[Born from a tiny egg, the firefly begins life as a voracious larva. For two full years, it hunts in the leaf litter, a humble and earthbound creature. This long apprenticeship is a stark contrast to its fleeting adult glory. After finally pupating, it emerges with wings and a radiant abdomen, ready to perform its luminous dance. Yet this brilliant stage lasts a mere two weeks. In that short span of time, it must find a mate, continue its lineage, and complete a life defined by patient waiting and ephemeral beauty. How romantic!]
- Thouhal Lynn.
The engine on my bench coughs smoke into my face again. I don't bother waving it away. The vents in this stall haven't worked in months, and the owner long stopped pretending they ever would. District 12 air always tastes like rust and burnt oil anyway. One more lungful won't change anything.
The screws are stripped, the casing dented in places that look suspiciously like knuckle-marks. I fish out a cracked gear with tweezers, wiping it clean on the same rag I use for everything like grease, blood, sometimes tears that aren't mine. The stains all blend together in the end.
Outside the thin metal shutter, the street murmurs its usual chorus with hurried footsteps, arguments, a brief scream swallowed immediately by silence. The usual rhythm of a place where everyone moves fast because slowing down feels like inviting something to notice you.
A customer stands across from me, arms folded, eyes darting to the alley every few seconds. He tries not to shake, but the twitch in his thumb gives him away. I keep my eyes on the engine. People don't like being seen like that. Makes them think you're counting the minutes with them.
The gear has a hairline crack running along its center. I can fix it. Probably. At least long enough for him to get wherever he thinks he needs to go. I solder it back into place, the metal glowing faintly. For a second, the reflection in the polished surface looks almost alive–tired eyes, dirt smudges, a face to read dread similar to some read newspapers.
The man sets payment on the counter before I finish. Little metal tokens, stamped anonymously. They clink against the table. I don't ask. I just push them into the box under the desk with the others.
He snatches the engine the moment I set it down, whispers something that might be thanks or might be a prayer and bolts out the door. By the time I look up, he's already vanished into the fog, swallowed whole like everyone eventually is.
I sit back, listening to the ticking of something broken in the back room. Maybe a clock. Maybe something that used to be a clock before someone brought it in missing too many pieces.
There's a sensation that curls in my stomach sometimes, cold and familiar. It's feel like a hand taps my shoulder from somewhere behind time.
Not today.
But soon.
I pick up the next broken part. It's comforting, in a way. Between the gears and wires, there's a kind of honesty. Machines don't lie about how close they are to failure.
People do.
I wipe my hands on the rag again, though it does nothing but smear the grease around. My stomach gives a small, hollow churn. It's more of a habit than hunger. Dinner… I hadn't thought that far. Most days, I grab whatever's cheapest on the way home and call it good enough. District 12 cuisine is mostly "edible" so my expectations stay low.
But today–
I pause, almost surprised that the thought even arrives.
Sis is home.
She actually is, for once. Not miles away in that district her job keeps dragging her to, sleeping on breakroom couches because coming back here takes too long. She sent a message this morning, quick and bright, saying she'd finally gotten a few days off. Said she'd cook.
I try to imagine what she's making.
Something warm, probably. Something she remembers our mother cooking or at least felt like it. Maybe stew. Maybe those little fried rice cakes she insists she can make "just like the old days," even though they always come out slightly burned.
I smile a little at that. Sis tries. She always tries and most of the time fails horribly.
The shutter rattles behind me. Heavy footsteps follow. My boss.
He steps inside, wiping sweat from his brow, his coat hanging crooked on his shoulders.. Middle-aged, stiff-legged, muttering complaints about this district the same way others talk about the weather.
"Lazarus," he says, voice low and brisk, "we're closing the shop early today."
I spin a bolt between my fingers. "Did anything happen?"
He snorts. "Big fight going on near this street. Real big. Don't know which clowns started it this time–Rats, Syndicate, some Office showing off, who knows. But we're not risking our lives, now are we?"
"Guess not." I start putting tools into their drawer. "What about my pay today?"
"I'll put it into your account," he says, grimacing as if the words taste bad. "I know you prefer cash, but I can't. Not today."
