ACT TWO - CHAPTER TEN

FALLEN ANGELS

Jul 29, 2026

Dear Marked Ones,
We’ve finally reached the finale of this Arc.
For the best reading experience, I highly recommend reading the previous chapters of the Glasgow Arc before diving into this one.

And behold, the day came
when the waters
no longer gave life,
but claimed it instead.

EMMA

The alarm went off at seven. Just as obnoxiously as it did every Monday morning. I reached an arm out from beneath the duvet and silenced it with a practiced slap.

For another moment, I stayed where I was, listening to the rain drumming steadily against the window. If someone had asked me that morning what I would remember most about that day...

it certainly wouldn’t have been the rain.

“Emma!” A voice rang out from the children’s room.

A second later came a loud thud. “Noah! Stop it!”

With a sigh, I dragged myself out of bed, pulled on my old grey hoodie, and padded barefoot into the kitchen.

Outside, the entire housing estate was drowning in shades of grey. The apartment blocks. The sky. The rain-soaked pavement. Even the people waiting for the bus looked as though someone had drained every colour from them.

I opened the fridge.

Milk. Butter. Eggs. That would have to do.

“Breakfast will be ready in two minutes!” I called down the hallway.

“Noah took my teddy!”

“Because she hit me!”

I slammed the fridge shut. “Both of you, enough!”

Sometimes it felt as though I spent more time raising those two than our parents did. By the time I set the cereal on the table, Noah was already sitting in his chair.

Naturally, he’d taken the bigger spoon. He frowned at his sister’s bowl. “Emma... Lily got more.”

Lily hugged her teddy tightly against her chest.

Mum used to tell me I couldn’t fall asleep without that same bear when I was little.

To keep the peace, I swapped their bowls. “There,” I said, dusting off my hands. “Happy now?”

Noah shook his head.

“I should’ve seen that coming.”

My phone buzzed on the table. MUM.

I answered immediately. “Hi, Mum.”

“Morning, sweetheart.” I could hear the car engine humming in the background, along with the radio. “I just wanted to let you know your dad and I will be home a bit later today. Will you be okay?”

I looked over at Noah, who was trying to pour himself some milk. About half of it ended up on the table.

I sighed. “We’ll survive somehow.”

Mum laughed softly. “Love you all.”

“Love you too!” the three of us answered in unison.

The call ended.

Noah licked the milk off his finger. “Do we have any juice?”

“Tough luck.” I stuck my tongue out and pulled an exaggerated sour face.

He looked deeply unimpressed. Grumbling to himself, he wandered over to the sink and turned on the tap.

The pipes groaned softly inside the walls. The first stream came out slightly murky. A few seconds later, the water ran clear.

He filled a glass to the brim and drank it in one long gulp.

“Yuck.” He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “It’s freezing... and it tastes weird.”

“Well, you’re the one who poured it.”

He shrugged, filled another glass, and handed it to Lily. She accepted it carefully with both hands and took a tiny sip.

I poured myself a coffee.

The morning news was playing on the television. The presenter was talking about traffic on the motorway, the weather, and the weekend’s football results.

Suddenly, the picture dissolved into static.

A sharp electronic tone screeched through the speakers. The broadcast cut away to an advert.

I frowned. “That’s strange...”

I walked over to the window. Two ambulances sped down the main road. A police car raced after them.

The presenter reappeared on the screen. This time he was no longer standing calmly behind the news desk. Someone was shouting in the background. A chair crashed to the floor.

“We apologise for the interruption to our broadcast. Police are urging residents of Downtown to remain inside their homes. We are responding to multiple major incidents. The cause is currently unknown...”

A gunshot echoed through the studio. Someone screamed. The screen went black.

“Emma...”

Noah never complained like this. If something hurt, the whole apartment usually knew about it. Now he sat perfectly still at the table. Hunched over. Both hands clutched tightly around his stomach.

I set my mug down and hurried over. “What’s wrong?”

“My tummy really hurts...” His face had turned ash-grey. Cold sweat glistened across his forehead.

“That’s because you inhaled your cereal in under a minute.” I tried to smile. I couldn’t.

Noah slid off the chair. I caught him before he hit the floor. His skin burned beneath my fingertips.

“Hey... look at me.”

“I’m... so cold...” His eyelids fluttered heavily.

Then he suddenly gagged. His whole body lurched forward. A torrent of water mixed with half-digested cereal burst from his mouth. It wasn’t normal vomit.

In the kitchen light, it shimmered with a dark violet sheen. A putrid stench spread through the room.

“Oh God...” I caught him before he collapsed and grabbed a dish towel from the counter. “It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s nothing.”

Lily wasn’t sitting upright anymore, either. She was curled over the table, her forehead resting against the teddy bear clutched tightly in her arms.

When she looked up at me with tear-filled eyes...

my throat tightened.

“Emma...” she whispered. “It burns inside me too.”

Thankfully, my phone was within reach.

MUM I called her. Voicemail.

DAD. The same automated tone. Unavailable.

I tried MUM again. Nothing.

I dialled the emergency services. The call connected. Relief washed over me— only to be replaced by a cold, synthetic voice. “All operators are currently busy. Please remain on the line...”

Tinny hold music began playing. The connection crackled and died.

A shockwave rocked the entire apartment block. The windows rattled so violently I expected the glass to shatter. Dust drifted down from the ceiling.

Then came the sirens. Dozens of them. Layered over one another until they became a single endless scream.

