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Diana wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist, clearing the wetness before it could fall. Her breath hitched once, then steadied as she forced herself to focus.
She closed her hand tightly around the stone. One last look at her unconscious son.
"Alan… I'll be back soon," she whispered, voice breaking. "I promise I will find out what happened to him."
The gemstone flared.
Her body vanished with a faint crackle of distorted air.
The capital lay in ruin.
Silent. Scorched. Drenched in blood.
The wind howled freely through broken streets, screaming between collapsed towers and gutted buildings. Ash drifted like dirty snow. Fires still smoldered in craters where entire blocks used to stand.
Diana appeared in the shadow of a collapsed building. Her boots crunched softly as they touched down, dust and glass grinding beneath them. Smoke drifted past her face, stinging her eyes. The stench hit her a second later—charred flesh, iron-thick blood, melted stone.
Her eyes widened slowly.
"Oh my god…" she whispered. "Is… is this what's left of the capital…?"
Her voice trembled.
"It's completely, utterly destroyed… all these people… all these lives lost…" Her jaw tightened. "…for what?"
She pressed her back against the rubble, shoulders tight, keeping her breathing shallow. Her fingers clenched around the gemstone until it left a mark onto her palm.
Then.
Movement.
Two figures walked among the corpses.
Diana flinched hard, dropping into a crouch and sliding behind the broken wall. She knelt low, peeking through a jagged crack in the concrete, heart pounding so loudly she was sure it would give her away.
"What… who the hell are those two…?" she whispered, barely audible.
Her eyes focused.
Her blood ran cold.
Oblivion and the cloaked man floated slightly above the ground, drifting between bodies. Their heads turned left and right, methodical. Thin blades of energy snapped out from their hands, slicing downward— checking corpses, piercing skulls, severing spines. Making sure nothing twitched again.
A sharp breath caught in her throat.
"That outfit…" she murmured. "It's from the news…"
Her stomach dropped.
"It's impossible… that's him… Oblivion?"
Her eyes flicked to the second figure.
"Why are they here… and who's that guy next to him…?"
The cloaked man stepped over bodies with slow, deliberate strides. His boots sank into blood-soaked mud, wet sounds following every step. His head tilted slightly as he scanned, calculating.
Oblivion hovered above the ground, firing off casual blasts. His burnt skin still cracking with every movement, blackened flakes peeling off and drifting down like ash as he moved.
Diana pressed harder against the wall.
The wind shifted.
Oblivion's hood fluttered— and for half a second, she saw half of his face.
Her breath hitched violently.
"That face" she recoiled a step back, heart slamming. "That… that face…"
Her hands trembled.
"This is not good. Not good at all…" she whispered. "I need to stay hidden. If they spot me—"
Her thoughts spiraled.
"How… how is he still alive after all these years…?"
A sound.
A faint whimper.
"S-someone…" a voice rasped weakly. "Please… my legs… please help…"
Diana's head snapped toward the sound.
A half-buried man crawled from the rubble, dragging what was left of his shattered lower body. Bone fragments jutted through torn flesh. Blood poured from him, leaving a thick, wet trail smeared across the street as he clawed forward inch by inch.
Toward her.
Diana clenched her teeth, panic surging.
"Shit, what is he doing?" she hissed under her breath. "Hey, don't… don't come closer!"
Her voice shook.
"You'll expose me… you need to stay quiet, stop yelling. They'll—"
The cloaked man tilted his head.
An annoyed sound escaped him.
He waved a hand dismissively. "Deal with him already."
Oblivion turned slowly.
He raised one palm.
Then closed it.
The man exploded.
Flesh burst apart like wet clay. Blood sprayed violently across the walls, the ground, and the wreckage. A severed arm slammed into the wall beside Diana, splattering hot blood across her sleeve. Half of the man's face rolled across the ground and stopped inches from her knee— one eye still attached, staring blankly, nerve twitching once before going still.
Diana fell backward onto her butt.
Her hands flew to her mouth as she bit down hard to stop the scream ripping out of her. Tears streamed down her face uncontrollably. Her shoulders shook violently as she gagged silently, bile burning her throat.
"Oh my God…" she mouthed, soundless.
Her entire body trembled.
Oblivion winced, rolling his shoulder.
"We're wasting time."
He glanced around the ruined city, annoyed.
"Of there's anyone still breathing," he said flatly, "we need to finish them off we're running out of time."
The wind howled again.
And Diana stayed frozen in the shadows— forced to watch.
A scream cut through the ruins.
A woman, one of the survivors, had seen everything.
She broke from her hiding spot and ran.
Bare feet slapped against blood-slick concrete, breath tearing out of her throat as she screamed again, arms pumping wildly.
In a blink, the cloaked man was in front of her.
She slammed into him.
His hand shot up and clamped over her skull. Fingers dug into her scalp, nails biting through hair and skin. Her body stiffened in shock. Her hands clawed weakly at his wrist, nails scraping uselessly against his gauntlet.
