Max knelt in the scorched ring of the ritual, smoke curling around his legs.

Hana wasn't moving.

Her body lay twisted where the pulse had flung her – back arched, limbs slack, blood smeared where her cheek had hit stone. Max was already beside her, one hand under her shoulder, the other pressed to her neck.

Breath. Barely. Shallow and stuttering like a candle trying not to die.

Her skin was cold. But the air around him wasn't.

It was burning.

Soulfire shimmered across the ruined chamber in thin, broken threads – not red now, but clear, colourless, bending the light like warped glass. It crawled up the columns. Pooled under the altar. Coiled around his boots like vines with teeth.

Max didn't notice. Not at first. His pulse was thunder. His hands shook.

"You shouldn't have pushed that hard," he whispered, voice rasping through grit and smoke. "You were meant to guide her. Not... not this."

He swallowed, pressed his forehead to hers for a breath. Her skin was ice against his own heat.

"You stubborn bastard," he murmured. "You weren't supposed to die for her."

The floor around them pulsed – a slow, rising thrum. Something was building. Something rising through the cracks.

But Max didn't move.

He stared across the room to the pod. The glass was still intact – but it was wrong. Glowing red from within. Flickering. Unstable. He couldn't see her silhouette anymore. Only motion. Something inside was still moving.

He dug his fingers into Hana's shoulder.

"You brought her to the edge," he whispered. "Now I've got to keep her from falling."

The Soulfire hissed louder, like it heard him.

Max exhaled hard, and smoke billowed out with it. His hands were glowing now – faint, pale veins of light tracing up from his fingertips, as if the fire inside him was searching for the way out.

He didn't care. He couldn't.

Hana's hand twitched once. Then stilled.

Max closed his eyes. Pressed his fingers back to her pulse.

Still there.

"Good," he breathed. "You don't get to quit yet."

His voice cracked on the last word. He bowed his head – just for a second – and let the weight of it press against her collarbone. She felt so small now. So breakable.

A minute passed. Maybe more.

Then he looked up again – to the pod. To the fire coiling beneath his skin. To the breath he hadn't exhaled since the night he watched April burn.

He stood.

The flames followed.

…………………

The door creaked open behind him. Max didn't turn.

He was still at the ritual circle, the blue glow licking up his back now, tracing the curves of his spine like a brand being rewritten in real time.

Footsteps. Hesitant. Careful.

Then: "Max."

Dan's voice. Clipped. Controlled. But underneath – tension, pulled tight as piano wire.

Still, he didn't look at him. He stood over Hana's still form, arms crossed, chest rising too fast.

"Say it," he muttered. "Go ahead."

She stopped a few paces behind him. The air between them buzzed faintly – a low hum, like reality was failing to keep up.

"We need to evacuate. Now."

Max exhaled hard through his nose. "I understand."

Dan took another step, slow. "There are monsters past the gate. Hundreds. Maybe more. There's a fox demon leading them. It hasn't moved on us yet, but the next wave is coming."

"I'm not leaving."

"I didn't ask."

That made him turn.

His eyes were hollow with exhaustion, ringed in shadow and firelight. Sweat clung to his temples. The flames beneath his skin flickered in strange colours now – not red, not even gold. They were wrong. Like someone had bled ice into a furnace and dared it to scream.

"You think I don't know what's out there?" Max said. "You think I haven't counted the exits? Thought about fallback plans? Escape routes?"

Dan's jaw flexed. "Then act on it."

"I'm not leaving her," he snapped, pointing at the pod. "Or Hana."

His lips parted – something flickered in his expression. Sadness. Frustration. Maybe guilt.

But he kept his voice level. "If you die here, you can't save anyone."

Max's laugh was dry, bitter. "That sounds like something April used to say."

Dan didn't move. He let the silence stretch between them.

"I was outside that night. When the house went up. I got her into my arms. Right before the roof collapsed."

His voice dropped. "You want to talk about saving people? You're talking to the guy who didn't."

Dan opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Max turned away. The heat around him flared again – the floor beneath his boots darkening, scorched.

"I'm not running again."

"You're burning up."

"Good."

The two words landed like fists. Dan flinched.

Max crouched beside Hana, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face with the gentleness of a man who'd buried too many already.

"She brought Liz back from the edge," he whispered. "I'm going to bring her the rest of the way."

Dan took one breath. Then another.

His voice softened – barely audible over the distant alarms.

"Just… don't lose yourself."

Max didn't answer.

He just reached out a hand, and the Soulfire leapt to meet him.

It didn't burn him.

Not yet.

But Dan could see it now – the way the light warped near his shoulders, the shimmer in the air. Like something inside him wasn't holding together anymore.

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He backed away without another word. He needed to go and help the others.

And Max stayed where he was – eyes locked on the pod, fire crawling higher. Waiting for the second time in his life not to fail her.

…………………

The smoke was thicker now.

It wasn't coming from the pod. Not really. It coiled from the air itself – from the space behind Max's eyes. A familiar sting rose in his nostrils. Not Soulfire. Not magic.