Automatic gunfire. People screaming. Real screaming.

I pulled the curtain aside.

The street below had dissolved into chaos. People sprinted across pavements and between abandoned cars. They crashed into one another. They fell.

A middle-aged woman tripped on the kerb. Someone leapt over her without breaking stride. No one stopped. Far beyond the rooftops, thick black smoke climbed into the sky.

Someone pounded on our front door. Desperate. Frenzied. “Please! Is anyone there?! Help me!”

It was our neighbour. The same old man who’d repaired Lily’s bicycle last week.

I took a step toward the hallway. My hand reached for the handle on its own.

Small... ice-cold fingers caught the sleeve of my hoodie. Lily. She didn’t say a word. She just held on to me as though letting go would leave her completely alone in the world.

Then a deep, wet growl echoed from the other side of the door.

The neighbour screamed.

A dull impact followed. Something heavy slammed against the hallway wall.

The sound of fabric tearing. Then came a series of sickening, wet blows...

until his screams were cut short.

One step at a time... I backed away. I didn’t even notice the tear running down my cheek. Using all my weight, I shoved the chest of drawers across the floor until it jammed against the front door.

Noah had gone quiet. A bolt of panic shot through me. My fingers shook so violently around the bedroom handle that the door rattled before I managed to open it.

He was sitting on the bed. His back to me.

I stepped inside and immediately caught my foot on a plastic toy. I crashed onto my knees with a deafening clatter. My heart slammed against my ribs.

I scrambled upright and grabbed him by the shoulders.

He turned around. His eyes were flooded with blood. Black tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Emma... I can’t see.”

In one last desperate act of hope, I pulled him into my arms. I wanted to believe it was some kind of seizure. I wanted to save him.

His whole body jerked violently. His jaw snapped shut with a sickening crack. A jet of warm blood burst from his mouth, splattering across my face and hoodie.

I screamed.

Pure terror hurled me backwards into the bedside table. The lamp crashed to the floor and shattered.

Noah toppled off the bed. His neck twisted unnaturally to one side. The sound that escaped his throat stole the air from my lungs.

I stumbled backwards blindly.

Somewhere in the chaos, the bedroom key slipped from my pocket and landed on the floor between us.

Without thinking, I threw myself forward, snatched it from beneath his feet...

and ran.

I slammed the bedroom door shut. My hands shook so violently that I couldn’t get the key into the lock.

“Damn it! Damn it!” I sobbed.

Then Noah’s hands slammed against the door from the inside.

Lily was crying hysterically from the sofa. “Emma! What’s wrong with Noah?!”

“Shut up!” The words exploded out of me far more harshly than I’d intended. Regret hit me instantly.

But my lungs refused to draw breath. My mind had completely collapsed. One thought drowned out every other. “He’s my brother. He’s suffering. I can’t leave him in there.”

My hand closed around the key again. I turned it halfway back. Something hit the door with tremendous force. The wood splintered.

A guttural, inhuman roar burst from the room.

Whatever made that sound...

was no longer Noah.

The lights died. The apartment was swallowed by darkness.

Lily began screaming. “Emma! Where are you?!”

I dropped to my hands and knees, crawling blindly toward her. I slammed my knee into the shoe cabinet, but I barely felt it. I grabbed her hand.

My phone slipped from my fingers and clattered across the floor.

“No... no... no...” I fumbled across the floor until my hand found the glowing screen.

My fingers slid across the display, slick with sweat. I tried calling Mum again...

but in my panic I kept pressing the wrong numbers.

I erased them. Started over.

Another explosion shook the city. The living room window shattered with a deafening crack. I pulled Lily against the front door. We were both shaking uncontrollably.

“Mum... Please...” I sobbed into the phone.

The screen lit up. The ringtone echoed through the apartment.

The pounding inside Noah’s room stopped.

For a single heartbeat the world held its breath.

Then footsteps. A sprint. The bedroom door exploded into splinters.

ETHAN

I’d never liked protests. Not because of the people. It was how little it took. One idiot. One bottle. One spark. And a crowd became a stampede.

“Walker.” Morgan adjusted his helmet and handed me a paper cup of coffee.

My gaze drifted over the bonnet of the police van. The square was filling from every street leading into it.

Elderly couples. Young families. Students. Men in work overalls. Some pushed prams. Others carried homemade signs.

I sighed and took a sip of coffee. “Let’s hope nobody decides to play the hero today.”

Morgan let out a quiet snort. “You’ve just guaranteed someone will.”

The radio on my shoulder crackled. “All units, stand by. The march is beginning.”

I pulled on my helmet and fastened the strap beneath my chin.

At first, everything went exactly by the book. The crowd chanted. Whistles pierced the air. Music blared from somewhere through a crackling loudspeaker. Children sat on their parents’ shoulders.

An elderly man handed out fresh bread from a stall, while a young woman brought a crate of hot coffee over to our barricades.

“You’re only human too,” she said with a gentle smile.

Morgan winked at her. “Thanks.”

This was how protests were supposed to look. Anger. Shouting. But no violence. Then I noticed him. A man in a hoodie, the hood pulled low over his face.

He wasn’t protesting. He wasn’t chanting. He was moving. Gliding through the crowd with purpose. He stopped beside a woman pushing a pram.

Lost his footing— or pretended to— and bumped into her. She turned, snapped something at him. A second later he collided with another passer-by.