Figures. Creds in an account feel less real. But arguing won't change anything, so I don't.
He watches me pack my things in silence until I swing my bag over my shoulder. Then he snaps his fingers like he just remembered something.
"Oh, and another thing," he said. "Tell your sister I say hi."
"She won't hear it."
Then I walk out into the streets.
I take the usual route home, hands shoved into my pockets, head down.
Clank, clank. Thub–thub. The familiar rhythm of pipes, clubs, and wooden planks smashing against bone or walls or both. I don't even need to look.
Just another brawl among the rats again. Those bastards never get tired of it. Maybe because living here turns everyone rabid sooner or later. Maybe because District 12's been getting more hellish by the day, more hungry mouths for whatever scraps of territory were left after L Corp collapsed into that smoking crater of "unknown reasons."
I sigh, turn on my heel, and take the other direction. Not worth getting dragged in.
But as soon as I start moving, I almost collide with someone.
A tall shadow cutting across the alley's dim lights.
A man.
Well-built, towering, radiating a confidence I can practically feel through the air. Blue, short, spiky hair. Red sunglasses reflecting the flickering neon signs. Skin tan, tattoos curling over his arms and shoulders. He's got a sword sheathed at his side. It's big, loud and noticeable. No sane person carries something like that here unless they want trouble.
He strides past me like the street belongs to him, holding a battered handheld loudspeaker in one hand.
Then he flips it on.
"HEY! HEY! HEY! YOU IDIOTS! STOP FIGHTING RIGHT NOW! I SAID BEAT IT, ALL OF YOU!"
The scrap in the alley actually falters. Even the rats are confused.
"IF I CATCH ANOTHER SWING, I'M GONNA RAM YOUR SKULLS TOGETHER."
Someone whimpers. Another drops their pipe.
"GO HOME! TOUCH SOME GRASS–HELL, TOUCH A BRICK IF YOU CAN'T FIND GRASS IN THIS PLACE! AND STOP FIGHTIN' !"
He marches straight through the middle of them without hesitation, like he's walking across an empty street and not a minefield of desperate, twitchy nobody.
I just stand there, staring.
And this guy doesn't even spare me a glance.
Just keeps yelling at the mob.
I blink, unsure if I'm hallucinating from exhaustion from work.
Who the hell… is that guy?
He doesn't stop at breaking up the fight.
The man plants himself in the middle of the alley like he's about to announce festival dates instead of interrupting an attempted homicide. He lifts the loudspeaker and blasts loud enough to rattle windows.
"LISTEN UP! THERE'S A CONSTRUCTION SITE TWO BLOCK OVER LOOKIN' FOR WORKERS! THEY PAY BY THE DAY! ANY OF YOU BONEHEADS GOT LIMBS STILL ATTACHED–CONGRATULATIONS, YOU'RE HIRED!"
A beat of stunned silence.
He barrels on.
"INSTEAD OF SMACKIN' EACH OTHER WITH SCRAP METAL, SMACK SOME CEMENT INTO A WALL! BUILD SOMETHIN'! GROW SOME MUSCLE THAT ISN'T JUST FROM SWINGIN' A RUSTY PIPE!"
Someone actually raises a hand halfway like they're in a classroom before realizing how stupid that feels.
"YEAH, YOU! YOU LOOK LIKE YOU CAN LIFT A BEAM! GET YOUR ASS OVER THERE TOMORROW MORNING!"
Nobody in District 12 talks like that.
Nobody acts like that.
Nobody looks trouble in the eye and tells it to get a job.
And the worst part?
They're listening.
The thugs, the desperate, the doomed.
They're shifting awkwardly, scratching at their necks, muttering to each other
This lunatic walks on like he's fixed some minor neighborhood inconvenience.
I stare after him, trying to process what I just saw.
Just some weird dude, I decide. Some absolute madman with more confidence than sense. Some guy from somewhere safer, richer, brighter. Someone who doesn't understand how easily people die here in the backstreet.
Someone who doesn't understand how easily I could die here.
But he keeps walking, loud and blazing and impossible to ignore.
How can people like him even survive in the City?
