Flame.
A bright, murderous flame was everywhere as, one after another, explosions rippled through the once quiet forest, turning anything it touched into ashes, including their enemy.
However, to Elio, nothing reached him, nothing mattered to him, no sound, not the people around him, not Isabella's broken cries—nothing—as his entire world collapsed right in his arms.
Elio was motionless, soulless, as his eyes were fixed on Andrew's bleeding body in his arms, unwavering, unblinking, as if looking away for even a heartbeat would make him disappear. His grip instinctively tightened around Andrew's limp body, cradling him and pulling him impossibly closer, infusing Andrew completely within him as though afraid he would disappear.
His hands trembled. Not violently but enough to betray whatever was holding him together, barely, poorly as crimson blood seeped out of Andrew's chest, pooling beneath them endlessly and spreading across Elio's trembling hands and body.