“You see the guy in the hoodie?” I asked Morgan, nodding in his direction.

“Which guy?” By the time he turned his head the man was gone.

I swept my eyes across the crowd again. That’s when I spotted the others.

They weren’t shouting. They weren’t carrying signs. They weren’t listening to the speeches. They wove deliberately through the sea of people...

bumping into them... brushing against them... touching them.

After eighteen years in uniform, I’d learned to trust bad feelings.

And the one sitting in my gut that morning felt like a warning.

The first bottle hit the asphalt ten minutes later. It shattered barely three metres in front of our line. A ripple of unease spread through the crowd.

“Stay calm!” someone shouted through a megaphone.

The second bottle came straight at us. It slammed into Morgan’s riot shield, sending shattered polycarbonate spraying across the road.

“Hold the line!” the commander barked.

We gritted our teeth and stepped forward. Routine. We’d drilled for this a hundred times.

Then a gunshot rang out.

Silence. The kind that makes your skin crawl.

A heartbeat later, someone screamed at the top of their lungs: “THE POLICE ARE SHOOTING! THEY’RE KILLING US!”

Thousands of people broke in every direction. Children screamed. Women were knocked to the ground beneath the stampeding crowd. Someone overturned a newspaper kiosk.

Further down the square, a hooded man hurled a petrol bomb into a parked car. Flames roared into the sky.

“Shit!” I broke formation and grabbed a little boy who was seconds away from being trampled. I shoved him toward his mother. “Take him!”

She didn’t answer. She snatched him into her arms and disappeared into the chaos.

At the far end of the square, a bus was already burning.

The radios erupted all at once.

“We need backup!”

“Sector Bravo has been breached!”

“Officers down!”

“Sniper on the rooftop! The commander’s down!”

I turned to Morgan. In all the years we’d served together... I’d never seen fear in his eyes before.

A young woman collapsed to her knees. At first, I thought someone had knocked her over in the crush. Her body convulsed violently on the rain-soaked road. Dark foam spilled from her mouth.

“She’s having a seizure!” someone shouted.

I pushed through the crowd. “Police! Move back!”

People reluctantly gave way.

I dropped to my knees beside her on the wet asphalt. “

I need an ambulance!” I shouted into the radio clipped to my shoulder.

“All units are committed,” the dispatcher replied. “There are no ambulances available.”

The woman suddenly opened her eyes. There were no pupils. No whites. Only a dense endless black.

“Ma’am...?”

She stood up. Too fast. Too sharply. Every movement looked wrong... as though her body no longer understood its own limits. Without a word, she drifted back into the crowd.

The first man who crossed her path didn’t even have time to raise his hands. With a single motion she tore his throat open. Blood sprayed across the protest sign he was carrying.

“OPEN FIRE!”

The bullets tore through her chest. She staggered. She didn’t fall.

Morgan emptied his entire magazine into her.

She kept coming. She didn’t feel a thing. She leapt. Landed directly on top of one of our officers. I’d never heard a human being scream like that.

“Fall back! Fall back!”

Another officer panicked and fired into the crowd. The bullet struck a civilian. People trampled one another. Children vanished beneath the feet of fleeing adults.

Air-raid sirens wailed across the city.

My radio dissolved into static and overlapping voices.

“...infected...”

“...I repeat...”

“...it’s not working...”

“...all units fall back...”

“...fall ba— FALL BA—”

The transmission died.

Morgan collapsed to one knee beside me. I dropped to him and grabbed his shoulders. There was a tiny wound on his neck. Barely more than a pinprick.

“What happened?!”

Gasping for breath, he touched the spot. “I... I don’t know... Someone... bumped into me...”

I froze. The hooded man. Crashing into people. Touching them. It hadn’t been an accident.

Morgan began to shake violently. I pressed a hand against his forehead. He was burning.

“Ethan... I... I don’t want to die...” he rasped.

“You’re not going to die.” I lied.

The crack of his ribs breaking was louder than the gunfire around us. I tried to hold him down. He threw me aside with a strength no human being should possess.

I hit the asphalt hard. When I looked up... Morgan was gone. Where his eyes had been two empty sockets stared back at me.

I ran. I couldn’t put a bullet through the head of the man I’d served beside every day for twelve years.

The city around us was coming apart. Buses burned. Shopfronts burned. Police cars burned. They were everywhere. Some still looked human. Others... not even close.

I sprinted onto the main avenue.

Something crashed onto the roof of an overturned bus with a deafening impact. The ground trembled beneath my feet.

Everyone froze. Even the infected.

Standing atop the wreck was a tall, slender figure. Its body was wrapped in living darkness. Long hair, ending in blade-like strands, rippled in the wind.

It didn’t move. It simply looked down at the ruined street below.

One of the infected lunged at it with a savage roar. I didn’t even have time to blink. The infected lay in two pieces.

The figure merely bent down. Placed a hand upon its head. Darkness poured from its palm, spreading across the corpse. Within seconds nothing remained but ash.

The civilians screamed in terror. I couldn’t look away. I thought it was another monster. Something even worse.

But then more infected burst from behind a burning car.

The figure moved. In a single instant it stood between them and us.

I was exhausted. Every breath tasted of smoke and dust. I had enough ammunition for two magazines.

Behind me, twenty civilians huddled together. A mother with two children. An old man leaning on a walking stick. A nurse with blood smeared across her uniform. Students.

