ETHAN

Five minutes.

He stood beside the truck, drawn to the Flight Academy Acceptance Letter signed for Keren. A successful escape ticket — a risk, a gamble with life. But even with the entrance exam done by me... I know Keren will handle the rest. I know he can do this, and he'll be free, Miama. He'll finally be free from this. Free from me, just like you are. His hands shook and his body screamed for sleep he refused to give himself until Keren was safely out of reach.

"Ethan." Urto snuck into his peripheral. "Everything seems to be on track. Do we need anything else?"

Ethan blinked out of his entranced daze to consider his acquaintance. Trust no one. Betrayal came with the family. "Boss only wants most of the weaponry to the offshore warehouses out of this district." He slipped the IPen into his datapad, hiding the ticket from Urto, and checked his wristpad. "Keren should be in Warehouse Nine grabbing his bag and he offered to check we didn't miss anything. Once he comes back out we'll close up—" And with everyone's backs turned, I'll set him free. Ethan swiped the work datapad off the back of his truck. With Father too busy to complicate things until later, by then... by then Keren won't be able to be followed. No matter what happens... "Here, take a look over this and tell me if anything seems off." He tossed the datapad to Urto, who caught it.

He kept an eye on the time as Associates lifted edevium crates into the back. Most of this and us will be going back to Tersilia... far away from where Keren's going to end up. He dared to take in another breath of life. Fast as possible, give them no room to go down his path. Don't let them follow him down, even if it costs me my life. There's no price I won't pay. None. Time ticked along his wristpad when he opened it.

A ripple skittered across his spine — an electric jolt. He dropped his arm, tasting the blood in the air when it rumbled in his soul. It licked across his skin with a pure intent to kill as he followed the source to the heart of the warehouse district. Nothing chirped in the scattered trees, the planet holding its breath at the crack of unseen danger. Ethan eyed Urto, who raised an eyebrow, where no one else sensed the change affecting his entire body into a moment to pounce.

Smoke fluttered over the roofs.

Ethan blinked when Urto mumbled, "We should probably start getting this stuff back..."

Ethan followed the electric jolt when it bit into his legs, leaving Urto in the mist and ignoring his voice as he ran into the loading area of the warehouses. Other Associates lifted what they could out of the way, but the fiery leash wrapped around his spine and spurned him onward when the smoke sparked, too out of sight for anyone else to notice.

I left him in Warehouse Nine.

Such a simple fact and a harsh truth.

Ethan shoved Associates out of his way when the smoke intensified, and they drew their gazes to the shift in the world. It rumbled and clicked against the chains. "Sellzora!" he called over the slicing flames when they hissed into its own scream. "Get out of—"

In a flash of colour, a shockwave danced across the flaming mist as everyone went into slow motion, dropping everything to scramble like mice.

Warehouse Nine went into a blaze of pure light.

Some Associates ducked behind what little cover there was, though it never mattered. Debris slammed across the other rooftops with its roaring death. Windows shattered from the first shockwave. Ethan steadied himself, staring at Warehouse Nine. He scowled, then ran straight for the blaze.

"Ethanius, wait!" one of the Associates screamed. "It's going to hit the refinery—"

It thinned into sudden monochrome with a final screech against the pressurized chains.

Everything blew out the windows in a pop of a shockwave and spread glittering blue ash. Worlds spun when he tried to find his footing, but he grunted when his back smashed against concrete, and he rolled into the chains as the other warehouses caught fire. Metal groaned and clattered, and Ethan found his own hands protecting his head when dust, ash, and smoke fell across the district with one final cry. Black dust sparkled into endless stars, and he laid there listening to the groaning of the buildings, and the refinery falling apart in its violent explosion.

His ears rang when the world stilled and he lifted his head with a groan. Nettles stung across his entire body from his forced roll. On the edge of the black hole centralized around his baby brother. Glass, stone, and unrecognizable, burnt metal fell around him as he waited for the shockwaves to fall silent, but it never stopped ringing. He gasped out soot when he dragged himself out of the concrete destruction.

The foundations of Warehouse Nine fell to pieces when he reached his hand out. So close, but too far away. Far too late. Ash dug its claws into his lungs as he breathed deep and tasted rust. On his feet, he held his burning side. Ashen blood stained his hands when he tried to shake it off. Patches of flames fell around the world when he dragged himself out of his own debris field, with people calling out to each other, stuck in the blast zone of his mistakes. It all spun around him with each step he took, closing in on the shattered warehouse. His boots slicked with wet soot, he dug his fingers into his side when it screamed.

"Ethanius!" someone called out his name through the smoke. "Fuck!"

Keren... Keren, my little brother... I'm coming... I'm coming to set you free...

