The moment they were gone, the world exhaled.
The storm did not vanish all at once. It thinned, unraveled strand by strand, as though the sky itself were reluctant to release the violence it had witnessed. Thunder retreated into distant murmurs. Lightning faded into faint scars of light etched briefly into cloud and stone before dissolving into nothing.
Silence followed.
Not peace.
Silence—the kind that presses inward, heavy and unnatural.
Rain still fell, but softer now, seeping into the wounds carved into the mountainside. Water found every crack Thor and Hela had torn open, carrying with it residue that was not merely lightning, not merely death. It was divine excess, power with no master, soaked into the bones of the world.
The mountains groaned.
At first it was subtle, almost mistaken for the settling of shattered stone. A low vibration passed through the cliffs, deep enough that it was felt before it was heard. Loose rocks skittered down slopes. The sea pulled back uneasily, waves hesitating as though unsure whether to advance or flee.
Far beneath the battlefield—far below where rain could reach, below layers of stone older than any mortal memory—the residue continued to sink.
It seeped through fault lines and forgotten tunnels, through veins of metal and ancient runic scars left by wars no saga still sang. It carried thunder's fury and death's authority together, an impossible mixture that should never have been allowed to exist without restraint.
And it reached something that had been waiting.
The deeper caverns were vast beyond comprehension, hollowed not by erosion but by hands the size of fortresses. Pillars of stone rose like petrified giants themselves, their surfaces etched with runes worn smooth by time. Chains thicker than city walls lay broken and half-buried, relics of bindings forged when gods still feared what they could not kill.
For ages uncounted, there had been only stillness here.
Then—
A heart beat.
Once.
The sound rolled outward like a buried drum, slow and massive, shaking dust from cavern ceilings. Stone cracked softly. Ancient frost flaked away from skin that had not moved since before the seas learned their currents.
Another heartbeat followed.
Eyes opened in the dark.
They were not small eyes. They were not quick. They burned like dying suns behind layers of stone and bone, heavy with memory and resentment. Breath filled lungs the size of halls, the inhale dragging air through caverns in a roar that bent stalactites and sent shockwaves racing through the mountain's spine.
The first giant stirred.
His body shifted, and the mountain shifted with him.
Rock screamed as a colossal arm tore free from its prison, stone shattering and falling in avalanches that thundered upward toward the surface. Runes flared briefly along his skin, old bindings protesting, then failing entirely.
Around him, others began to wake.
One by one, ancient forms stirred in the darkness—fire-veined giants whose blood glowed like molten metal, frostbound colossi exhaling breath that crystallized the air, stone-skinned behemoths whose slow movements reshaped the caverns themselves. They had slept through ages. Through gods rising and falling. Through worlds forgetting their names.
But they remembered thunder.
They remembered death.
The residue had called to them in a language older than speech, older than war.
Above, the mountains began to crack anew.
Deep fissures split open across the battlefield where Thor and Hela had fought, stretching outward like wounds reopening. Peaks shuddered. Entire sections of cliff collapsed into the sea, sending waves surging outward in violent rings.
A sound rose from below—not thunder, not an earthquake.
A voice.
Low. Vast. Furious.
It rolled up through the stone, through soil and sea alike, carrying with it the promise of reckoning.
Far away, in a quiet human world that still believed gods were myths, birds took flight all at once. Animals panicked without knowing why. Children woke crying from dreams they would never remember.
And in the depths of the shattered mountains, the giants rose fully to their feet at last.
The gods had departed.
But they had left something far worse behind.
***
The airport was loud in the way only places of waiting could be.
Not loud with life, but with movement—wheels scraping against tile, voices overlapping without listening, announcements echoing like hollow prayers that belonged to no one in particular. The ceiling lights were too bright, the air too cold. Everything smelled faintly of metal, coffee, and something sterile meant to calm nerves but never quite succeeding.
She stood near the departure gate, unmoving.