“Sir...” A little girl tugged gently at my sleeve. “What are we going to do?”

I opened my mouth. No words came out. I didn’t know.

A low growl rolled through the fog. More of them were coming.

“We’re trapped...” someone whispered behind me. They were right.

Behind us... burning buildings.

Ahead... a pack of bodies.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

The steady, unhurried sound of wood striking concrete.

The infected stopped. All at once. Every head turned in the same direction. Then they fled.

A tall figure emerged through the smoke. A long leather coat. A wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his face. He walked without hurry.

The living shadow followed at his right side.

They stopped three metres in front of me.

None of us moved.

“Officer.” His voice was deep. Almost impossibly calm. His gaze swept over the people behind me. “Follow me.”

That was all it took.

The mother took her children’s hands. One of the students helped the old man to his feet. The group began following the man in the long coat.

I remained where I was. “Who are you?”

The Black man let out the faintest chuckle. “That doesn’t matter today.”

“Officer!” The little girl had stopped at the corner, waiting for me. “Please...”

I drew a long breath and wiped the blood from my forehead. “Let’s go.”

He led us to an old cast-iron manhole hidden in the shadow of two collapsed apartment blocks. On my own, I never would have found it in that chaos.

Our shadowed companion crouched down and effortlessly lifted the hundred-kilogram iron cover aside.

Cold, damp air rushed up from the darkness below.

“Down. Quickly.”

People began climbing down the ladder. I helped the old man first. Then the mother and her children. When I was the last one left above ground, I looked back.

Downtown was burning. Explosions lit the sky. Automatic gunfire echoed in the distance. Hundreds of voices screamed into the night. The city was dying.

“After you,” the man beside the hatch said quietly.

“Why...?” The question escaped me before I could stop it. “Why is it protecting them?”

“Because she still remembers… what it means to be human.”

Our eyes met. I looked into those radiant white eyes. She didn’t look away. There was no hatred in them. No hunger. Only an endless unbearable sorrow.

Back then, I had no way of knowing that Downtown would remember only one name from that night—

the Fallen Angel.

MIZ

When the hatch closed behind the last soul, silence settled over the chamber. The explosions above reached us only as distant, muffled rumbles. Each shockwave made the old cast-iron pipes tremble.

My eyes drifted toward the officer. He stood with his back against the damp concrete; his fingers wrapped tightly around the grip of his pistol.

Men like to believe that, in moments like these, a piece of steel in their hand makes them masters of their own fate.

It’s a touching illusion. Unfortunately, it’s rarely true.

“My dear friends...” I didn’t need to raise my voice. “Please move farther inside. You’ll find clean water there... and some modest refreshments.”

No one objected. That never brought me any satisfaction. People lower their heads only after the last trace of will has drained from them.

Meanwhile, Ellie knelt beside a little boy. Her hair was completely white— the merciless mark of what she’d endured at the bottom of the tank.

She took a clean handkerchief from her pocket, dampened it, and gently wiped the dirt from his cheek.

“This might sting a little, sweetheart,” she whispered. “But you’re a brave boy, aren’t you?”

The courage of children never ceased to move me.

“Ellie.” I turned to her. “The officer and the others will need clean bandages.”

“Yep.” She rose to her feet, gently brushed the boy’s hair aside, and walked away.

I made my way through the survivors. The same emptiness filled every pair of eyes. They didn’t understand. I didn’t expect them to.

How do you explain to someone that their world ended on an ordinary Monday morning?

There are no words for something like that.

I found her kneeling beside a man with his thigh torn open. Her hands were stained with blood to the elbows.

They moved with the cold certainty of someone who no longer had the luxury of panic. “Apply more pressure. Yes... just like that.”

She looked up at me with tired eyes.

“If you’re about to tell me there are more injured people... I know.”

“Not more,” I said after a brief pause. “One of ours.”

She understood immediately. Snatching up her medical bag from the floor, she was already on her feet. “Take me to them.”

Sarah lay on a makeshift bed of blankets. Where her left arm had once been, there was only a thick emergency dressing.

Despite everything they’d done, blood continued to seep through it, dripping steadily onto the concrete below.

Ellie sat beside her, gently wiping the sweat from her forehead. “Did you find anyone?”

I stepped aside.

For the briefest moment, the nurse’s face went rigid. Then the expression vanished behind the calm, professional mask she’d worn a thousand times before.

“I need clean water. Bandages. Anything you can find. Now.”

Ellie didn’t ask a single question. She turned on her heel and disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel.

The nurse checked the bleeding, searched for Sarah’s weakening pulse, and issued calm instructions to the volunteers around her.

I knew that look. I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

A few metres away, a young lady in a grey hoodie sat against the wall. She cradled her sister who had somehow fallen asleep despite the nightmare surrounding them, her arms wrapped around a worn teddy bear.

She didn’t even notice I’d stopped beside her. Her eyes never left the child. As if she feared that the moment she blinked...

the little girl would disappear.

The child was breathing. Unlike most of the people trapped beneath the city, she’d been lucky. Fate could be cruelly arbitrary.

“Will she be all right?” she whispered without lifting her head.

I looked at the sleeping child. “We’ll do everything we can.”

It wasn’t a lie. Nor was it a promise. It was the only answer I could honestly give.

Ellie returned with an armful of clean cloth and bandages.

The nurse snatched them from her hands and hurried back to Sarah.

