Jay woke to darkness.
Not the peaceful kind. This was the choking kind, the kind that wraps around your throat and whispers memories you can't forget.
The smell of blood still clung to his skin. Dry. Flaky. Part of him. His shirt was stiff with it, his side still a mangled, half-healed wound. Pain greeted him like an old friend. He didn't care. Pain meant he was still alive.
He lay on the floor of an abandoned gas station bathroom, tucked miles outside the city. A mirror cracked across the sink. A bandage that was once white, now rust-red. He stared at the ceiling, unmoving. Eyes wide. Golden. Hollow.
And then he heard her.
A whisper. Soft. Familiar.
"Jay…"
His breath caught. His hand flew to his right eye. It burned. Hot. Alive.
"Don't cry…"
The voice was hers.
Lina.
His baby sister.
He staggered up, palms slapping the sink for support. He stared into the fractured mirror.
The left eye: his.
The right eye: gold, glowing, swirling like liquid sunlight, alive with something other.
"You kept me," the voice said again, "I didn't want to leave you alone."
He sank to his knees, laughter and sobs melting into each other. He wasn't alone. Not really. But he wasn't whole either. He'd died that night, too. Just… not all of him.
Lina had clung to him, her soul splintering into his, anchoring to the one part of him that hadn't stopped screaming—his eye. His rage.
Now, she saw through him. Spoke through him. Cried when he couldn't. Watched when he hunted.
Jay stood. Taller now. Straighter.
There would be no hospital. No justice system. No more tears.
Only names.
He remembered their faces. The ones in suits. The ones with badges. The ones who ordered the massacre. The ones who watched. The ones who smiled.
He remembered every detail.
And he had a list.
Name One: Officer Caleb Myers.
The first face he saw standing over his father's corpse.
Jay waited until dark. Followed the routine. Myers had a wife. A daughter. A perfect little home.
Jay didn't knock.
The lights flickered as he stepped into the house. Screams erupted—he didn't touch the family. That wasn't his war. Not yet.
He found Myers in the garage, trying to run.
Jay smiled. It wasn't human.
"You remember me," he said, his voice low, broken glass over fire.
Myers stammered something. Begged. Reached for a pistol.
Jay moved faster than he should've. Rage gave him wings. He broke Myers' wrist like a twig, pinned him to the wall with a rusted nail gun he'd found on the bench.
"This is just the beginning," he whispered into his ear. "Tell Hell I'm coming."
Pain came slow. Deliberate. Jay made sure of that.
And when it was over, he stood in the dark, staring at the pool of blood like it was sacred.
His sister's voice echoed inside him.
"One down."
Jay nodded.
The war had started.