He dragged himself through the ruins of the family he destroyed, stumbling over broken pieces of metal. His heel cracked loose stones as people shouted, but he ignored them all. Blood oozed between his fingers when he stumbled to his knees at the center of the wreckage, wiping through the dust until his fingers touched the shape of a wing, coated in tar. Nausea soaked flames when he dragged it out from underneath the pocket of debris. He held it on the edges of his fingers as the universe shut down. He tried to find the strength in his limbs, but he released a sobbing laugh and fell into the dirt below. Water swelled over the dam he built, as he dragged the scout closer against his chest. Not again... no... He drowned in the depths of grief when he allowed himself no reprieve in terror. He slumped in the blurry cloud the explosion left him with.

Instead of his baby brother.

No... Ethan shifted against the pain to slip the scout into his jacket, biting down on a gasp of pain at the audacity of his movement and sign of life. Blood slipped off his fingers when he drew his other hand through his ash soaked hair. In the epicenter of the end of the universe, he sank deeper past the bubbles of darkness, losing the end of his life's chain strangling him to keep him over the water.

He floated deeper and the frayed rope slipped out of his fingers when he released his grip on it.

"Fuck!" a singular word broke him out of his slow death.

I... think that's Urto...

"I found him! Shit!"

Disconnected from his own soul, he listened to the voices and waited for it all to go quiet again. Footsteps came close, but he sank deeper into the black hole, his entire being spaghettified.

"This is so fucking bad," one of the Associates hissed. "Fuck! Urto, this is really bad! Something went wrong at the refinery! Is he breathing? It doesn't look like he's breathing, fuck!" Ethan frowned at the irrelevant dismay and terror. "Boss will have our heads!"

Right.

"Ethan! Ethanius! Come on!" Urto bit, and Ethan cringed when his entire body shook with the darkness.

Stop shaking me, asshole... just let me drown.

It went quiet and still, and Ethan slipped into his exhaustion further, holding tight to the scout he built with Keren — to the life Keren deserved more than anything else in the world.

"He's dead, isn't he?"

I might as well be. Maybe I should be.

"He stood right in the blast radius, Urto," the panicking Associate rambled. "There is going to be hell to pay if we have to drag his body back to the Boss. How are we going to explain that? What do we do?"

You could finish the damn job. Finish the job so I can be with them. Finish the job so I can be with my miama and my baby brother... so I can tell them that I... Bubbles burst, full of his life when it floated instead of sped past him. A mere flash of existence. Keren's joy in the idea of flight, his happiness found on the wings of freedom. He begged, pleaded with him to build his dream.

But I failed you...

He found no strength to crawl out of the horizon.

"There's a pulse. Barely."

Layers of tension crushed his throat as air beat into his lungs.

"He's in a bad way."

"He stood in the blast radius and got an entire faceful of an edevic explosion, you idiot!" another Associate snapped. "What the fuck did you think he was going to look like?"

I should be in... several pieces... got my insides though... maybe I'll get lucky and that'll take me out... His heart slammed to a stop at Keren's last words and his liar's smile. No... where is he? Where is he? I need to see him... there has to be something left of his existence other than this scout, fuck.

"We have to get a gurney or something!" Urto bit, growing distant as the bubbles expanded with the rest of his passing life. "We have to get him help! His pulse is fading fast—!"

It all fell into the distance when he tried once more to reach Warehouse Nine. Too far away. In several pieces to cremate his brother in a coffin of fire.

It spun too fast. Time ran past him and chewed at his failure. Bright lights bounced between the bubbles, but he let each slip past his fingers at the disconnection of further voices while something continued to push unwanted air into his lungs. It fluttered and thinned to pop his consciousness, and he wanted to tear himself free.

"He hasn't changed?" Father's voice questioned.

"No," Dr. Evelion muttered from somewhere in the void. "I doubt he's going to come around for a while yet. He's been in this condition for a couple days already. I'm doing what I can, but... I don't know, Mr. Malakai... his condition could worsen..."

Just let me die, jackass.

Monitors beeped, and he trembled when Mother's hand slammed into his back with the sound of searing blasters. No matter how much he tried to reach her, blood splattered across pavement when she screamed out for him to run, and cried tears in the void which splashed against his own face when he sat among the debris, clutching the little scout.

Keren escaped his reach, and he burned to ashes.

"His injuries were still severe, it's fortunate he wasn't closer to the blast," Dr. Evelion responded to something Father said. "He's not going to be doing anything for a while. He needs a lot of recovery time."

Fortunate? Fortunate?

This is hell.

I just need to drift away... to them, just a little...

Mother smiled at him through the bubbles, and held out her arms. Tears slipped down his cheeks when he approached her through the field of ash, but when he embraced her, it was Keren he clung onto for his life. His baby brother who dreamed of flight and followed in his shadow with wide-eyed wonder.

Ethan screamed into the dark field of smoke.