POV: Dontae
The stars were out tonight.
That didn't happen often in Ashvale. Too much smog. Too much neon glow from busted signs that never turned off. But tonight, the sky was clear. Cold. Wide.
I lay flat on the rooftop, eyes tracing constellations I couldn't name. I used to imagine I'd be up there one day. Maybe a pilot. Maybe just... gone. Floating.
Free.
"Wonder what it feels like," I muttered. "To not be pulled down."
Then it happened.
A line of fire ripped through the sky. Then another. Then dozens.
They looked like meteors at first — beautiful in that distant way. But they didn't burn out.
They came down.
I sat up. Sirens were already going off. The air shifted — heavy, metallic. The hairs on my arms stood up.
Then I heard the screaming.
Getting down wasn't easy. I half-climbed, half-fell through a fire escape. People were already running, some bleeding, others too quiet. Cars slammed into each other, lights flickering.
Then I saw one of them.
It looked like a rat, if a rat had been turned inside out and rebuilt with extra limbs. Its eyes were black voids, and its skin pulsed with veins full of glowing blue light — mana, I'd later learn.
It was hunched over a man, eating him alive.
I couldn't breathe.
It turned.
And charged.
I ran.
Not heroically — not at all. I tripped over debris, crashed through a broken door, kicked down another. The thing followed, claws screeching against concrete. It was fast. Faster than anything its size should've been.
It caught me in a stairwell. I barely dodged, slammed my shoulder into a wall. Pain flared — something cracked.
It lunged again.
I swung a pipe. Hit it across the side. It shrieked — more from annoyance than pain.
It clawed at me — tore through my hoodie, into flesh. I screamed. Slammed my knee into its side. Useless. The thing was too strong.
I grabbed its arm with both hands, twisted with everything I had. It bit down on my forearm — pain exploded through my skull. I was losing. Bleeding. Dying.
No way out.
Then something inside me moved.
Not physically. It was like my blood remembered something older than me. Like the sky reached back.
I screamed — not in fear, but in rage.
The floor around us shifted.
The creature buckled. Its legs crumpled beneath it like it had suddenly gained five times its own weight. I could feel the pull — like everything around me wanted to collapse in.
The thing fought to stand.
So I pushed harder.
The pressure crushed its spine. Bones snapped. It screeched one last time before its head hit the floor and didn't get back up.
Dead.
I collapsed next to it. Hands shaking. Heart pounding so hard I couldn't hear anything else.
Then something floated from the body.
A glowing shard of light — not real light, more like the idea of it. It hovered. Then it sank into my chest.
The world changed.
I didn't hear a voice. No divine prophecy. Just knowledge. Data etched directly into my mind.
[SKILL ACQUIRED: GRAVITY WARD]
A passive ability. Reduces force impact and projectiles within a close radius. Strength scales with Affinity and Willpower.
[SYSTEM INTERFACE UNLOCKED][AFFINITY: GRAVITY — Tier: SSS][TALENT: SINGULARITY CORE — Your gravity adapts, strengthens, and compresses with perfect control.]
I didn't know what any of it really meant.
But something deep inside me whispered: this world was never going back to what it was.
The sky had broken.
And now gravity had teeth.