That thought sticks to me like iron filings to a magnet, irritating and impossible to brush off. A man like that should've been swallowed whole the moment he set foot out into the backstreet. People die here for looking in the wrong alley for too long, for saying the wrong thing to the wrong drunk, for breathing when someone else decides they shouldn't. He should already be a smear on the pavement, a corpse for the sweeper to clean.
But he isn't.
He walks on as if the City bends around him instead of the other way around.
I shake my head, hard, as I can rattle the image loose. I shouldn't linger on him. That kind of thinking pulls you toward places you don't come back from. Curiosity gets people killed. Admiration even faster.
I'm going home to nothing special, nothing changing, nothing improving. I'm a cog that slipped out of the machine and landed in the gutter.
I keep walking, and yet the questions gather like mold along the edges of my thoughts.
How do you live a life in this place?
Am I living an average life?
Of course not. I'm living something below a dog's life. At least dogs in the Nests get fed.
My boots slap through puddles that might be water, might be chemicals, might be someone's blood. Filth piles in corners like it's trying to climb its way out of the district. The neon signs buzz, dying, flickering, stuttering like they want me to join them.
Is Sis living a normal life?
If dragging herself out of bed at 5 AM for a job that keeps her until 10 PM counts as "normal," then yes, she's perfectly normal. If working until your body gives out is normal. If getting paid less than what a syndicate grunt would make for one courier job is normal.
Neither of us gets to choose.
People talk about choosing your path like it's some great City virtue. But choice belongs to Wings. To Offices with enough clout. To people who can afford the illusion.
I thought once—back in those rare hopeful years—that maybe I should've stayed in school. Maybe gotten higher education. Maybe become something respectable.
But that thought dies fast every time. Higher education just means becoming another feather on a Wing's back, another tool sharpened for someone else's purpose. People who ask "why" in this world end up "missing." They don't like the curious.
So I don't ask "why."
But today, against my better judgment, something small and stupid sprouts in my skull anyway.
If people like him can shout into a street full of killers and walk away alive…
…then what does that make the rest of us?
And why does that hurt to think about?
After a while, after the noise of the street dies behind me and the stench thins just enough to breathe properly, I find myself standing in front of the apartment complex.
"Complex" is generous.
It's low-income housing in the way a corpse is "resting." More slum than anything. A block of concrete patched with metal sheets, buzzing with the sickly hum of faulty lights. Rust crawls down the walls, and half of the windows are either barred or replaced with tarp. People here joke that the building's only still standing because it's still got a building permit from the head.
I walk in through the hallway. The motion sensor light flickers, considers turning on, then gives up.
At the elevator, I fish my ID card out of my pocket. The plastic is cracked, the corner frayed. Been scanned too many times by machines that hate their jobs as much as people do. I press it against the reader. The panel beeps, lagging a second before the doors groan open.
Up to floor 15.
The ride is slow. It always is. The elevator shudders halfway up, like it's debating if today is a good day to drop me down the shaft. But it steadies, begrudgingly, and when the doors slide open, a stale draft meets me.
I walk past the peeling wallpaper, counting the doors. 151… 153… 155.
Home.
The lock sticks, like it always does. I tug harder, and it clicks open.
Warm air drifts out.
Something like… broth.
I step inside.
Sis is asleep at the living room table, slumped forward with her cheek pressed against her folded arms. Her hair is messy, her jacket still halfway on, like she came home and didn't even make it to the couch. The overhead light catches the tired shadows under her eyes.
On the table sits a pot. A warm one. Steam still curling faintly from the broth. Inside, noodles swim lazily, two halved eggs bobbing on the surface.
It's not what I imagined.
I thought she'd make one of those old dishes she tried so hard to recreate like rice cakes or that stew from childhood.
But instead.
Just noodles.
Simple. Cheap. Easy.
And she hasn't even eaten any. The bowl beside the pot is empty. Untouched.
She must've waited for me.
Waited too long.
I stand there for a moment, the door still halfway open behind me, letting the hallway's cold draft slip in. Something in my chest twists.
She got a rare day off… and this is how she spent it.
