[In front of the burning house – Zero Hour]
"Mom!! Dad!!" I screamed, my voice tearing in my throat, coming out more like the howl of a wounded wolf than a human sound. I didn't think. I didn't hesitate. I threw my entire body toward the front door that was spewing tongues of flame.
"Ray! No!!" Jin screamed from behind me, his voice filled with panic. I felt his strong hands grab my coat, trying to pull me back. "Don't go in! The roof is going to collapse! They're dead! You can't do anyth—"
"Get away!" I spun around and shook off my arm with savage force I didn't intend to use. Jin's grip flew off my coat, and his body was flung backward several meters, landing hard on the grass, his eyes wide with shock. I didn't look at him. There was no time to apologize.
I turned toward the door. The fire stood before me like a wall. The heat scorched my face so intensely I felt my eyebrows singing. I lifted my right leg."CRASH!" I kicked the burning door. It didn't just open... it shattered. Charred wood flew inward like shrapnel, opening a path for me into hell.
[Inside Hell]
I entered. The air inside wasn't air. It was hot, black poison burning the lungs. The thick smoke was blinding, and the fire was eating everything; the curtains, the pictures hanging on the wall, even the welcome mat that had greeted me just hours ago. "Mom!" I screamed, but smoke filled my mouth, choking my voice. I walked amidst the fire. Tongues of flame touched my skin, licking my clothes, but I... didn't stop. Was I burning? Maybe. But the physical pain was trivial compared to the terror squeezing my heart. The regeneration system in my body was working frantically, healing burns the moment they occurred, allowing me to walk like a ghost unaffected by the fire.
I reached the living room. The table where we ate fruit... turned to ash. The TV where Dad watched the news... melted like wax.
I looked toward the sofa. And there... time stopped. The blood froze in my veins, and my lungs ceased to function.
I saw them. They weren't the Mom and Dad I knew. They were... two black masses. Two charred, lifeless corpses with no features. The only thing that distinguished them... was that they were holding onto each other. My father's charred hand was still clutching my mother's hand. Even in the final moment... in the moment of pain, terror, and death... they were trying to protect each other.
The promotion... the fancy dinner... the blue suit... the laughter... the promise of a future... All of it turned into this silent black ash before me.
"No..." I whispered with a broken voice. My knees failed me. I fell onto the hot floor, ash swirling around me. I crawled toward them. I reached out a trembling hand to touch them... but I stopped. I was afraid they would crumble under my touch. I didn't scream. I didn't cry. The tears evaporated from the heat of the fire before they could fall. I felt something cold, heavy, and dark settle in the pit of my stomach. I felt my "humanity" melting and evaporating with the smoke rising from their bodies. Ray the student... Ray the dutiful son... Ray the dreamer... they all died in that moment.
"Ray!" A sound of violent coughing came from the entrance. Jin entered, covering his nose and mouth with his shirt sleeve, his face full of tears and terror, risking his life to save me. "Ray! We have to get out! The roof is fall—" Jin's words stopped when he saw what I saw. He saw the charred corpses. "Oh god..." he whispered, his hand dropping to his side. "Oh god... no..."
I stood up slowly. A mechanical movement, void of life. I turned slowly toward Jin. Jin stepped back instinctively, hitting the hot wall, his eyes wide with a terror I had never seen before. He wasn't afraid of the fire. Nor the corpses. He was afraid of me.
"Ray...?" he whispered with a trembling voice, as if speaking to a stranger. "Your eyes..."
I didn't need a mirror. I could feel the heat radiating from them. It wasn't the heat of the fire around us. It was the heat of an internal hell. My eyes weren't brown anymore. Nor even normal red. They were dark red... the color of clotted, rotten blood... saturated with rage and hatred that transcended human limits. The world in my view was no longer fire and smoke. It was numbers. Paths. And targets for death.
I didn't say a word to Jin. I walked past him coldly as if he didn't exist, walking out of the burning house. The fire parted from my path, as if it feared touching me.
[The Street – The Chase]
I walked out to the cold street. Fresh air entered my lungs, but it didn't extinguish the fire inside me. Fire trucks were approaching from afar. Neighbors coming out of their houses in pajamas.
But my "Red" eye picked up something else. Two hundred meters away, at the end of the dark street. A black sedan with tinted windows, speeding away, but its rear windows were slightly open. And thanks to my new superhuman vision... I saw them. I saw the faces of three people in the back seat. They were looking at the fire... and laughing. One of them was holding an empty gas can and waving it.
"Them..." I didn't think. I didn't hesitate. I didn't analyze. The volcano erupted.
"BOOOOM!" I launched. The asphalt exploded under my feet from the force of the push, leaving a small crater. I wasn't running like a high school student. I was running like a guided missile. Like a beast unleashed. The car was speeding away at 100 km/h... but I was getting closer. The distance was shrinking. The wind slapped my face with the force of a hurricane. The buildings around me turned into blurred lines. My lungs pumped air with the power of a jet engine. My heart pumped hot, black blood. I didn't feel tired. I didn't feel out of breath. I felt only... Hunger.
And in the middle of this mad sprint, as the distance between me and the killers shrank meter by meter... I heard the voice. Not my voice. A raspy, deep voice, ancient as sin itself... echoing in the cavities of my mind with terrifying clarity, filling every cell in my body:
(Smash...)(Kill...)(Destroy...)(Torture...)
A savage smile painted itself on my face, revealing my teeth as I saw the car coming within reach of my fist. I answered the voice silently, my soul burning with vengeance:
"I hear and obey."