I went outside as the sun dipped toward the horizon, painting the sky in crimson and gray, as if someone had spilled blood and ash across the skyline. Brightburn was a dead town: houses stood with boarded-up windows, the planks nailed haphazardly, with protruding nails; the streets were littered with debris—a broken chair with faded upholstery, a cracked mirror, empty tin cans with jagged edges. The wind carried the smell of burning and decay—somewhere nearby, a fire smoldered, and I saw a thin wisp of smoke rising above the rooftops. I breathed in the air, feeling it settle in my lungs, and thought: this was the smell of the end. Or the beginning?
I headed to the old school on the edge of town—a two-story building with peeling yellow paint now hanging in strips, exposing gray concrete. The windows were shattered, glass crunching under my boots, reflecting the sunset in tiny sparks. The door hung on one hinge, creaking as I pushed it—a sharp sound, like a scream in the silence. Inside, it smelled of dampness, sickness, and something sweet, like rotting fruit. I walked down the corridor, where children's drawings still hung on the walls—faded suns and crooked houses, taped with yellowed Scotch. In the auditorium, amid overturned chairs with torn seats and ripped curtains, people huddled—dozens, maybe fifty. Men with sunken cheeks, bristly with stubble; women with disheveled hair; children clinging to their parents, their small fingers clutching dirty rags of clothing. Their clothes were stained with sweat and blood, their eyes empty as scorched earth, and I felt their fear, their pain, without even touching them.
Their bodies were riddled with the virus, and some had only a day or two left. A pitiful sight.
When I entered, they recoiled, someone grabbing a rusted pipe lying by the wall, ready to defend themselves. Their movements were slow, weak—hunger and illness had drained their strength.
"I'm not an enemy," I said, raising my hands to show empty palms. My voice echoed off the bare walls, where paint peeled in long strips. "I have a cure. For the virus."
They were silent, eyeing me with distrust. Their breathing filled the hall—raspy, uneven, like the wind in the broken windows. An old man with a gray beard, leaning on a makeshift cane made from a chair leg, stepped forward. His eyes watered from illness, his eyelids red and inflamed.
"Prove it," he croaked, coughing into his fist. Blood stained his fingers—dark, almost black.
I pulled a flask from my jacket pocket—the glass glinted in the dim light filtering through a broken window, reflecting sunset hues. I told them about Tori: how she was dying, how this brought her back to life, how her skin warmed again. Slowly, step by step, their fear receded. I handed out the first doses—syringes trembled in their hands, needles gleaming in the half-light. I injected the cure precisely, feeling their bodies tense, then relax, as warmth returned to their veins. Hours later, they came alive: coughing subsided, fevers broke, a faint light appeared in their eyes—not bright, but alive. A woman with a child in her arms—a girl of about five, with dirty pigtails—fell to her knees before me, whispering thanks. Her tears dripped onto the dusty floor, leaving dark spots.
"You're a savior," she said, her voice trembling, her hands stroking her daughter's head.
"I'm not a savior," I replied, helping her stand. My fingers brushed her shoulder, thin and sharp as a twig. "I'm just someone doing what I must." But inside, I asked myself: must I? Or was this just my revenge on a world that broke my faith in a better outcome?
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Night fell over Brightburn again, but now it felt thicker, heavier, like tar dripping from the sky. The moon hung over the town as a pale shard, its light piercing through tattered clouds and falling to the earth in cold patches, illuminating the husks of houses—their sagging roofs, broken windows, walls covered in black mold, like the skin of a dying beast. The wind died down, leaving only a faint whistle in the cracks, as if the town were whispering to itself, counting its wounds.
I stood at the entrance to the old school, feeling the dampness soak into my boots, the smell of rotting wood and sickness creeping into my nostrils, mixing with the bitter tang of iron—the remnant of my blood on my tongue.
Inside the hall, it was quiet, only the rustle of clothing and occasional coughs breaking the dead silence. The people I'd saved sat on the floor, huddled together, their faces—gray, gaunt—now glowing with faint warmth, like embers smoldering under ash. I'd brought them food discreetly. The old man with the cane watched me from under swollen eyelids, his fingers clutching the flask with the remaining cure like it was a relic. The woman with the girl still whispered something, her voice blending with the hum in my head—gratitude, fear, hope. I turned to the window, where the glass had long been smashed, leaving jagged edges like the teeth of some monster. Through the gap, I saw the street: dark, empty, with a lone dog limping along the sidewalk. Its ribs protruded under patchy fur, its eyes glinting yellow, like the streetlights that had long gone out.
"How many more like this?" the old man asked, his voice rasping like an old gramophone with a needle stuck on a scratch. He coughed, spitting a clot of dark mucus into his palm, and wiped his hand on his pants, leaving a wet stain. "How many can you save, kid?"