Burning wood. Paint. Plastic.

And flesh.

Max inhaled – and the room peeled back.

The sanctuary dimmed. The columns, the circle, the fractured glass – all faded like scenery behind a veil of fire. The stone under his knees cracked, became hardwood. The chill became heat. Oppressive. Dry. It clung to his skin like guilt.

And he was there again.

The hallway. The real one. The one that mattered.

Paint blistered on the walls. The carpet curled in black, smoking ribbons. His oxygen tank was already sputtering, pressure needle dead centre in the red. The roar of the fire drowned out his heartbeat. And she was screaming.

April.

Her voice cut through everything.

"Max—!"

He was almost at the door. Just two steps more. Maybe three.

The wood was glowing.

He threw himself against the door.

Too hot.

His gloves sizzled on contact – rubber fusing to lacquered wood, then tearing off in strips as he staggered back and slammed again, shoulder-first, like a battering ram with lungs full of smoke. The frame groaned. Paint blistered.

Above him, flames licked downward like claws, curling over the edges of the hallway.

"April!" he roared through the rebreather. "Get low! I'm coming!"

No answer.

Then—

A sound. A soft crack and a low, breathless gasp from the other side.

He screamed for backup, hit his shoulder again. The comms only spat static. No signal. No help.

Just him.

Just her.

Just this door.

One more second.

Max reared back, teeth clenched – and smashed into it.

The frame snapped. The door cracked down the middle and burst inward. Smoke poured through like breath from a dying god.

He surged inside—

The living room was hell.

The wallpaper curled in black sheets. The bookshelf was already ash. The rug had fused to the floor in a burning slick of nylon. And in the middle of it—

April.

She was pinned beneath a fallen ceiling beam – one end still glowing red, the other pressing hard into her ribs. Her hair was soaked with sweat and soot, clinging to her cheeks. Her eyes locked on him instantly.

She was crying.

But the tears evaporated before they reached her chin.

"Max—!" she choked.

He leapt the gap between them, boots skidding across the warped flooring. The heat warped the air – melted the outlines of everything – but he didn't stop.

He dropped to his knees beside her.

"Stay with me, I've got you," he rasped, yanking his gloves off.

Her skin was hot. Too hot. But alive.

She tried to speak again but only coughed – blood and smoke mixing at the corner of her lips. Her eyes rolled for a second.

He cradled her, hands sliding under her shoulders, trying to pull – but the beam didn't budge.

His fingers burned. He didn't care.

"Hold on," he whispered, pressing their foreheads together. "Just one more second."

She smiled. A real smile. A dying one.

Then the floor screamed.

A groan of warped beams— then the sound of wood giving way.

Max felt the shift a split second before it happened.

Then—

The floor dropped out beneath them.

The world collapsed.

The ceiling caved in as they fell, fire sweeping down with it.

Max wrapped himself around her, shielding what little he could.

He didn't feel the pain at first. Not until her fingers clenched his shirt one last time— then slackened.

Then it found him.

His arms blistered in seconds – flesh peeling back like wet parchment. The rebreather cracked against his cheek. The stench of burning hair, melting skin – his own – lodged in his throat, thick and choking.

He looked down, saw her skin blistering against his own.

Flesh melding.

Their wedding rings fused between their palms.

She wasn't breathing.

She wasn't moving.

She was gone.

And he was still there.

Burning.

Alive.

Alone.

His body lurched forward – in the present – gasping.

The vision didn't fade. It wrapped around him like a second skin.

He reached down without thinking and grabbed Hana's hand – tight. Too tight.

"April," he whispered, hoarse.

The fingers under his own twitched. Not hers. Too small. Wrong skin.

He blinked – and Hana's unconscious face swam back into focus.

Not April.

But for one agonising second, it had been.

His grip loosened. He stared at his own shaking hands.

"If you die here, you can't save anyone."

Dan's voice echoed like an accusation.

But it wasn't Dan he saw.

It was Liz – sleeping in the pod, light bleeding from her like a candle about to die.

His lungs heaved.

Don't fail her too.

The thought struck like a gut punch. His breath caught, then broke into a ragged gasp.

All around him, the room began to shift.

Not physically. Not yet.

But the heat… the heat was real.

The air rippled like oil over a skillet. Shadows bent in directions they shouldn't. The glass near the pod groaned – not from pressure, but from memory.

And in Max's veins, something older than fire started to hum.

Not red. Not gold.

Blue.

A cold, ruthless burn.

One that didn't stop at the skin.

One that remembered.

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, forcing the tears back down.

He couldn't break. Not now.

He just had to hold.

One more second.

This time, he would be the one who held on.

…………………

The heat changed.

Not just temperature. Texture. Colour.

It stopped burning red. Stopped flickering gold. Instead— it turned silent. Heavy. Blue like glacier ice, but shifting underneath with something deeper, older. As if light itself had forgotten how to behave.

Max felt it before he saw it. A chill that crawled up from inside his spine, threading through bone like frostbite beneath the skin.

Then the world moved.

Not shifted. Not shook. Moved— wrong.

