The moment the gunshot rang out, Ethan's world shattered into jagged fragments.
The deafening roar of heavy metal rock vanished instantly, replaced by a low, oppressive hum—a thrumming vibration that felt like being submerged in the crushing, silent depths of an abyss. Ethan watched, paralyzed, as the floating scents of tobacco and acrid sweat in the air froze into translucent, crystalline shards. Sloane's primal scream of terror was dragged out, distorted into the low, guttural growl of a dying beast. Beside him, Marcus, his best brother, remained locked in a grotesque flinch—an absurd attempt to recoil, his pupils contracting violently with raw fear like a single, corrupted frame of a low-budget film.
Caleb's forefinger had already squeezed the trigger.
Due to the lingering tremor from Ethan's earlier elbow strike, Caleb's wrist jerked violently at the exact second of discharge. That lethal shard of spinning metal traced a jagged, deviant arc through the air. Its destination was no longer Ethan's chest; instead, it was shrieking directly toward the space between Marcus's wide, terrified eyes.
No… Move! Dammit, MOVE!
The thought struck like a bolt of lightning in a polar gale, instantly incinerating the void inside Ethan's mind.
Deep within the depths of his abdomen, a cauldron of molten magma erupted. The searing heat surged upward, climbing his spine link by link, as if a long-dormant fire dragon was rampaging through his narrow, straining veins before screaming toward his fingertips. The agony of it nearly tore his soul apart.
When Ethan's finger finally collided with that white-hot, spinning slug, he felt as though he had slammed into a wall of reinforced, indestructible steel. A violent, repelling force exploded from his fingertip; the dull gold bullet carved a freakish, sharp angle into the air, ricocheting away like a dry bean striking a boulder, falling pathetically off its trajectory.
Time slammed back into gear.
"S**t!" Marcus barked, not even realizing what had just transpired. He only felt a sudden gust of wind slice past his ear before the liquor cabinet behind him disintegrated into a spray of glass and wood.
Sound flooded back into Ethan's ears like a relentless tidal wave. The bar descended into absolute chaos as people swarmed toward the narrow exit like a school of panicked sardines.
Ethan stood at the epicenter of the madness, his right hand trembling with a violent, uncontrollable rhythm. He looked down, horrified to see his palm and knuckles webbed with intricate, dark-red veins. They weren't tattoos—they were parasitic organisms pulsing rhythmically beneath his skin, glowing with an eerie, rhythmic light, like a net of living blood woven into his flesh.
"What… what the hell are you?" Caleb collapsed into the debris. He still gripped the black Glock, but the arrogance in his eyes had been replaced by a primal, ancestral dread of the unknown.
Yet, rage quickly devoured his fear. A street-hardened gambler like Caleb would never allow himself to be terrified by a "brat." With a guttural, beast-like roar, he raised the handgun once more with trembling hands, his finger clawing frantically at the trigger.
I can't let him fire again.
Ethan's cerebral cortex screamed in warning. That searing agony in his back returned, as if something was trying to rip its way out from behind his spine. Instinctively, he raised both hands, crossing his fingers before his chest with thumbs touching, locking them into a strange, ancient, and mysterious geometric seal.
It was an instinct etched into his very marrow, a sequence of movements he felt he had practiced ten thousand times in his dreams.
"Burn."
"AAAAAAGH!"
Caleb let out a soul-shattering shriek of pure agony. Just as he prepared to fire a second time, the matte-black Glock turned a glowing, incandescent red. Without warning, a plume of pale-white flame swept up from the grip, engulfing his entire right hand. Metal liquified; flesh carbonized into black ash. Caleb thrashed wildly, trying to shake off the invisible demon. The fire was not a normal physical combustion; it consumed his sleeve with an unnatural, ravenous hunger.
"Help! Save me!" The once-invincible thug was now rolling on the glass-strewn floor like a drowning dog in the mud.
Ethan stared blankly at the horror. He felt the magma in his veins beginning to cool, replaced by a hollow, soul-freezing exhaustion.
"Go! Move!" Marcus grabbed him, hauling him toward the back exit.
The moment they hit the cool night air outside the bar, Ethan let out a blood-curdling scream of his own.
Between his shoulder blades, it felt like a white-hot branding iron was being forced into his raw flesh. He could smell the stench of his own skin charring; he felt the sickening sensation of his bones shattering and reshaping themselves. A mark in the shape of a flickering, eternal flame seared itself onto his back.
Ethan's strength vanished instantly. He collapsed into the filth of the back alley. Before the darkness claimed his consciousness, he caught a blurred glimpse of a familiar figure. Aunt Linda shoved Marcus aside and lunged toward him.
"Dammit," he heard Linda's trembling voice. "It happened after all."
She flicked a deep blue talisman from her sleeve, covered in twisted, complex runes. For the first time in her life, Linda channeled her spiritual essence, slamming the paper onto Ethan's burning chest.
The talisman ignited, dissolving into streams of cold water that swirled around Ethan's body like a protective cocoon. Slowly, the glowing red veins beneath his skin began to retreat into the shadows.
The ethereal blue water slid slowly from Ethan's skin, seeping into the damp, grimy ground of the back alley. Although the blue talisman had suppressed the curse's eruption, the dark red web-like grid persisted, crawling stubbornly beneath his pale skin with a strange, lingering residual heat. Ethan's breathing became heavy and erratic, each intake of air carrying a scorching warmth.
"Marcus, get over here and help me! Get him into the backseat!" Linda's voice was sharp, sounding as if it had been ground down by sandpaper.
Marcus stood frozen like a robot that had its power cut, staring blankly next to the dumpster. His brain had short-circuited—the scene that had just unfolded surpassed every shred of logic he had ever known. The blue talisman appearing out of thin air, the water that flowed like a living creature, and his best friend—the guy who had just blocked a bullet and set someone's hand on fire with his fingertips.
"Marcus! Do you want the police to take you both away right here?" Linda gave him a violent shove.
At the far end of the street, alternating red and blue police lights had already pierced the veil of night. The sirens wailed like a death-knell, rapidly closing in on the bar's front entrance. Marcus shuddered, his innate fear of the NYPD snapping his body back into control. He suppressed the stinging, burn-like pain that flared when he touched Ethan's skin, and together with Linda, they hauled the unconscious boy into the backseat of her battered old Camry.
"Buckle up and sit tight." The moment Linda slammed the car door, a ferocity never seen before surfaced in her eyes. She slammed the gas pedal to the floor; the old engine let out a beast-like roar as the tires grinded against the oil-slicked asphalt, kicking up acrid blue smoke. The car shot forward like a dark arrow released from a bow, hurtling through the narrow, shadow-drenched alleyways.