UNIBEN — FACULTY OF LAW— 11:00 PM
David walked like a corpse.
His feet moved, but he didn't feel them. His arms swung, but he didn't control them. His eyes were open, but he didn't see the campus, the lights, the students who stared as he passed.
He saw CJ.
Burning.
He saw Jane.
Curled against the wall.
He saw the flames that didn't stop.
The old pharmacy faculty.
CJ's last words.
"Happy early birthday to me."
David stumbled. Caught himself. Kept walking.
His phone was in his hand. He didn't remember pulling it out. The screen was cracked—he didn't remember dropping it. The messages from CJ were still there. The missed calls. The urgent.
He had thought it was about a birthday.
CJ's birthday.
Tomorrow.
But CJ wouldn't see tomorrow.
David kept walking.
He was heading to the faculty of law. That's where Israel spent his nights. Reading. Thinking. Asking questions that didn't have answers.
Israel.
Please be okay.
Please.
FACULTY OF LAW— 11:02PM
The building was dark.
Not night-dark. Wrong-dark. The same wrong-dark as the old pharmacy faculty. The same wrong-dark that now lived behind David's eyes.
He ran.
The first lecture hall was gutted. Seats reduced to frames. Walls blackened. The smell—smoke, plastic, flesh—clawed at his throat.
Bodies lay on the floor.
Students. Burned. Motionless.
David didn't stop.
The second hall was worse. The fire had been faster here—hungrier. The ceiling had collapsed in places, and the bodies were harder to see. But he saw them.
He kept running.
Please.
Please.
The Third Hall
The door was open.
David stepped inside.
The fire hadn't touched this room. Not yet. The seats were intact. The projector was still humming. A textbook lay open on a desk, its pages undisturbed.
And at the front of the room, standing beside the lecturer's podium, was Ruese.
His afro flowed like flame. His dark skin glowed with patterns of cracking orange. His eyes—wrong, darker than they should have been, deeper than any human's—were fixed on David.
His hand was on Israel's back.
Israel stood frozen. His face was pale. His eyes were wide. But he was alive.
"David," Ruese said. His voice wasn't his own. It was older. Colder. The voice of something that had been burning for centuries. "You're late."
"You're the arsonist." He said furiously.
David's green light erupted.
He moved—Faith reinforcement, faster than any human should move—closing the distance between them in a heartbeat.
Ruese's hand flared orange.
Fire erupted from his palm, engulfing Israel in a wave of heat and light. Israel didn't scream. He didn't have time. The fire touched him, seared him, marked him—and then it stopped.
Ruese jumped back, his hands raised, his smile wide.
"I think I'll leave him," he said. "As a down payment. For after I kill you."
David didn't hear him.
He was already at Israel's side, his hands hovering over the burns, afraid to touch, afraid to hurt him more.
"Israel!. Israel, can you hear me?"
Israel's eyes were open. His lips moved. No sound came out.
"Don't talk. Don't move. I'm going to get you out—"
Ruese's foot connected with David's ribs.
The kick lifted him off the ground—not just him, Israel too, their bodies flying across the room, crashing into the wall, cracking the plaster.
David's vision blurred. Blood filled his mouth. He spat it out.
Ruese was already there.
His fist—not reinforced, not enhanced, just burning, A Communion —slammed into David's chest. David flew again. Hit the floor. Rolled. Vomited blood profusely.
"Oh what is this I just did?"
Ruese stood over him, his afro casting strange shadows on the ceiling, his orange eyes glowing in the dark.
The Emperor of Furnace spoke through him—two voices, one human, one ancient, both laughing.
"Did you think this was a fairy tale?" Ruese asked. "Did you think you would kill demons and live happily ever after?"
David pushed himself up. His arms shook. His knees buckled.
He was still crying.
"David."
The voice was faint. Barely a whisper.
Israel.
He was on the floor, his back burned, his face pale. But his eyes were clear.
"David."
Ruese turned. His orange eyes narrowed.
"Still alive?"
He stepped toward Israel, his hand raised, flames curling around his fingers.
David moved.
Not toward Ruese. Toward his sketchbook.
Page 42.
The elephant.
It manifested—massive, grey-green, its tusks gleaming—directly above Ruese. The floor collapsed beneath its weight. Ruese fell—not through the building, not through the ground, through the floor, into the darkness below. The elephant fell with him, and from its mouth poured a torrent of water, flooding the hole, filling the space where Ruese had been.
David didn't watch.
He ran to Israel.
"Israel. Israel, I'm here. I'm here."
Israel's eyes fluttered. His lips moved.
"David... stop crying."
David hadn't realized he was crying.
"You're a Vanguard."
"I'm a bad omen," David said. His voice broke. "Everyone around me—CJ, Jane, you—I'm the reason you're suffering. CJ's dead now. I'm the reason—"
"David." Israel's voice was firmer now. Weaker, but firmer. "Don't limit yourself to such narrow-mindedness. You are a Vanguard."
He coughed. Smoke curled from his lips.
"What is it your friends and family have entrusted to you?"
David saw them.
CJ. Laughing. Calling him "bro." Asking about the Barcelona match.
Jane. Smiling. Wrapping the scarf around her neck. Saying "Just come back."
Israel. Calm. Asking the hard questions. "Why doesn't the Covenant treat the root?"
His Mom. Over the phone. Praying.
"Whatever you set your hand to shall prosper."
"Me," Israel said. "CJ. Jane.Your Mum and Dad."
David's tears stopped.
"There's no need to answer that now," Israel continued. "But... until you're able to find it, you cannot stop moving forward."
He smiled—a small, tired, Israel smile.
"Maybe that's what faith is, at the end of the day."
David stood.
His tears were gone. His hands were steady. His green light—flickering, weak, but present—wrapped around him like a second skin.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand.
"Page 42."
The eagle manifested—massive, green-ink, its talons gleaming. It swooped down, gently, carefully, and lifted Israel from the floor.
"Welcome back, my friend," Israel said.
David didn't answer.
He just watched the eagle carry Israel through the broken window, into the night, toward safety.
Behind him, the hole in the floor rumbled.
Ruese was coming.
David turned.
His green light flared.
"Thank you so much Israel," he said. "Let's finish this."