Alone at a table, waiting for me, until exhaustion dragged her under.
I close the door quietly.
"Sis, wake up… I'm home."
I place a hand on her shoulder and gently shake.
She stirs, blinking herself awake before stretching her arms trying to shake off sleep.
"Oh–welcome home!" she says around a tired yawn, her voice warm but thin. In the dim light, I notice the dark bags under her eyes–deeper than ever.
"Sis… you shouldn't wait for me to come back just to eat," I say, lowering my bag onto the floor. "If it takes too long, you should start without me."
She waves her hand dismissively, but it trembles.
"No waaay. Eating alone tastes lonely! Besides–" She suddenly perks up, reaching for a small paper bag on the table. "Look, look! I got you more medicine! This time it's the bolus kind from H Corp!"
I sigh.
"Sis… you should spend the money you earn on yourself. My illness isn't going away."
"It is curable!" she insists, leaning forward. "If we just save up enough, we can bring you to one of the Wings–one of the nests that specializes in treatment. They can fix things normal clinics can't."
"It's impossible."
I take the pot of noodles–still warm because she must've been reheating it again and again–and scoop some into her bowl.
"For folks like us."
Her lips press into a thin line. And though she starts eating like I asked, she doesn't look convinced.
We eat together in silence for a while.
The noodles are already getting soggy, but neither of us complains. The eggs are overboiled to the point the yolks crumble like chalk. Sis blows on her spoon even though the food's barely warm.
"This one tastes better than last time," she says, trying to sound cheerful.
"You say that every time," I reply.
"Well–maybe I'm improving," she insists, though she pokes at the noodle like she's not entirely convinced.
When we finish, I take the bowls and head to the sink. She tries to stop me, but gently—like she already knows she can't win.
"I'll do the dishes," I tell her. "You cooked."
"I boiled water and dropped noodles in–"
"And that counts."
I turn the faucet. Water dribbles out for two seconds, then sputters into a harsh metallic coughing.
I try again.
Nothing.
Sis lets out a small sigh through her nose. "Did they cut it early today? I thought we still had half an hour…"
"Guess they changed the schedule," I say, though we both know they don't have a schedule. Or if they do, they don't care enough to follow it.
I tap the faucet once more out of habit then give up.
"Well… I'll wash these tomorrow morning," I say, setting the bowls back down. "If the pressure comes back."
She nods tiredly. "Mmm. We should also… maybe shower… if the water comes back."
Her voice trails off, and she rubs her neck like she already knows how that's going to go.
Neither of us smells bad, exactly. Just… stale. A day's worth of sweat sticking to our skin. The kind that's normal around here.
"Yeah," I say. "If."
I push the door to my tiny room closed once I'm inside. The damp smell of the building and the faint buzz of a flickering light feel heavy like the walls press in when you've nowhere else to go. I lean against the door, catch my breath… and then it happens.
A cough.
"KOFF"
Soft, but awful. I clamp my hand over my mouth just as the first rust-colored flecks hit my palm.
My heart jumps. Not now. Not in front of her.
I shove the hand inside my shirt to hide the blood. The rag I carry smells like grease and old oil, but right now it's all I have. I dab at my lips, then ball the rag and stuff it inside the pocket of my coat. Tight enough to stay, hidden enough to pretend nothing happened.
I stay still for a long moment. My lungs feel like they're filled with ash.
There's a hollow weight in my chest like something inside me just… gave up.
I think about the broken pipes outside, the fights on the street, the nights without hot water or even enough water to stand under. I think about all the times I told myself I'd get better once I had enough money but every month, we're still scraping by. And now… now this cough feels like a clock winding down.
What happens when you know you're dying slowly? When your body betrays you.
Do you keep going because there's hope or because you're too used to the gray dream to fight for anything else?
The kind of people who survive around here. They don't ask that question. I feel it curling in my bones.
Maybe I've already lost more than I ever had.
Sometimes I wonder if tomorrow's even worth waking up for. Life's been cheap for so long. What's one more day if all it brings is the same tired breath and empty hands?
A second cough rattles my ribs.
Louder.
Quieter.
