There’s a flash of light. It’s so blinding it would be painful if there were time to feel it before the real pain sears through Lev’s face. It’s a split second of glass melting, splattering, splintering at the same time as heat eats away metal like fungus putrefying bread and the cold of space freezes it all again, all a blast of temperature so intense hot and cold mean nothing. Nerves know no degrees, only pain, at these extremes, but there’s a split second of terror that seems in the long, distorted neurotransmitter fugue of death to last forever, a hell of fire and guilt. Lev has just enough awareness for just enough time to hear the screams behind him of those he’s failed, and to feel the past Seria clinging to his waist as he soars where she’s not meant to go, her clawing hands weighing him down, down, down–his wings don’t work and he’s falling and then the oxygen is gone, the sound undetectable, eardrums perforated in ice and pressure, and all the stories of all the heroes behind him end, suddenly, in futility.
And then, there is only the fire of the moon.
The End.