their main enemies — the Nephilims.
He knew the Veyruun was right. Earth had no hope of ever overcoming the Nephilims, but they wouldn't just offer themselves up to the slaughter.
Yet, in a twist of events, the same damned race they had sheltered... The same damned race that had brought the Nephilim to their doorstep in the first place, had been the ones to open their defenses and allow the devils in.
Below him, New York, just like every other place on Earth, was a graveyard of rebar and bone.
Alien vessels—monoliths of obsidian and shifting geometry—didn't fly so much as they tore through the atmosphere, leaving jagged rifts of static in their wake.
Humans fought desperately against beasts, Veyruuns, and Nephilims.
Despite knowing that there was no point in fighting, they still fought.
Even those who had never held a blade in their life — civilians who were lucky or unlucky enough to still be alive until now — threw themselves into battle like moths to a flame.
They cursed, they cried, but they never stopped fighting.
Was it vengeance? Anger? Self-mockery because they had remained weak and were still weak? A last moment of bravery?
No one had the answer to that.
Suddenly, a shadow larger than a continent fell over them, blocking out the sun... The Nephilims had grown tired of the resistance.
High above the stratosphere, the obsidian monoliths began to rotate, aligning their points toward the Earth's core.
The hum of their vessels caused the atmosphere to whistle—a high, mournful sound as the oxygen itself was sucked into the vacuum of their weapons' charge.
Elias turned to look up at the sky, staring at the face of certain death, and couldn't hold himself back from deep, rumbling laughter.
"Do you see it?" He sneered at the Veyruun, who had a look of horror as they stared at the black sky.
"How pitiful." He spat, turning his gaze away from the sky, and to the mess that had become of Earth. "All this destruction and suffering, only for them to turn their back on you too. Karma sure is a bitch."
His voice carried exhausted anger, hatred, and most of all... resignation.
It started at the poles. The Earth didn't just break; it unspooled. Deep subterranean groans, louder than any thunder, shook the very fabric of reality. The oceans boiled and were flung into space as the crust began to peel away from the mantle.
Elias felt gravity fail. He floated, surrounded by the debris of a civilization that had spent thousands of years building and barely ten minutes dying.
A child's teddy bear, already in flames, drifted past a jagged chunk of the moon. And for a while, he found himself almost unable to tear his gaze away from it.
He closed his eyes as the wave of destruction closed in on him.
In his final heartbeat, he didn't feel rage or the fire of his power. Instead, he felt a profound, aching silence.
A white light erupted from the Earth's core, intensifying in seconds, until it was the only thing visible in existence.
Then, with a sound that no ear would survive to hear, the Earth became a brilliant, expanding ring of light that...
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
The shrill scream of the alarm cut through the haze of Conrad's nightmare, jolting him awake.
Beads of perspiration rolled down his face, and even his ash-colored hair was thoroughly soaked through.
He remained still for some seconds, as his breathing steadily regulated, before getting off his bed like nothing had happened.
Eyes still closed, he made his way toward the bathroom to prepare for the day.
His reactions were quite muted and nonchalant for someone who had just witnessed the end of the world in his dreams. But it was quite expected when this wasn't the first time, nor the second... Not even the twentieth time it had occurred.
Rather, for two whole months now, he had witnessed said destruction in different versions and forms, behind his eyelids that never opened, whenever his consciousness went to bed.
That was the curse of his eyes... The curse of his being.