I press my forehead against the wall. Cold concrete that smells of damp. The ceiling light flickers above me.
One of the bulbs buzzes. It's barely staying alive.
I don't call out. I don't cry. I don't reach for anything.
When you admit you're broken… you give them reason to leave you behind.
So I stay silent.
I swallow, careful. The rag in my pocket is damp. I don't know how long it will hold.
I don't know how long I will hold.
The phone on my bedside table buzzes once then again.
Nobody calls me. Nobody should call me.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, smear dark red across my wrist, and force myself toward the table. The screen flickers.
Electra.
My stomach knots. I pick it up anyway.
"Lazarus," her voice comes through flat like she's reading a report while staring at a corpse. "Electra here. I've found your little sister's killer. The one who killed Mary."
The words hit harder than the coughing ever could. My throat seizes.
A violent cough rips out of me — wet, gurgling, unstoppable. Blood splashes onto the floor, the edge of the table, my bare feet.
But I don't drop the phone.
I hold it tighter.
"Give… give me that person's location."
My voice is shredded, barely human.
There's a pause on the line. A soft exhale, almost pity or annoyance. Hard to tell with Electra.
As I press my blood-stained hand to my chest, something ugly coils in me.
When did life go wrong?
Was it when L Corp's Nest collapsed and crushed everything we had under debris and lies?
Was it when Mom and Dad died coughing on the same toxic dust the Old L corp swore it had no effect on the human body?
Was it when Mary — little Mary — disappeared on her way back from school, only for me and Martha to find her body hours later in a gutter?
Or maybe it was somewhere earlier — something quieter — like the moment I first learned hope is a luxury people like us can't afford.
Electra's voice cuts through my thoughts:
"Lazarus, the one who killed your sister is a capo of the Thumb. I've mailed you every piece of evidence linking him to Mary's death."
A rustle of paper. A click of her keyboard.
"But listen to me. He's strong. Well-protected. Surrounded by subordinates. If you walk into this, you will die."
"You're better off forgetting revenge than dying uselessly."
I stare at the blood dripping from my chin onto the worn wood floor.
Forget?
She doesn't understand.
Maybe I don't understand.
"Just send me the location," I say, breath rattling. "Wherever he'll be tomorrow. I'll deal with him alone."
Electra doesn't answer immediately which, for her, is as good as shouting.
"…Fine," she finally replies. "Check your inbox. And Lazarus–"
Her voice lowers, the closest thing she ever gets to human, "Don't make me regret helping you."
The line clicks off.
I stay there a moment, phone still pressed against my ear, listening to the dead static.
Why am I… like this?
My chest aches, but not from the blood.
Something childish burns under my ribs.
Why now?
Why this sudden swing into rage, into purpose, into… emotion?
Was it because of that blue-haired idiot shouting at a street full of thugs?
A man who acted like death wasn't waiting around every corner like he didn't care that this city devours people who dare to stand tall.
I don't know.
But I feel something trembling inside me, something I'd buried a long time ago.
A part of me that wants the world to make sense again, even for a moment.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my sleeve and stagger out of my room. The apartment is dim, quiet except for Martha's soft breathing from the other side of the wall. I don't let myself look toward her door.
If I do, I'll hesitate.
I slip on my worn jacket, step into my shoes, and walk out.
The corridor smells like old paint, mold, and someone's cheap dinner. The lights flicker as I pass, buzzing like insects. Down the stairs, through the back exit, out into the chill.
The garage sits beside the building. A cracked concrete lot with rusted shutters and oil stains older than I am. Half the lamps are dead, the others blink like they're on their last hours. A pipe drips steadily into a puddle that never dries.
I push the door open.
Cold metal.
The echo of my footsteps.
I'm not sure if I'm walking toward revenge…
or just giving my life a direction to burn itself out.
Maybe both.
Before I even step into the garage, the metal door beside it slams open so hard it rebounds off the wall.
That blue-haired man – him again – strides out, carrying what looks like half a scrap heap over his shoulder: twisted rebar, busted gears, a whole engine block like it weighs nothing. He kicks open another shuttered garage door and dumps everything inside with a crash that echoes down the alley.
