Fire and smoke swallowed the horizon.
The city was burning.
A lone figure stood amidst the ashes—surrounded by charred bones and crumbling concrete.
The air reeked of death.
Something heavy pressed inside Edward's chest.
He knew it was a dream.
Yet every time he saw it, it felt unbearably real.
Someone stood before him.
Back turned.
The shape of the shoulders… the hair… familiar in a way that made his skin crawl.
Edward stepped closer and touched the stranger's shoulder.
"What happened here?"
The man turned.
Edward froze.
The face was his own.
Exactly the same—except for the left eye, which was open and glowing with a small, cold green flame.
"At last, destiny brings you here, Edward."
He smiled, and the smile rippled through the flames—
Edward jerked awake.
He sat up, chest heaving.
His phone was ringing.
1:17 p.m.
The TV droned in the background:
"...our forces are now only kilometers from the enemy capital. Total victory is hours away—"
He picked up the call.
Eric's voice:
"Did you forget today? Mom and Dad's death anniversary. I'm coming in an hour. Be ready."
"…Alright," Edward said quietly.
His left eye was, as always, shut.
Doctors said it would never open—not in this lifetime.
But sometimes… it felt like that eye was watching him.
Only him.
In the afternoon, the brothers arrived at an old cemetery outside the city.
Light rain fell. The wet earth smelled sweet.
Standing before their parents' graves, Edward remembered his mother's final words—
"Take care of Eric. And the task we could not finish… you must finish it. Thousands are waiting for you."
He never understood why she said that.
He still didn't.
Eric spoke softly beside him.
"Are you okay? We should head back."
Edward nodded faintly.
"Let's go."
Church bells rang in the distance—blending with the rain like someone quietly weeping.
"We haven't spent time together in a while," Edward said. "I want to talk about Mom today. There are things you need to know."
Eric nodded. "I have questions too."
But as they entered the city, something felt wrong.
People moved. Cars rolled by.
Yet no one was speaking.
A heavy silence spread like fog.
As if everyone sensed something terrible approaching.
Suddenly—sirens.
"Emergency Alert! Three enemy aircraft have crossed the border. One may be carrying a nuclear payload. Proceed to the nearest bunker immediately!"
The silence shattered.
Screams.
Running.
Chaos.
Edward grabbed Eric's hand.
"Stay with me. Don't let go."
They ran.
Three black dots appeared in the sky—growing larger.
One was heading straight toward them.
Then—
Eric screamed, "Brother—!"
The world went white.
Then the white cracked open, and Edward saw it:
A sun born a hundred meters above the city, blooming outward in perfect silence.
A sphere of plasma and death racing to swallow everything he had ever known.
Time crawled.
The heat hit first—an invisible wall slamming into his face, peeling skin without touch.
The shockwave followed a heartbeat later, a roar so loud it became silence.
His eardrums burst. Warm blood slid down his neck.
And then… something inside his left eye woke up.
It did not open gently.
It tore open.
A sound like glass shattering inside his skull.
The eyelid ripped upward as if pulled by an unseen hand.
For the first time in twenty-three years, cold air touched the pupil that had never seen light.
And that pupil stared into the fireball.
The explosion hesitated.
Edward felt it—every kilogram of raging energy suddenly aware it had a new destination.
The shockwave folded, bent, curved—like molten metal poured into a mold.
The white sun shrank, dragged across the sky by an invisible leash, straight toward the black void burning where his left eye should be.
His body became the drain.
Heat roared into his veins.
His blood boiled.
Lightning burned across his tongue.
Bones cracked under impossible pressure.
His heart stuttered, stopped—then hammered again, furious at being interrupted.
He was being hollowed out—cell by cell—filled with the death of a million suns.
And through the agony, he saw it—
A perfect sphere of emerald fire blooming outward, shielding the city, the streets, the screaming people… his little brother racing toward the bunker.
The final surge of the fireball collapsed into the darkness of his eye in one silent implosion.
Then nothing.
At that instant, a voice echoed inside Edward's mind—
an old memory of a bearded man from his childhood:
"Time is the greatest teacher, Edward. At the right moment, it will teach you how to change fate. What the greatest mentors cannot teach in years… time teaches in a heartbeat."
The last thing he saw was Eric reaching the bunker—safe.
Edward smiled. A tired, peaceful smile.
"Live on, Eric."
Then everything went dark.
People later claimed the bomb malfunctioned.
No one knew a boy had taken the full force to save them all.
Edward opened his eyes.
The sky above him was not his own.
Strange trees swayed around him.
The air smelled unfamiliar.
A heavy pressure pinned his chest.
His left eye was open.
But there was no green flame—
only a deep, silent darkness swirling within it.
He realized.
He wasn't in his world anymore.
Who he was in this place, he didn't know.
But one memory remained:
"Thousands are waiting for you."
Edward took one step forward.
The darkness in his left eye stared back—hungry.