The fire still burned.
Chunks of concrete rained like meteorites, thudding into the ruined street. Somewhere, a car alarm howled a dying scream before falling silent again.
Kaz coughed through the smoke, shielding Mira's unconscious body with his arms. His ears rang. His head pounded. But he was alive.
Samira was already standing, clothes torn, a gash across her shoulder. She stared ahead, toward the crater where the explosion had landed.
No words.
Just fire.
And something at the center of it.
"Is he..." Kaz started, but couldn't finish.
They approached slowly, ash crunching beneath their feet.
And then they saw him.
Max.
His body lay at the heart of the impact, unmoving.
Twisted.
Burned.
Unrecognizable.
Bone jutted from his arm at the wrong angle. His leg bent sideways. His face — no longer a face, just blackened, cracked flesh and melted skin. His chest rose barely, shallow, like a dying ember refusing to flicker out.
Kaz stopped cold. Samira's hand flew to her mouth.
"God..." she whispered. "He—"
He shouldn't be alive.
He couldn't be alive.
And yet... his eye twitched. Just barely. A single green spark leaked from the edge of his ruined body.
A pulse.
Not of life.
Of a Vice.
Samira's breath hitched. "No way."
Then—
A second pressure stirred the air. Heavier. Hungrier.
It was above them, in the broken clouds—
Still. Waiting.
Max saw it within the crack of his eyelids.
Then everything turned dark.
Max was falling.
Not through the sky. Not into flame.
But through himself.
The world around him wasn't real — it was reflection. Memory. Thought. Emotion.
The crater, the pain, the screaming — all muffled, distant, like a nightmare trying to forget itself.
He blinked.
And found himself standing.
Alone.
In a black, endless void, broken only by shards of floating glass. Each shard shimmered with faint green flame, suspended mid-air, orbiting like stars frozen in a dying galaxy.
His arms were whole here. His body unharmed. But it didn't feel like his.
"You're late," a voice said. Smooth. Dry. Familiar.
Max turned.
And there it stood.
Not a monster.
Not a man.
Something in-between — cloaked in shadow, skin carved like porcelain, with green fire pulsing beneath cracks in its flesh. Its eyes were slits of light, not angry… just disappointed. Ancient.
"You burned so much," the figure continued, stepping down from nothing. "And still, you hesitate."
Max didn't speak.
The being tilted its head.
"Don't you recognize me?" it asked. "I've been inside you since the day your jealousy tasted like grief. Since you stared at the lives you couldn't have and whispered why not me?"
It stepped closer. Max couldn't move.
"I am Envy," it said. "The one vice you never let go of. The only one who truly listened."
The flames around them crackled, brighter now — green and cruel.
Max clenched his fists. "You're the one who gave me this."
"I gave you what was already yours," Envy replied. "I only lit the match."
Silence.
Then Envy leaned closer, whispering in his ear, almost amused:
"You don't understand yet. But you will. Burn long enough… and everyone begins to look flammable."
The void shattered.
Max gasped awake.
His eyes shot open, blinded by sterile lights. His throat burned. His lungs screamed for air. But he was alive.
Barely.
He tried to move—
Nothing responded.
His arms were wrapped in thick bandages. His legs were cast and suspended. Tubes ran into his veins. A heart monitor beeped beside him like the slow ticking of death's watch.
Max stared at the ceiling.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't speak.
But he could think. And he could feel the faint warmth still flickering deep in his chest. Like a memory. Or a warning.
Max didn't even need to look around the room.
He knew he was in a containment cell disguised as a hospital room.
The silence in the room was thick.
Max couldn't move.
Couldn't speak.
Only blink.
Slow, tired, mechanical.
A prisoner inside his own shattered body.
The door hissed open.
Boots stepped in. Soft. Careful. Hesitant.
Loyalty.
She stopped just past the threshold, her white uniform dirt-stained and torn, her pale hair tied back in a loose braid. There was a bandage across her cheek — fresh. Her eyes, as always, were unreadable.
She stood there for a moment. Watching.
Then, quietly, she whispered, "...You're awake."
No celebration. No dramatic gasp. Just a faint exhale. She hadn't expected him to respond.
She walked to his bedside and sat down in the chair beside him. The monitor beeped steadily.
"I wasn't sure you'd survive," she admitted. "When I last saw you, your body wasn't even recognizable. Bones broken in thirty places. Skin gone. No heartbeat. You shouldn't be alive."
She looked at him.
His eyes were still open. Still watching.
Loyalty folded her hands in her lap. "You saved them, Max. Mira. Samira. Kaz. All of them. They made it out because you didn't hold back."
A pause.
Then, softer, she added, "But it wasn't enough."
Her eyes dropped to his bandaged arm. The skin beneath it was probably still raw, warped. "Your body can't recover from this naturally. Not even with our resources. What's inside you… burned everything you were."
She stood slowly, brushing invisible dust off her coat.
"There's only one who can fix you now."
Max blinked once.
"She's on her way," Loyalty continued. "Another Pure Virtue. One I never thought I'd summon."
She turned to the door, before saying the words like they were too heavy to speak aloud:
"The Virtue of Love."
A pause.
"She's the only one who can heal you now."
Loyalty didn't wait for a reaction. She just stood there, looking back at him, unsure whether she was leaving a soldier, a weapon… or something else entirely.
She hesitated—about to leave—but then stopped. Her eyes narrowed slightly, as though recalling something… impossible.
Loyalty's voice dropped. Quiet.
"…You saw it, didn't you?"
She stepped back toward him.
"That thing in the sky."
Max's pupils shifted—barely. But enough.
She nodded grimly.
"The silhouette that emerged after the blast — when the city cracked open. The shadow in the clouds."
She stared straight ahead, as if picturing it again.
"It wasn't Vanity. And it wasn't you."
Her voice sharpened.
"I reached the surface seconds after your collapse. That… presence… was hovering above the ruins. Staring down at your body like it had been waiting for you to fall."
Loyalty's fingers twitched at her side — reflexively recalling the shape of her blade.
"I confronted it."
Her eyes darkened.
"But before I could reach it — it vanished. Like it was never there."
She turned to leave.
"And I don't think that was the last time we'll see it."
Her hand pressed against the door frame.
"If you live, Max… you'll have to face that thing one day."
She stepped out.
The door hissed closed.
And Max was alone again.
Burnt.
Broken.
Still not breathing on his own.
But alive.
And somewhere out there, something was watching.
Waiting.