For a moment I just stand there, staring.
I should keep walking. I should ignore him. I should—
"Hey," I hear myself say.
Why?
Why did I speak?
He turns. Flame-blue hair catching the streetlight.
I swallow, then force the words out:
"What… does life have in store for a person?"
Immediately I regret it.
I don't even know why I asked that.
Some stranger, in the middle of a slum, while he's hoisting junk into a garage.
"Forget I said that," I say, stepping back. "Just–"
"What life has in store?" he repeats, pointing at me. "NOTHING!"
I blink.
"Nothing?"
"It's a big nothing!" He spreads his arms wide, grin fierce. "A blank page! The question isn't what life has for you. What, you think there's some package coming with your name on it? You gonna sit in the dark waiting for the universe to knock on your door?"
His voice booms through the alleyway.
"STOP LOOKING FOR THE SHELF WITH YOUR LIFE ON IT! IT'S NOT THERE! Your life isn't some present sitting around waiting to be unwrapped. It's what YOU carve out!"
I stare.
Because people don't talk like this here.
Not in whispers, and definitely not shouted.
"…What's your name?" I ask, almost without thinking.
He points his thumb at himself.
"The name is Kamina. The Great Kamina! And yeah, I recognized you. You were there when I was lecturing those hooligans!"
I almost laugh.
Me? Recognized?
In a crowd of dozens? In this district where faces blend into each other like stains on the walls?
His grin sharpens.
And then he shouts.
"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!"
I flinch.
But something hits me and the answer comes out before I can stop it:
"…Lazarus."
As I step into the garage, the fluorescent ceiling light flickers once then steadies into a long, pale beam that stretches across the concrete floor.
My feet move forward.
Somewhere between one breath and the next, the cold cement shifts beneath me.
Spikes.
Jagged, uneven, thorn-hard. And I'm barefoot.
I don't remember taking my shoes off.
The pain is sharp at first, like stepping on broken glass, but it dulls strangely fast—blurring into something distant, tolerable, almost expected. Each step pulls a bead of blood to the surface, then another, then a trail.
Sis will…
Sis will cry if she ever finds out what I've done.
What I'm doing.
She always cries too easily.
The spikes grow longer. Or maybe I'm shrinking.
Hard to tell.
"Is it for revenge," a voice asks calmly, as though reading a line from a script, "or did the revenge not matter in the first place?"
The voice doesn't echo.
It doesn't belong to anything.
It just is.
"It mattered," I answer, stepping forward, feeling a spike push deep under my heel. "But… over time it became less of a feeling and more of a direction. A place to go when I had none."
The blood rhythm on the floor thickens.
Drop. Step. Drop. Drag.
Another question slices through:
"Do you do this to cling to the past?"
My breath shudders. But the answer is easy.
"No. My past self would hate me for not hating him enough. For letting Mary die and letting the world keep moving."
For living day after day as if I could pretend normal life wasn't a joke.
The room stretches.
Longer than the real garage.
By the time I reach the far end, the entire floor is streaked red. My legs feel numb. My chest is tight but steady. The ache is familiar like breathing in winter air.
At the end of the room sits a wide pool of black ink, rippling without wind. Words float on its surface like oil sheen.
Augmentation for my body
I kneel.
The ink clings to my fingertips like tar.
Then I dive.
My mind swims then sharpens in violent flashes of pain.
First, a finger tears away.
A clean pop, like breaking a twig.
Then my whole left arm is ripped from the socket.
My right leg follows. It twisted once, twice, then tore away like scrap.
One by one, my limbs are stripped from me, peeled off with mechanical indifference. And yet with each piece removed… my consciousness becomes clearer.
Keener.
Focused like a blade honed against bone.
When the blur settles, when the ink of that place dries in the corners of my vision, I'm standing inside the pub.
The pub where that guy drinks every evening.
Blood stains my clothes.
The smell of gunpowder clings to me.
I had fought through their Soldato to reach him, tearing my way up the chain like a dying animal refusing to fall over.
Still, I couldn't touch him.
He looks at me with bored curiosity, like I'm one of the countless lunatics who come crawling for revenge every month. Another rat squeaking before being crushed.
