The sky over Terra Valis turned gold the morning everything ended.
Not the soft glow of sunrise — but a violent, burning brilliance that pulsed in rhythm with the ley lines beneath the ground. The air vibrated. Stone groaned. The planet was screaming.
Alex felt it before anyone said a word.
He dropped the bowl he was holding as the floor shuddered beneath his feet.
"Ley-line surge," his mother said sharply, already moving. "Lina—inside. Now."
The alarms began seconds later.
Low. Deep. Relentless.
From the ridge outside their home, Alex saw it — forming in the sky itself, thin at first, then branching like lightning made of absence. Buildings trembled. Energy spiraled upward uncontrollably.
People ran.
Screams filled the air.
Alex's heart slammed against his ribs.
"This is my fault," he whispered.
"What?" his mother said.
"I felt it last night," he said, already reaching for his sword — a real blade now, not wood. "Something's wrong with the ley lines. I can stop it."
She grabbed his arm.
"You're a child," she said, fear cracking through her voice. "You don't know what that power does yet."
"I have to try," Alex said. "Father would've."
The words hit her like a blade.
Her grip loosened.
"Come back," she whispered.
Alex didn't answer.
He ran.
The ley-line core was chaos.
Guardians were already there, struggling to stabilize the surge. Energy lashed out violently, warping stone and air alike. in the sky widened, bleeding unreality into the world.
Alex pushed forward, ignoring shouts.
"Stop!""Get back!""You'll be killed!"
He raised his sword.
The moment he did, the world listened.
The air thickened. The tear reacted — not resisting, but responding.
Alex gritted his teeth and swung.
Space split.
Not wide — not yet — but enough.
The shrank.
The surge faltered.
Hope flickered.
Then the ley lines screamed.
Too much power rushed in at once.
"No—no, no—" Alex gasped.
The tear expanded violently.
Time fractured.
Buildings vanished in chunks — not collapsing, but erased. Guardians were flung backward like paper. The sky shattered into impossible angles.
Alex felt himself tearing apart from the inside.
"STOP!" he screamed.
And the world answered.
Silence.
Absolute. Crushing.
In that frozen instant, Alex saw them.
His mother, running toward him.
Lina, frozen mid-step behind her.
Fear in both their eyes.
The tear widened one last time.
His mother reached Lina first — wrapping her arms around her, turning her body away.
Alex tried to move.
He couldn't.
Reality snapped back.
The explosion hit.
Alex was thrown across the ground, smashing into stone as the tear collapsed violently inward. The surge ended.
The sky healed.
The world did not.
Alex woke up choking on dust.
His ears rang. His vision blurred.
The city was gone.
Not destroyed — missing.
A vast scar cut through Terra Valis, smooth and wrong, where homes and streets had once stood.
"Mom?" he croaked.
No answer.
"Lina?!"
He staggered to his feet, heart pounding, and ran.
He found Lina first.
Alive.
Covered in ash.
Unmoving.
Alex dropped to his knees, shaking her gently. "Hey… hey, it's okay. I stopped it. I stopped it."
Her eyes were open.
But they didn't focus.
She stared through him — through everything.
"Mom?" Alex whispered.
He turned.
And found her.
She lay still, one arm stretched toward Lina, fingers curled as if still holding her.
Alex screamed.
The sound tore out of him raw and broken, echoing across the empty scar of the city.
Guardians arrived later. Elders. Survivors.
No one spoke to him.
They just looked.
At the boy standing in the ruins.
At the sword still humming faintly in his hand.
At the devastation that ended with him.
That night, Lina did not speak.
Not once.
Not to him.
Not to anyone.
And Alex sat outside the medical ward until dawn, blood drying on his hands, staring at the ground — afraid to look at the sky.
Because he had finally learned the truth:
Strength did not prevent loss.It chose the shape of it.