Ellie, however, remained where she was. Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling of the tunnel. On the sealed hatch. Up there. Beyond the concrete. Beyond the fire. Beyond the madness consuming the city.

“I have to go.” She was already standing at the ladder, one hand gripping the first rung. “He’s up there alone.”

“No,” I said, stopping her. “He isn’t.”

She turned to me. The only thing reflected in those violet eyes was fear for Sebastian. “You really believe that?”

“I believe in him.”

Sarah stirred weakly. Her eyelids fluttered. A barely audible breath escaped her lips. “...Sebastian...?”

Ellie rushed to her side, wrapping both hands around hers. “He’s fighting,” she whispered. “He’ll come back. I know he will.”

Sarah tried to nod. The corner of her mouth twitched into the faintest hint of a smile... before unconsciousness claimed her once again.

“And what if...” Ellie’s gaze drifted across the wounded lying on the ground.

The crying children.

Sarah whose fading life we were desperately trying to hold on to.

“If things get worse… They’ll need you.”

Outside, the most powerful explosion yet shook the earth. The concrete ceiling trembled. Grey dust rained down from the vaulted tunnel above us.

While Sebastian fought the battle above.

We fought just as hard below—

to make sure he still had someone to come home to.

PIN-PIN

The stained-glass shopfront exploded into thousands of razor-sharp shards. I kicked the remains of the frame aside and walked in.

The marble floor of the luxury jeweller’s arcade was littered with broken glass. The salesman lay sprawled across a Persian rug, his face covered in blood.

None of us paid him any attention. Just another useless prick in an expensive suit.

Bongo let out a wild roar and smashed the glass display case apart with the butt of his rifle. Gold chains, diamond rings, and watches spilled onto the floor with a cheerful clatter.

“Check this shit out, you bastard!” he yelled, snatching up a diamond-studded gold Rolex and strapping it around his filthy, blood-smeared wrist. “A hundred grand! A hundred fucking grand on my wrist!”

Mickey was just chilling on a leather sofa with his boots propped up on a glass coffee table. He had a bottle of fifty-year-old single malt in one hand, drinking straight from the neck like it was cheap beer.

Someone screamed outside. I couldn’t even be bothered to see what was happening to them. I leaned through the shattered window and fired a short burst from my rifle.

Bongo burst out laughing. Then he unzipped his trousers and pissed all over the whiny little bastard.

That settled it. No laws. No police. No self-righteous lectures about morality.

Maxwell had been right. The world belonged to the ones who weren’t afraid to take it.

That strange, sickly sweet taste still lingered in my mouth.

It was in the air. A faint violet dust drifting over from the shattered pipelines by the river. There wasn’t enough of it to turn us into those torn-up freaks outside tearing people apart.

But it still fucked with your head. My heart hammered against my ribs like a jackhammer. My pupils were blown so wide they swallowed my eyes whole.

No fear. No guilt. No little voice telling me what was right or wrong. Just pure animal instinct screaming inside my skull.

Bongo sliced his palm wide open on a shard of broken glass while scooping up rings.

Blood dripped over the gold. He looked at the gash and started laughing.

Feel pain? Not a fucking chance.

At that moment I honestly believed we were immortal. That nothing in this world could ever hurt us again.

Mickey hurled the empty bottle into a mirror, flashing those yellow teeth at me.

“You only live once, right?” he barked, stuffing another handful of diamonds into his pocket. “So why the fuck hold back?”

When we stepped out of the smashed store onto the street, the world around us had turned into a fucking zoo. Morality and inhibitions had vanished in a single hour.

In the middle of the intersection, a completely naked man was running around. His body was scratched bloody, but he just laughed hysterically, pointed at the burning sky, and danced in puddles of spilled gasoline.

Across the street, on the hood of an overturned police car, right in front of our eyes, a couple was shamelessly humping. They had lost their minds, clearly wanting to squeeze everything in before the end of the world dragged them down.

No one paid any attention to them. Why should I judge. Hmm...

Out of the smoke on the street corner ran a sexy MILF. Her blouse was ripped, tits out, desperately trying to push through the chaos.

Bongo spotted her too. He bared his teeth and jumped into her path.

“Where’s the rush, slant-eye?” he rudely grabbed her by the hair right away, dragging her to the asphalt.

The woman screamed, but Mickey joined them in a flash. He pinned her arms down with his knees. They started wildly tearing the remaining clothes off her, mocking her pleas. They stuffed a piece of ripped fabric into her trap to make her shut the fuck up.

Other scumbags ran past, no one turned around. No one helped.

I joined them, because I hadn’t fucked an Asian chick yet...

Except while I, a high-as-fuck dumbass, managed to pull my dick out. Meyer appeared among the burning wrecks.

No shouting, no unnecessary gestures. She walked through the chaos with arrogance, her long hazel hair falling over her bomber jacket, casually holding a sawed-off shotgun in her hand.

Our slant-eyed cocksucker spotted her. Through blood and tears, she reached out a bloody hand toward her.

“Please...” she sobbed desperately while we were holding her down. “Stop them... please! I have three kids at home!”

That Nazi bitch stopped. Her gaze swept over the lying woman, then over us. In her green eyes, there wasn’t a grain of pity, only cold calculation.

“Three kids...” she repeated.

A gunshot cut through the screams of the street. The woman’s torso was blown away, leaving only the lower half which could still be used while it was warm.

Bongo jumped back.

Mickey stayed kneeling with his mouth open.