Then the smoothing voice returns with close, intimate, like it's breathing against my ear.
"Did you wish to live a silent life?"
"No," I breathe. Then louder, "No, of course not."
The Soldato shift uneasily, exchanging glances. They don't hear the voice.
They only hear me speaking to empty space.
"Tell me," it asks, "why did you abandon the pursuit of normalcy? Was it because of your illness?"
A laugh bursts out of me twisting into a cough that sprays blood across the floor.
"No. Illness or not… it didn't matter anymore."
I take a step forward.
The capo finally straightens, sensing something is wrong.
"I want to burn brightly," I say. "That blue-haired man… Kamina—someone who walks like every moment is worth shouting about. A man burning so bright you can feel it from across the street."
My breath stutters.
But the smile stays.
"With just a few minutes of knowing him… I was inspired. I want to burn like him."
The voice asks its final question.
"It is foolish and selfish of you, isn't it?"
I lower my head, letting my bangs hide my eyes.
"No… and yes, Miss Carmen."
The capo flinches at that name but I continue.
"It is foolish. But selfish? For burning alone?"
I shake my head.
"No. I want to burn bright for my sis to see. No… for everyone to see."
My heart begins to thrum.
Too fast, too hot.
"I want to burn because I've lived a life of normalcy. And I reject it."
I raise my head.
"I will do this my own way… Miss Carmen."
My body ignites.
With combustion.
My limbs burst apart, exploding into gore–only to regrow instantly, perfectly, violently. The Soldato stumble back. The capo's drink slips from his hand and shatters.
A red halo crawls up my spine.
My ribs realign and snap outward like blooming metal.
[Effloresced E.G.O :: Funus and Resurgere]
I stand taller.
Brighter.
Alive in a way I have never been.
The capo whispers, "Who are you?"
I answer with a prayer–not for myself, but for the man who sparked the fire in me.
"My prayer is toward Kamina. May his compassion reach every corner of the City."
I step forward.
"And may his existence become the star that illuminates us all."
Then I exploded my way toward my sister's killer.
The first step I take shakes the bottles on the shelves.
The second cracks the floorboards.
By the third, the pub erupts.
My body detonates in pulses–bone shards firing like shrapnel, blood igniting into bursts of red steam. Every time a limb blows apart, another grows in its place, stronger than ever.
The Thumb's Soldato scatter, shouting.
Chairs flip.
Tables splinter.
The air reeks of fear and iron.
The capo draws his gun.
He swings and my torso explodes, ribs spinning like razors, catching his arm.
Another limb regrows instantly, swinging upward, catching him under the jaw.
A man who once felt untouchable now staggers.
Bleeds.
Meets me, blow for blow.
I used to think fighting a capo of the Thumb was impossible.
A joke for desperate men.
A fever dream for those on death's door.
But right now.
Right now, I'm fighting him on equal ground.
No.
I'm surpassing him.
The battle tears the pub apart beam by beam. Walls collapse inward. The floor buckles. Every explosion of my body sends another shockwave through the crumbling building.
By the time I strike the killing blow. My arms erupting like twin novas, shredding through bone and cartilage. I no longer have limbs left. Just two smoking stumps and a body flickering with the last drops of its unnatural flame.
The capo falls first.
I fall second.
The ceiling gives way.
Cold rain pours through the opening as if the sky itself wants to wash away what happened here. The water pools beside me, forming a trembling mirror.
And in it…
I see myself.
Fair skin splattered with blood.
Brown hair soaked flat.
A face smiling as I've finally exhaled after years of holding my breath.
My body curls inward on instinct.
Bones folding.
The last of my strength pooling around a heart that's already stopped.
I know I'm dead.
Truly dead.
But there's no fear.
Only warmth.
My prayer leaves me in a whisper, barely loud enough for the rain to carry.
"May Kamina be protected… may he walk untouched through every storm…"
My vision darkens.
"…use what's left of me, if the time ever comes."
My corpse tightens, compressing into itself like it's preparing for a reason beyond death.
I don't know how.
I just know it.
My final thought is simple.
Let me burn for him, one more time.