I didn't answer right away. My fingers gripped the windowsill, the wood crumbling under them into fine dust that smelled of dampness and time. How many? I didn't know. My blood wasn't an infinite source, but it was vast, and I felt it inside me, hot, alive, as if it were pushing me forward, whispering: "Act. Break. Build." I saw the faces of those who died while I stood by windows, watched fires, listened to sirens. Everything for thousands of kilometers. I saw Kate's parents, their bodies lying in their basement, with blue lips and empty eyes; I saw neighbors whose screams faded under rubble. I didn't make it in time. But now I could.
"All I can find," I said finally, my voice sounding dull, like a hammer striking rusted metal. "But that's not enough. The cure is just the beginning. The world can't be healed while those who broke it still breathe."
The old man nodded, his beard trembling, his eyes narrowing as if trying to see something beyond my words. The others were silent, but I felt their gazes—prickly, heavy, like stones thrown at my back. They saw salvation in me, but I wasn't sure they wanted what I planned next. I turned to them, my boots crunching on broken glass, and the moon's shadow fell across the floor in a long stripe, splitting the hall in half.
"You've seen what's become of Brightburn," I began, pacing slowly along the wall where children's drawings hung as a reminder of a past that no longer existed. "Virus, wars, famine—this isn't random. It's their hands. Those hiding behind walls of glass and steel, who see us as trash under their feet. I can give you life, but I want more. I want them to pay. For their world to collapse, like ours did. And for us to build a new one—not from their bones, but from our strength."
The silence grew thicker; I heard their breathing falter, someone swallow, and the girl in her mother's arms whimper softly. The woman pulled her closer, her fingers digging into the girl's thin shoulders, leaving white marks on her skin. The old man coughed again, but now a spark flashed in his eyes—not gratitude, but something hard, like steel.
"You want war," he said, tapping his cane on the floor. The wood clinked against the concrete, the sound echoing off the walls. "And we can barely stand."
"Not war," I replied, clenching my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms, but the skin didn't break—I didn't let it. "Justice. They took everything from you. I'll give you strength. Not just to live, but to live as you deserve. You'll be my voice. I'll be the sword."
They were silent, but I saw their faces change: fear giving way to something else—anger, weary but alive. I knew that anger. It had burned in me since I realized my powers weren't a gift but a weapon I could aim wherever I chose. That I wasn't a toy in the hands of creatures that control minds. And I would aim it where it was needed.
By morning, I returned home. The sky was gray, like wet concrete, and the first raindrops pattered on the roof, leaving dark stains on the old shingles. Kate was waiting for me at the basement entrance, her hair plastered to her cheeks from the damp, shadows under her eyes as dark as Tori's had been before the cure. She held another flask—murky, with a reddish tint—her fingers trembling, leaving wet marks on the glass.
"Did they believe?" she asked, her voice quiet but laced with anxiety, like a crack in thin ice.
"Some did," I replied, descending the creaking stairs. The wood sagged under my feet, groaning, and the smell of mold hit my nose, mixing with the acrid scent of chemicals. I sat. "That's enough for a start. Word will spread among people quickly."
Tori was still asleep on the couch upstairs, her breathing now steady, deep, like a child who doesn't know fear. I looked at her through the open basement door, at her face where her cheeks had finally flushed, and thought: for her, I'd cut myself as much as needed. But that wasn't enough. We needed more blood, more syringes, more people ready to stand behind me.
We worked in silence. Kate mixed solutions, her movements sharp but precise, like someone afraid to stop lest they start thinking. I cut myself again—the knife slid across my skin, leaving thin lines that healed instantly, and the blood dripped into flasks, chiming like a bell in an empty church. Each drop was a promise, each prick a step toward what I'd planned. By evening, we had fifty doses—murky, smelling of iron and acid, but alive, like my blood.
"This is dangerous, Brandon," Kate said when we finished. She stood by the table, clutching a syringe, her nails leaving scratches on the plastic. "You're giving them hope, but what if they turn it against you? Or against each other?"
I looked at her, at her gaunt face, at her eyes where tears or lamplight gleamed—I couldn't tell. She was right. Hope is a sharp knife that can cut either way. But I'd already chosen my path.
"Let them try," I said, my voice colder than I intended. "I'll break them if I have to. But first, I'll break those at the top. They think they're untouchable. I'll prove them wrong."
Kate was silent, her fingers loosening, and the syringe fell to the table with a soft clink. She turned away, looking at Tori, and I understood: she wasn't afraid of me, but of what I might become. But I couldn't stop. The world was tearing at the seams, and I was ready to rip it apart to stitch it back together. My blood was my first brick. Their bones would be the foundation.
The next day, I left Brightburn. Behind me was a town—dead but stirring, like a beast licking its wounds. I'd given them the task and the ampoules. Now it was up to them. I walked toward the horizon, where smoke rose in black columns, the smell of burning growing thicker with each step. There, beyond the fields, beyond the burned farms and broken roads, were they—those who drank wine while we died. I felt them, as I felt my blood: fat, lazy, secure in their power. They didn't know I was coming. But they would soon.
The wind caught my steps, flinging a handful of dry dirt in my face, and I smiled—for the first time in a long while. This wasn't the end. It was the beginning.
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