Our wild, chemical euphoria from Graveglass fell to dust at that moment. That false sense of immortality cleared out.

“I accommodated you.”

She lowered the smoking barrel. She didn’t even look at the dead body.

“Do whatever you want,” she added in a stern voice, “but Maxwell’s orders are your priority.”

With a single gesture of her hand, she dismissed us. We stood there with tightened throats and obeyed her every word. We all knew it.

We were the scum, but She was something much worse.

We tore through the city in a stolen black convertible with the roof down. Mickey was standing on the back seats, laughing his fucking head off while spraying bullets into the streetlights.

“Oi! Look!” Bongo yelled from behind the wheel, slamming on the brakes.

First came the insane scream of engines ripping through the streets. Then we saw the boss. I’d recognise that massive Honda anywhere.

He was tearing across the shattered asphalt, weaving between wrecks, leaving a trail of sparks behind him.

Only a few metres behind him was that bastard Maxwell never shut up about.

What the fuck was his name again?

Sebastian… or something like that.

He was leaning low over his bike, snow-white hair blazing against the burning city.

Another motorcycle came flying in behind him. Face hidden behind a black visor. She kept blasting away with a shotgun, trying to get that albino dick off Maxwell’s ass.

Our fucking Mickey had completely lost what little mind he had left. He raised his rifle and dumped the whole magazine straight at the biker’s fucking head.

The guy didn’t even look our way. With one impossibly smooth movement, he dropped the bike almost onto its side, slipped between the burst of gunfire and a burning wreck...

then fired right back at us.

The windscreen exploded into our faces.

“Fuck! Get down!” We barely managed to throw ourselves onto the floor of the car.

By the time we looked up again, they were already gone, vanishing around the corner as fast as they’d appeared.

Doctors and nurses ran frantically through the hospital corridors. Aurora kicked the main doors open, and we stormed inside.

We went from room to room, kicking doors off their hinges and hosing down patients and staff alike. The screams blended with the relentless beeping of heart monitors.

At the far end of the corridor, a man blocked our path. He sat in a wheelchair, his face gaunt and exhausted, shielding the doorway behind him with his own body.

Bongo and Mickey charged him without a second thought. They figured he’d be an easy kill. That was their mistake.

He didn’t even blink. He drew his pistol and put a round straight between poor Mickey’s eyes.

Bongo let out a howl as a bullet tore through his thigh, sending blood spraying across the floor before he crumpled.

The rest of us rushed him.

He fired again—but the slide locked back. Empty magazine.

We piled onto him. He fought like a cornered animal, smashing us with the grip of his empty pistol. The wheelchair overturned.

I landed on his chest while two others pinned his arms to the floor. I shoved a blood-soaked rag over his mouth and nose.

He thrashed beneath us. His eyes bulged. After a long, desperate struggle his body finally went limp.

We kicked open the room behind him.

Jacob lay unconscious in a hospital bed, hooked up to a web of machines.

I drenched the bed—and the entire room—with petrol from a jerry can.

Aurora flicked open a lighter. Then tossed it onto the floor.

The fire caught instantly. Flames raced across the room, climbing the curtains, swallowing the bandages and the bed where the Mexican tough guy slept through it all.

He burned without ever waking...

as the hospital’s fire alarm erupted throughout the building.

We stepped out into the rear courtyard. The hospital behind us was completely engulfed in flames, thick black smoke rolling into the sky. Windows burst one after another with deafening cracks.

Then I saw the white hair.

My eyes met his blazing amber gaze—

cold with murderous fury.

I didn’t even have time to raise my rifle.

The world suddenly flipped upside down.

The ruined courtyard spun wildly around me.

Then I saw it.

A headless body in a blood-soaked jacket...

its rifle slipping from lifeless fingers as it collapsed onto the grass.

It took me one long...

endless...

fraction of a second to realise—

the body...

was mine.

MAXWELL

Fire is fair. It never asks who started it. It never asks who forgave whom. It consumes everyone the same. Steel groaned beneath the heat. The sprinklers had long since lost their hopeless battle.

Sebastian stood across from me. He gripped Lilith so tightly, as though she could still remind him of the man he used to be.

“Do you hear them?”

A support beam cracked overhead. A second later, a chunk of reinforced concrete crashed down between us.

“They spent their entire lives believing they’d come here to live.”

Neither of us moved.

“And now they’re dying in the very place where they expected to be saved.” For a brief moment, I closed my eyes. “That’s the irony of hope.”

Lilith hissed through the air. I caught the blade with my axe and drove my elbow into his ribs with my free arm.

Something inside him cracked with a dull snap.

He gave barely a single step. Good. He hadn’t given up yet.

Steel crashed against steel. Fists met bone. Blood splattered across the scorching tiles, hissing the instant it touched them.

“Morality is a curious thing, don’t you think?”

He remained silent. Of course.

“Everyone has it...” I stepped closer. “...until their own house starts burning.”

He came at me again. This time we traded blows.

My eyes fell to the Hearts insignia on his chest. “That badge...” I pointed at it. “You wear it exactly where your conscience used to beat.”

His jaw tightened.

“A uniform...” I tilted my head just enough for his blade to miss. “...the oldest costume murderers have ever worn.”

The edge sliced past my face, severing a lock of hair.

“How many nights did it take...” I twisted my body.

His fist missed my ribs and slammed into the cracked wall behind me. Chunks of plaster rained to the floor.

“...before you stopped saying our names?”