The woman kept her coat pulled tight around her, though it wasn't cold enough to justify it. Her eyes were fixed on the entrance, searching every face that passed through, each stranger briefly becoming hope before dissolving into disappointment. She had stopped checking her phone. There had been no messages. There would be no messages.
Beside her stood a small boy.
He could not have been more than four or five, clutching her hand with both of his as if afraid she might disappear. His hair was dark, untidy, curls refusing discipline. His eyes—too old for his face—kept drifting toward the same entrance she watched, though he did not fully understand why.
"Is he coming?" the boy asked softly.
She swallowed before answering.
"Not today," she said.
He nodded, accepting it the way children accept things they do not yet know how to question. He leaned into her side, pressing his forehead against her coat.
The boarding call sounded.
Final call.
She closed her eyes.
Somewhere beyond glass and concrete, thunder rolled across a distant world. Gods were leaving. Giants were waking. But here—here was only a woman, a child, and a choice already made.
She knelt in front of him, brushing his hair back gently.
"Listen to me, Elias," she said, forcing a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. "We're going on an adventure, okay?"
"Will he find us?" Elias asked.
Her breath caught.
"Yes," she said. "Someday."
She stood, took his hand, and walked away without looking back.
Eighteen years passed like water slipping through fingers.
By the time Elias turned eighteen, the world had convinced itself that nothing extraordinary waited beneath its surface.
They lived in New York , far enough from the city that the skyline appeared only on clear days, distant and unreal. The town itself was quiet, stitched together by long roads, aging houses, and trees that burned gold and red every autumn. Winters were harsh. Summers humid. Life predictable.
Elias liked it that way.
Their house sat near the edge of town, modest and slightly crooked, with a porch that creaked when you stepped on the wrong plank. The paint was peeling in places his mother always promised she'd get to "next year." A narrow stretch of woods began just behind the backyard, dense enough to swallow sound after a few steps.
Elias often walked there when his thoughts grew too loud.
He was tall now, broad-shouldered in a way that suggested strength he didn't quite understand. His hair was dark, always a little wild no matter how often he cut it. His eyes were the same as they had always been—quiet, observant, carrying weight he never asked for.
At school, he was invisible by design.
Average grades. No trouble. No clubs. No enemies. Teachers described him as "polite" and "capable," which usually meant they had nothing memorable to say. He minded his business. Always had.
His mother, Anna, worked long hours.
Two jobs, sometimes three. A diner in the mornings. Accounting work in the evenings. On weekends, she cleaned offices downtown. She never complained—not out loud. She joked instead, the way people do when humor is the last thin wall holding exhaustion back.
"You'll do better than me," she always said. "That's the deal."
Elias never argued.
He helped where he could. Fixed things around the house. Cooked dinner when she came home too tired to stand. Some nights, they sat together on the porch in silence, watching fireflies blink in and out of existence like tiny, uncertain stars.
She watched him more than she thought he noticed.
There were moments—brief, unguarded—when she studied him with something close to fear. When thunder rolled too close, she stiffened. When storms lingered, she barely slept. She never explained why.
Elias had learned not to ask.
Still, there were things he could not explain.
Lightning fascinated him—not in the childish way, but with a pull that felt personal. Storms calmed him when they should have frightened him. When anger took hold of him, lights flickered. Once, during a fight in middle school, the air had crackled around his fists. No one else seemed to notice.
He dreamed of thunder.
Of mountains split open. Of voices calling his name in languages he did not know but somehow understood. He woke from those dreams with his heart racing, the echo of something vast and distant ringing in his chest.
"Bad dream?" his mother would ask gently.
"Yeah," he'd lie.
She would sit with him until his breathing slowed, her hand resting on his shoulder as if anchoring him to the world.
She had promised herself she would tell him someday.
Just not yet.
Because every time she looked at him—at the way storms seemed to lean toward him, at the strength he carried without effort—she remembered an airport, a choice, and a god who had walked away so her son could live.
And far beneath shattered mountains across the world, ancient giants stretched in their sleep.
The quiet years were ending.
Elias just didn't know it yet.