The far wall shimmered, and one of the stone pillars began to fold. Not collapse. Unravel. Its runes peeled off in strings of unlight, curling mid-air like wet paper scorched by radiation. The surface twisted inward, turning outside-in in impossible spirals. Mortar became dust. Dust became nothing. It didn't burn – it simply ceased.

Time bent.

The flickering lantern by the stair began to stutter. Its flame blinked backward, then forward, then cracked like a prism. The light it cast fractured into rays that didn't match. One beam pulsed against Max's chest. Another lagged behind like a memory refusing to update.

The sigils on the ritual floor squirmed underfoot, their ink seeping into the stone like veins leaking into skin.

Hana's shadow – motionless a moment ago – began to pull sideways. Not toward light, but against gravity. As if something beneath her was yawning wide.

Max stumbled back.

But the floor breathed under him – a pulse, a convulsion. Tiles shifted like skin across muscle. His boots stuck for half a second, then released. Not from suction. From something letting go.

He sucked in a breath— but even that tasted wrong. The air was metal and ozone, salt and static. No heat. No burn. Just change.

Dan appeared in the doorway, panting. Blood smeared across his temple. His knuckles dripped. "Max—" he started, then stopped cold.

He saw it.

His eyes locked on the pillar folding inward. On Hana's shadow slipping into directions that didn't exist.

Dan's voice dropped to a whisper. "That's not… Hellfire anymore."

Max didn't answer. His jaw was clenched. His hands shook.

He looked down at his chest – and his shirt had burned away entirely. Beneath the scorched cloth, the skin over his ribs pulsed faint-blue. Veins of light threaded outward like cracks in glacier ice, crawling down his arms, blooming at his collarbone. It wasn't blood. It wasn't fire.

It was something else.

The kind of power that didn't protect.

The kind that replaced.

Dan took a half-step forward. "That's— Max, that's wrong. That's not what you—"

"I didn't ask for this," Max said, his voice hoarse. "I never wanted power."

He looked down at Hana, her lips parted slightly, eyes fluttering in some half-dream state. The firelight reflected off her skin in pale blue strokes, like moonlight bleeding under water.

Max's voice cracked.

"I just wanted her back."

The flames pulsed. The wall behind him curved slightly – not like it was collapsing. Like the room was forgetting it was supposed to be flat.

Max staggered. Clutched at his ribs.

"I'm not a god," he whispered. "I'm not supposed to have this."

The Hellfire curled higher, soft and silent, swallowing the shadows.

And he didn't know whose fire it really was anymore. Aamon's curse? His own soul, breaking? Or something watching from deeper still – patient, waiting to be let in?

…………………

The tremor of footsteps barely registered. Not heavy. Not thunderous. But deliberate.

Kabe entered without announcement – a shifting wall of white muscle and old soul. His claws clicked once against the threshold. Then he stilled.

The chamber reeked of wrongness.

Not rot. Not blood. Just power. The kind this world wasn't built to hold.

The bear's head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing. His fur bristled along the shoulders, not from anger… but unease. His snout twitched as he tasted the air – the faintest curl of his lip baring teeth that gleamed in the blue.

He stepped forward once. Then again.

Slow. Low.

His shoulders hunched slightly – beast-form tight, controlled. Not stalking. Not attacking.

Approaching.

Each movement precise. A veteran's read of danger.

He didn't look at Hana. Not at first. His eyes were locked on Max.

Max didn't move.

He was crouched still beside the pod, one hand pressed gently to Hana's arm, the other buried in his own ribs where the blue fire pulsed strongest. The glow at his chest had deepened – a shade now closer to white than blue. It crawled beneath his skin like veins of frozen lightning.

Kabe stopped three metres away.

He let out a short, low grunt.

Not threat.

Warning.

Max heard it. He looked up.

Their eyes met.

And for a moment – no longer than a heartbeat – the room tilted.

Because Kabe did not see a man.

Not exactly.

He saw something cloaked in memory. Something blazing at the edges of form and identity. A figure lit from within by the same fire that once consumed others. Not Hellfire. Not divine. But old. Primal. The kind of light that didn't purify or punish.

It decided.

Max's pupils glinted like mirrors – not blue, not gold. Just reflection. Like the fire behind his eyes hadn't made up its mind yet. His jaw was locked. His shoulders twitching, like muscles working against something just under the skin.

He met Kabe's stare.

Not defiant. Not pleading.

Bracing.

And Kabe stilled.

Because in Max's face now… there was something else. Something not human. Something buried too deep, twisted too far, edged in grief and forged in guilt.

Kabe's breath fogged once in the cold blue light.

Then he turned – just slightly – toward Hana's body.

One massive paw touched the edge of her ankle.

Checking.

Anchoring.

He didn't growl. Didn't roar.

He just stood there.

A guardian beast facing the unspoken.

A man facing the threshold of becoming something else.

Neither moved.

Not yet.

But in the firelight, both knew: if Max fell the wrong way—

only one of them would walk out of this room.

Max didn't blink.

He clenched his jaw.

Just one more second, he thought.

Not this time.

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