This time he attacked with everything he had. I caught his wrist, let his own momentum carry past me, then released him. He nearly lost his balance.

“What the fuck is so wrong...”

He struggled for breath.

“...with wanting to keep living?”

The fire faded into the distance. The explosions did too. The world didn’t stop. It simply stopped mattering Only those words remained between us.

“Keep living...” My gaze drifted toward the flames. “Everyone wanted that.”

I took a step.

“Patrick.” Another. “Iris.” One more. “Mayu.”

We stood barely a meter apart.

“Every one of them had plans for tomorrow.” Our eyes met. “You’re the only one who got one.”

Sebastian clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. At last, he did exactly what I’d been waiting for. He stopped listening. He let his anger speak instead. His fist slammed straight into my face.

A dull ache exploded through my skull. Before I could even wipe the blood from my lips, his boot buried itself in my stomach.

I flew across one of the hospital cafeteria tables. Plates and cutlery burst into the air. The wood shattered beneath me.

“Max!” I recognized the voice before I even turned.

Patrick stood in the doorway. There wasn’t a single drop of blood on him. Not a scar. Just that same stupid grin that had annoyed me my entire life.

He reached out his hand. “Come on! We won’t make it!”

For one second... I almost believed him. I blinked. He was gone. Only flames licking at the doorway remained. And the smoke swallowing the corridor.

A quiet, exhausted laugh escaped my lips. “So... you’re here now.”

“What did you say?” Sebastian vaulted over the wreckage. Lilith buried herself where I’d been lying only a heartbeat earlier.

“Do you know what’s worst about ghosts?” I kicked a steel chair toward him. It slammed into his ribs. He didn’t even slow down.

He grabbed my coat and hurled me into the serving counter. Plates rained down around us, shattering across the floor.

“They never come for the ones who killed them.” I drove my forehead into his nose.

We both staggered backward. He struck me with his elbow. I answered with my knee. We crashed across another table. Flames devoured the sleeves of our coats.

Sebastian seized me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. For a moment... I couldn’t breathe.

The support beam above us cracked.

I took the opportunity. My elbow smashed into his wrist. His grip loosened. I hit the floor hard on my knees.

“They always come back...” I spat blood onto the tiles. “...for the ones...”

My coat caught fire. I ripped it off. The skin on my forearm had already blistered from the flames.

Sebastian’s eyes shifted ever so slightly.

“...who couldn’t save them.”

The metal shelving crashed over with a deafening roar. I didn’t even have time to get back to my feet. He drove me straight back into the floor. He pinned my chest beneath his weight.

My head snapped from side to side.

All I could feel were the dull impacts of bone striking tile...

...and the warmth of blood running down my face.

He didn’t care where he hit me anymore. Every punch landed harder than the last. The world blurred. Something beneath us cracked with a thunderous groan.

He hit me again. I hit him back.

The floor gave way. Together, we plunged through it into the level below.

Sebastian steadied himself against the wall. He was barely able to stay on his feet.

For a long moment we simply looked at each other. For the first time since the fight began, neither of us threw a single punch.

Only the fire moved. Sparks drifted between us. Concrete cracked around us.

“What is it you actually want from me...?!” His voice had grown hoarse.

“I want...” My own voice faded. “...for you to finally admit she was real.”

Sebastian looked away. He tried to speak. Nothing came out.

“You still can’t even say her name.”

Something small moved at the edge of my vision. I ignored it. I couldn’t.

“Have you ever wondered...” After all these years, my voice trembled. “...what she would’ve looked like?”

“Shut the fuck up!” Sebastian growled through clenched teeth.

“Do you think...” Her name lingered on the tip of my tongue. “...she would’ve laughed as stupidly as Mayu?”

For an instant, I saw her smile. The very same one from the night we all sat around the campfire choosing her name.

“Or...” I met his eyes. “...would she have inherited your stubbornness?”

“Don’t talk about her!” He screamed it at the whole damned world.

CRACK! Blood spilled from my mouth onto the floor. I looked down at my trembling hands. I simply stared at the blood between my fingers.

A child’s laughter echoed through the smoke. Bright. Carefree.

When I looked up she was there.

She was waving at me. Her face changed from one heartbeat to the next. First, she had Mayu’s eyes. Then Sebastian’s. And then... she belonged to neither of them.

“Don’t use her as your twisted excuse...” Sebastian stood over me, Lilith raised and ready.

I slowly shook my head. Finding the words suddenly felt harder than breathing. “Then stop killing her. Every single day...” I drew another ragged breath. “...by pretending she never existed.”

I no longer had the strength to raise my voice.

“So just just say her name.”

Sebastian’s lips parted. Then closed again. For all these years, he’d managed to carry her death. Her name was the weight he could never bear.

“I’m sorry...”

Another explosion shook the entire building. Chunks of concrete and twisted steel rained from the ceiling.

Neither of us even noticed.

“...Valerie.”

In that moment, I understood that some victories taste exactly like another defeat.

“You know...” My eyes filled with tears as the smoke burned them. “I was afraid...”

The corner of my mouth lifted into the faintest smile.

“...that one day I’d be the only one left who remembered her.”

I looked up. One glance was enough. It was decided. This building wasn’t going to stay standing much longer.

Sebastian lowered Lilith. The anger was gone. All that remained was a man who had carried far too many dead for far too many years.

“You still won’t give up...”

