But the sweet dream of Veyor did not last long.

  It shattered.

  Not gently, not gradually, but all at once—like glass struck by force it was never meant to withstand. One moment there was warmth, light, and his mother’s smile preserved in a merciful illusion. The next, reality forced itself back into him with violence.

  He woke up.

  The first thing he felt was heat.

  Not warmth—heat so intense it felt thick, heavy, as if the air itself had weight. It pressed against his skin, filled his lungs, burned at the edges of his awareness. Every breath scraped his throat, carrying the bitter taste of smoke and ash.

  Then came pain.

  Not sharp, not sudden—pain so overwhelming that his mind refused to process it fully. It arrived as pressure, as a deep crushing sensation that made it difficult to understand where his body ended and the ruins around him began.

  He was lying amid burning debris.

  Everything around him was broken.

  Walls that once stood upright were reduced to jagged slabs of concrete and twisted metal. Fire crawled across the remains of furniture, devouring fabric, wood, and anything else that could burn. Sparks drifted through the air like dying embers, settling briefly before vanishing.

  The sky above was barely visible through thick smoke, tinted an unnatural orange by the flames consuming the city.

  Veyor tried to move.

  But he failed.

  His body did not respond the way it should have. The command formed in his mind, traveled partway, and died before it could reach his limbs.

  Then he felt it.

  An iron rod had pierced through his body.

  It entered his right abdomen, tearing through flesh and muscle, and emerged from his back at an angle that made even breathing feel dangerous. Every shallow inhale sent waves of agony through his torso. The rod was still lodged there, pinning him in place like a specimen.

  His lower body was buried.

  Chunks of collapsed wall and shattered concrete pressed down on his legs and waist, trapping him beneath their weight. He could not feel his legs at all. No pain. No sensation. Just absence.

  That absence terrified him more than the pain.

  His vision was blurred, the edges of the world unclear. Shapes shifted and doubled, and the firelight left long streaks as he tried to focus.His head throbbed violently, each heartbeat sending a dull echo through his skull.

  His thoughts slammed against one another, disorganized and loud, yet strangely distant—as if they were happening somewhere slightly outside himself.

  He forced his eyes to focus. Squinting his eyes to avoid the smoke .

  Through the haze, he began to register his surroundings.

  The balcony railing lay twisted nearby, half-melted and bent inward. Pieces of fabric—once clean clothes—were scattered across the rubble, burned into blackened scraps. The ground beneath him was cracked and uneven, fissures running through it where the blast had torn the structure apart.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Flames licked at the edges of fallen beams. Smoke rose in thick columns, carrying the smell of burning metal, plastic, and something far worse—something organic.

  The city was no longer a city.

  It was a grave.

  Then his eyes widened.

  Not from pain.

  From recognition.

  His gaze drifted forward, drawn by something he did not want to see but could not look away from.

  His mother was there.

  She was burning.

  The fire had already taken her life—he knew that instantly. There was no movement, no breath, no sign of survival. And yet, something about her presence struck him harder than the explosion itself.

  Her eyes.

  They were open.

  Not staring blindly. Not glazed over in emptiness.

  They were fixed on him.

  It was impossible. His mind rejected it immediately. The rational part of him screamed that she could not see, could not feel, could not know anything anymore.

  And yet, in that moment, logic had no authority.

  Something about her expression told Veyor that she was still there—still aware, still suffering. It was the opposite of the calm acceptance she had shown moments before the blast. That peaceful smile was gone.

  In its place was something else.

  Pain.

  Not physical pain alone—but awareness.

  Her gaze felt heavy, accusatory, not intentionally, not with hatred, but with unbearable clarity. As if, on some unconscious level, she understood what had happened.

  As if she knew, who to blame.

  Veyor had never told his mother the truth.

  He had never told her that he designed weapons. That he worked on machines built solely to destroy. That his hands, which she once held when he was a child, had drawn blueprints that ended lives.

  To her, he was just a young man doing his duty, sent into the military because the times demanded it.She believed his work was ordinary, difficult perhaps, but nothing beyond what many others were doing to get through the war.

  He had wanted to keep her world small and safe. Free from the weight of things she did not need to carry. Or perhaps—this was harder to admit—he was afraid.

  Afraid she would hate him.

  Afraid she would resent him, feel disgusted by what he had become. Afraid her image of her son would shatter the way the city around him had.

  Or maybe he simply didn’t want to worry her. Didn’t want to burden her with truths that, in his mind, did not affect her directly.

  But now—

  Now the thing Veyor created had taken everything.

  The agent of death he helped design had killed the very person who gave him life.

  In that instant, Veyor lost everything he had ever had.

  Family. Purpose. Justification.

  Only death could have saved him from what he was experiencing.

  But death betrayed him too.

  He was alive.

  Pinned in place. Unable to move. Unable to look away.

  Forced to watch.

  The fire consumed her slowly. Each strand of her hair igniting reminded him of the each screw he tightened. Each piece of her burning body echoed the meticulous care he had put into his work—precision, alignment, efficiency.

  Every bolt he tightened.

  Every system he optimized.

  Every flaw he eliminated.

  They all led here.

  He wanted to close his eyes.

  He could not.

  Whether from shock, damage, or sheer cruelty of circumstance, his body refused him even that mercy. His eyelids trembled but did not fall. He watched everything until the flames reduced what remained to ash.

  Meanwhile.

  High above Valendorian airspace, a missile cut through the sky.

  It had already crossed the boundary.

  Inside the Norvian airbase, alarms blared. Screens flickered with tracking data, red markers converging toward a single incoming trajectory.

  “Sir,” a soldier shouted, fingers flying across controls, “the Valendorian missile is approaching rapidly. We can deflect it using the Aegir Defense Array, but—”

  He hesitated.

  “The surrounding ocean is filled with our ships and allied fleets. We cannot redirect it there without catastrophic losses.”

  The general turned sharply.

  “There has to be somewhere,” he said. “Move the ships. Create space.”

  “Create space?” another officer interjected. “Sir, this isn’t an aircraft—it’s a nuclear missile. The blast radius will cover at least fifteen kilometers.”

  “Ships cannot be displaced that quickly,” the soldier added. “Tens of thousands of our own personnel would die.”

  Silence fell.

  The general’s jaw tightened.

  “We cannot let it hit our mainland,” he said finally. “What is the best option?”

  The room hesitated.

  Then one voice spoke.

  “Our safest option is to redirect it to Cryostroma Vitae Origings.”

  The name hung in the air.

  “It’s isolated. Cold. Far enough that even radiation spread would be minimal. The environment would absorb much of the fallout.”

  “But there is a research team stationed there,” the general said sharply.

  “Yes,” the soldier replied. “nearly a dozen of people.”

  The general stared at the display.

  “You make your choice,” the soldier continued quietly. “A dozen people—or tens of thousands.”

  The general closed his eyes for a brief moment.

  Then opened them.

  “How much time do we have?” he asked.

  “Barely ten minutes.”

  The general exhaled slowly.

  “Connect me to the team at Spawn.”