Chapter 4: The Red Flash
1 week ago · 3 min read
The news spread across King’s Crown Secondary School before lunch.
Everyone had a different version of the story.
“They said he crossed the entire road in one second.”
“No, it was a motorcycle that saved the old man.”
“My cousin saw everything. He said the boy disappeared.”
By the end of the day, nobody knew what was true anymore.
Only Rasheed did.
And the truth scared him.
⸻
He couldn’t stop replaying the moment in his head.
The truck.
The silence.
The frozen world.
It had felt… natural.
Too natural.
His feet had moved before his mind could even think.
As if his body already knew what to do.
When the final bell rang, Rasheed left campus without waiting for anyone.
He needed answers.
⸻
Instead of walking home, he followed an old road that cut behind the city.
Few people came this way anymore.
The abandoned industrial district had been closed ever since the Chrona Core accident two years earlier.
Rusted gates leaned against cracked concrete walls.
Warning signs had faded beneath years of rain and dust.
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
The words were barely readable.
Rasheed climbed over the broken fence.
Something pulled him forward.
Not curiosity.
Instinct.
⸻
The deeper he walked into the abandoned facility, the quieter the world became.
Wind no longer reached this place.
Even birds avoided it.
The only sound was the echo of his footsteps.
Broken laboratories lined the hallway.
Shattered glass crunched beneath his shoes.
Old computer monitors sat covered in dust.
Most had been destroyed.
One…
was still on.
Its screen flickered weakly.
CHRONA CORE PROJECT
ACCESS DENIED
Rasheed frowned.
The computer should not have had electricity.
He reached toward the keyboard.
The monitor instantly shut off.
“…Weird.”
A loud metallic clang echoed somewhere below.
He froze.
Someone else was here.
⸻
He followed the sound downstairs.
The staircase descended beneath the main building into an underground research chamber.
Every step felt colder than the last.
At the bottom stood an enormous circular room.
The ceiling had collapsed years ago.
Steel support beams twisted like broken bones.
In the center of the chamber stood a machine unlike anything Rasheed had ever seen.
It towered nearly three stories high.
Most of it had been destroyed.
But its circular core still pulsed faintly with crimson light.
Once.
Twice.
Once again.
Almost…
Like a heartbeat.
Rasheed couldn’t look away.
His own pulse began matching its rhythm.
Ba-dump.
The machine glowed brighter.
Ba-dump.
His heartbeat quickened.
Ba-dump.
Without realizing it, he stepped closer.
A warning siren suddenly blared through the chamber.
Lights flickered to life all around him.
A robotic voice echoed overhead.
“Chronal signature detected.”
Rasheed spun around.
“What?”
The machine pulsed violently.
Cracks of red energy spread across its surface like veins.
The air itself distorted.
For one terrifying moment…
Gravity disappeared.
Tools floated into the air.
Chunks of concrete lifted from the ground.
Even raindrops drifting through the broken ceiling hung motionless.
Then—
A bolt of crimson energy erupted from the core.
It shot straight toward Rasheed.
His instincts screamed at him to run.
He tried.
But the lightning reached him first.
Pain exploded through every nerve in his body.
He couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t scream.
Couldn’t think.
Images flooded his mind.
Cities collapsing.
Stars burning.
A man trapped inside a crimson storm.
A broken clock stretching across the sky.
A pair of glowing eyes watching him from somewhere beyond reality.
Then…
Darkness.
Far away…
Hidden inside the shadows of the underground chamber…
someone slowly lowered a pair of binoculars.
“So,” the stranger whispered.
“It begins.”
The figure turned and disappeared before the emergency lights faded back into darkness.
On the ruined Chrona Core, a single crimson spark continued to dance across the cracked metal.
Waiting.
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