My eyes drifted to the ring. I ran my thumb across its cracked surface. A small fragment of metal broke free. I took Sebastian’s hand and placed it in his palm.

He stared at it, bewildered.

“Don’t lose it.” I closed his fingers around it. I didn’t need to say anything else.

“Max...” I didn’t let him finish. I made the choice for him. With the last strength I had left, I shoved him away.

The glass exploded into thousands of shards. For one last moment, I saw his silhouette. Then the flames swallowed it.

I remained alone.

I slid down the wall until I hit the floor. Blood ran down my forearm, disappearing into the cracks in the concrete. Every breath burned. I rested my head against the wall.

The air tasted of smoke. Strange... Beneath it all, I could still smell wood.

The crackling of fire. A forest at night. Then the flames disappeared.

Another fire took their place. A small campfire beneath an open sky.

ECHO OF TIME

The night was quiet. Patrick sat against a fallen tree trunk, once again failing spectacularly to grill a sausage.

Thomas had been laughing at him for a solid five minutes: “You’ve burned it again.”

“It’s not burned,” Patrick protested. “It’s crispy.”

Jacob burst out laughing. “Tell that to someone who still has functioning taste buds.”

Kara sighed. “I swear, one day I’m going to kill every last one of you.”

“Mon cœur, you say that every week,” Thomas replied.

Mayu laughed. She was sitting beside Sebastian. One hand rested gently on her swollen belly. The other cradled a tin mug of tea.

Sebastian smiled at her. Carefully. As though happiness were something fragile.

“So...” Patrick took another bite of his sausage. “What’s the little rascal going to be called?”

“We still don’t know.” Mayu shrugged. “So... give us some ideas.”

“Just not you,” Kara said immediately. “After your suggestions, she’d end up being called Tank or Shotgun.”

Patrick threw his hands up in mock offense: “Those were beautiful names.”

For a while, the only sound was the crackling fire. I still don’t know why... but I spoke.

“Valerie.”

Every head turned toward me.

Mayu quietly repeated the name. “Valerie...” She looked at Sebastian. “I like it.”

“I just hope she inherits everything from you and nothing from me.” Sebastian smiled beneath his moustache.

Patrick let out an exaggerated sigh. “Brilliant.” He pointed his sausage at me. “So, our Grumpy Bastard is going to be an uncle.”

Thomas raised a finger. “Not just any uncle.”

Jacob grinned. “Her favourite one.”

Iris lifted her eyes from the fire. She studied me in silence for a long moment. Then she smiled. “Gentle hearts are the ones children trust first.”

For a second everyone fell silent.

“Oh, thanks a lot, Iris.” Patrick spread his arms dramatically. “Now you’ve gone and made our Max cry.”

I quickly lowered my eyes to the dirt. I could’ve sworn I wasn’t blushing. Had to be the fire.

“Oh, look!” Patrick poked my knee with a stick. “He’s blushing! Somebody writes down today’s date!”

Laughter spread around the campfire once again.

“You know what?” I shook my head. “Go fuck yourselves.”

“Oh, come on,” Mayu laughed. “You only have to look at yourself.”

Kara smirked. Of course, that Helsing harpy couldn’t resist getting one last jab in. “In ten years, he’ll be teaching her how to throw knives.”

“Twelve.” I corrected her with complete seriousness.

Mayu rested her head on Sebastian’s shoulder. She gently stroked her belly. “Welcome to the family, Valerie.”

If someone had told me that night...

that it would be the last evening we’d ever spend together...

I would’ve stayed by that fire...

just a little longer.

0:00

-4:54

The crackling wood fell silent. I opened my eyes. The hospital again. The smoke again. The pain again. Only this time it wasn’t quite as heavy. Someone sat down beside me. I didn’t need to look.

“Took you long enough...” A faint smile tugged at my lips. “Late as always.”

“I had to wait for the others.” Patrick lowered himself beside me.

Iris sat down on my other side.

Then I saw her. A white dress. Long crimson hair. She stopped a few steps away.

Mayu... Standing beside her was little Valerie. She hid shyly behind her mother’s hand.

I reached out with my burned hand.

The little girl only tightened her grip on Mayu’s fingers.

Mayu didn’t move. I couldn’t tell what her eyes were trying to say.

“No.” Just one word.

I looked at Patrick, confused. He lowered his gaze.

Iris remained silent. This time even she couldn’t find peace.

Mayu took a few slow steps closer. “Not yet,” she whispered, guilt softening her voice. “You have to stay.”

My head turned toward the shattered window. Somewhere out there...

Sebastian was still alive. I hoped. With the ring in his pocket. And with a name... he would never allow the world to forget again.

Perhaps some debts don’t die with the people who owe them. Then they turned away.

Patrick followed them.

Iris lingered behind. Our eyes met. She gave me the faintest nod.

As if to say... One day. Maybe one day.

The entire hospital shuddered. The concrete beneath me trembled. More chunks of plaster tore free from the ceiling. Shattered glass rained across the floor.

I smiled. I wasn’t sure whether it was because of the pain...

...or because of the relief.

Then the ceiling finally gave way and the fire swallowed everything.

THE END OF GLASGOW ARC

I’d be incredibly grateful if you could leave a comment afterwards and share your thoughts—whether it’s about this chapter or the Arc as a whole. Every piece of feedback means a great deal to me and helps me grow as a writer.

And yes... the longer the comment, the happier you’ll make me. 😊

Maxim Farrier

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