Oblivion hissed through his teeth, irritated.
"I thought we cleared them all."
The woman sobbed violently, voice breaking.
"N-no… please w-wait—"
The cloaked man's thumbs pressed into her eyes.
She screamed— high, raw, animal.
Cloaked Man 2: "You saw us?"
His voice was flat. Cold.
"I won't allow anyone to witness our existence."
He pressed harder.
Her screams warped into wet choking sounds as his thumbs sank deeper.
CRACK.
Her skull collapsed inward under both of his hands. Bone caved with a sick, wet crunch. Her body jerked once— violently, then went limp.
Blood ran down his forearms. Brain matter slid through the seams of her clothes and dripped from his fingers in thick strands.
He tossed the corpse aside like trash.
"Now we do."
Diana crossed her fingers so hard her knuckles went numb. She bit down on them, teeth digging into skin to keep herself silent. Her back was fused to the wall, lungs barely pulling in air.
The cloaked man nodded once.
"Let's end it."
He pointed toward the evacuation domes.
They floated upward, backs pressed together. Energy swelled around them, thick and pulsing, forming a massive, unstable sphere. The air screamed as pressure built.
Diana's breath hitched.
They fired.
The blast tore through the evacuation camps.
People evaporated mid-scream, flesh stripped from bone in an instant, bones disintegrating into dust and fragments. A wall of heat rolled outward, flattening debris and ripping screams into nothing.
Some didn't die cleanly.
A soldier missing half his jaw dragged himself forward, gurgling, fingers digging into the ground. The cloaked man landed beside him and stomped down.
CRUNCH.
Ribs folded inward like brittle twigs. The soldier spasmed. One arm lifted weakly into the air.
The cloaked man grabbed him by the neck with both hands and pulled.
Hard.
The spine tore free with a wet, grinding rip. The head came off entirely.
He threw it to the ground. It bounced once, jaw still twitching.
"That should do it."
Another survivor dragged himself by his elbows, sobbing uncontrollably. Oblivion grabbed him by the throat, lifted him off the ground, and tore him in half.
Organs spilled out, slapping wetly onto the rubble. Blood sprayed across Oblivion's chest and face.
Oblivion scoffed.
"They're like roaches, man. They keep crawling—broken and fucked up."
A hero missing an arm charged with a desperate scream.
The cloaked man sidestepped the charge with lazy ease.
His gaze flicked down.
A severed arm lay in the rubble at his feet— still warm, fingers half-curled.
He picked it up.
The hero barely had time to react.
The cloaked man swung the arm like a club.
Once.
The impact caved the hero's cheek in, teeth spraying out in a red arc.
Then twice.
The arm smashed into his face again, skin tearing, bone crunching, the sound wet and hollow.
Again and again.
The hero's face was beaten into pulp— features collapsing, skull cracking open as blood and fragments splattered across the corpses behind him. What remained of his head snapped sideways with a dull pop.
His body went limp and folded to the ground.
The cloaked man looked at the broken arm in his hand, then laughed.
Cloaked Man 2 (laughing): "Imagine dying by a limb."
He tossed the shattered arm aside.
"What a fucking loser."
Another warrior gasped for air as Oblivion ripped his heart out bare-handed. The heart twitched faintly in his palm.
Oblivion crushed it.
Blood ran between his fingers as he wiped ash from his chest.
"Our work is done. I don't sense any signatures left."
Diana swallowed hard. Bile burned the back of her throat.
They weren't fighting.
They were cleaning up.
Erasing everyone.
Oblivion groaned, rolling his shoulders.
"My wounds are killing me. Let's get back to base and heal our asses."
The cloaked man cracked his neck.
"We're done. The sun's rising. People will keep showing up."
Oblivion placed a hand on the cloaked man's shoulder.
They vanished.
The moment they were gone, Diana broke.
She sprinted forward, lungs burning as she searched for air, not realizing she'd been holding her breath the entire time.
"Ben." she gasped. "Ben, I need to find my husband… oh my god, this is bad—this is really, really bad."
She leapt over bodies, boots splashing through blood puddles, hands shoving rubble aside in frantic sweeps. She stumbled, nearly falling over broken limbs and shattered stone.
She spun left and right.
"Ben… Ben… please. Where are you?"
Then she saw him.
Her eyes locked onto a pile of rubble.
She dropped to her knees.
Her arms wrapped around his burned, blood-soaked body. Several stab wounds marked his torso. His armor was cracked, melted, torn open.
She sobbed.
"No… no, no." her voice shattered.
"C'mon… honey… let's go home."
Her forehead pressed against his cold chest. Her shoulders shook violently.
"You fought… you fought so well…"
A broken smile.
"I'm proud of you."
She lifted him carefully, arms trembling under his weight, and clenched the gemstone in her hand.
She wasn't leaving without him.
And she wasn't letting this be the end.
The light flared— and she vanished with him.
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