The skies ruptured, and the last thing he saw before being hurled through the portal was the glowing ember of Kael's gaze, merciless, final.
His hands reaching out.
Her blood still clung to the hilt of Lucent Grave. Her voice echoed in his bones.
"Live, Dævd… like the storm you were born from."
And then,
CRACK.
BOOM!
The world shattered.
Light swallowed him whole.
The world spun. Then nothing.
Darkness swallowed him.
GASP!
Dævd's body jerked upright in bed, drenched in sweat.
Dævd shot upright, lungs seizing.
His silver-white hair was damp against his brow, the pulse in his neck thundering as if he were still falling through the portal.
Beads of sweat clung to his skin. His chest rose and fell sharply, the morning light creeping through the window and painting streaks across his bare torso. The blindfold that once shielded his eyes now hung loosely around his neck, damp and forgotten.
He sat at the edge of his bed, elbows on knees, heart still racing.
His room was small but filled with quiet meaning — a photo of Lila and young Kade smiling at a beach, a shelf lined with Earth-made gadgets. He stared at them without really seeing.The contrast was jarring. Two worlds. One fractured soul.
His fingers twitched slightly. The dream still gripped him.
A moment passed. Then another.
Dævd stood and walked into the bathroom, eyes closed. The moment the shower roared to life, steam began to fill the space.
He stepped beneath the stream, letting the water crash over his body. His silver locs clung to his face and shoulders as he pressed one hand to the tiled wall, eyes closed. The heat grounded him. Reminded him he was here, on Earth. Not there. Not in the ashes.
Not yet back in the war.
Minutes passed.
Then, without a word, he reached for the blindfold.
By the time he left the bathroom, his mind was quieter. Not calm. Just… quieter. He tried to forget the blood. The fire
He was still breathing.
Still here.
Still surviving.
The scent of spice and freshly brewed coffee wafted through the hall as Dævd stepped into the kitchen. His movements were deliberate, quiet. The morning sun spilled in through the wide windows, bathing the space in a soft amber glow.
He tied the blindfold back over his eyes, not tight, just enough. Enough to keep it closed. Enough to hold back the storm.
Lila stood by the stove, humming to herself as she stirred something in a cast-iron skillet. Her short, voluminous curly hair, cut just above the shoulders, framing her face naturally without being overly styled and a stylish apron hung over her fitted clothes. She moved like someone who'd lived a thousand lives but chose to slow down for now.
She didn't turn around when she spoke.
"You dreamt again."
Dævd sat at the counter, hands folded, saying nothing for a moment.
Then: "Yeah."
Lila glanced at him finally, her expression unreadable. "Same dream?"
He gave a faint nod. "Only pieces this time."
She slid a plate in front of him, eggs, roasted plantains, spiced rice, and leaned on the counter across from him, her gaze calm but heavy.
"You've survived worse," she said softly.
Dævd gave a dry, humorless breath. "It doesn't feel like it."
There was silence between them, thick with things neither was ready to say. Outside, sirens wailed faintly in the distance, slowly fading.
The world kept moving.
Lila turned back to the stove. "Eat. You'll need your strength."
Dævd lifted his fork, blindfold still covering eyes that had seen far too much too young.
But beneath the quiet, something stirred again, inside him, in the world, in the air.
Something was coming.
The sun climbed steadily above the city skyline as Dævd stepped out of Lila's house, the air crisp and tinted with the scent of dew and distant smoke. He walked alone, blindfold drawn tight over his eyes.
The streets were alive with a calm, humming energy as Dævd made his way through the neighborhood. It was a modernized Lagos, shaped by years of quiet innovation, yet still brimming with cultural rhythm. Clean streets, tree-lined boulevards, solar-paneled buildings rising beside old brick foundations. Vendors leaned out of smart stalls, their AI-assisted grills sizzling with spice-heavy jollof and peppered suya. Drones buzzed overhead, and glowing holo-ads projected local art and news in the air like city spirits whispering.
His shoes tapped against tiled pavement, weaving between hoverbikes and kids on lightboards. This part of the city was one of few that still felt human, no towering skyscrapers, just tech-infused life coexisting with street soul.
He turned down a narrow side alley and stopped at a familiar corner.
KADE'S REPAIRS wasetched in bold, chrome-type font above a tinted smart-glass door. The walls were smooth obsidian panels, brushed with metallic blue trim that flickered gently with stored energy. A digital welcome display floated above the entrance, and just beside it, a custom-built turret scanner gave a quick diagnostic scan as Dævd stepped closer.
He grinned faintly. "Kade's definitely upgraded."
The glass door slid open with a soft hiss.
Inside, the shop was immaculate, a fusion of workshop and lab, with pristine white floors, black metal counters, and glowing circuitry embedded into the walls. Tools hovered neatly along magnetic racks. Mechanical arms moved with surgical grace over half-assembled gadgets. On one side, a reinforced display case held extraterrestrial relics, glowing faintly under a blue containment field. It was sleek, efficient, and quietly powerful, like the man who owned it.
At the center stood Kade, in a pine green techweave shirt with sleeves ripped away, he was focused on calibrating a palm-sized drone. His fingers moved with sharp precision, eyes hidden behind light-reactive lenses.
Kade (gruffly, without looking up):
"Boy, you're late. That coffee better be in your hands, not in your stomach."
Dævd stepped fully inside, letting the door seal shut behind him.
(smirking):
"You're lucky Lila made breakfast. If it was my turn, you'd be having air coffee."
Kade chuckles and finally turns, his face marked with a faint smear of alloy grease but his eyes are tired. He stands and wipes his hands on an old rag. A blueprint of some kind of energy converter hangs on the wall behind him. He tossed a folded shirt across the table.
"Your smart mouth's the only thing faster than your hands. Let's fix that today."
Dævd catches it midair, unfoldes the shirt and changes from his hoodie.
Dævd walked over to one of the benches, turning a strange piece of equipment over in his hands. It was shaped like a gauntlet, half-finished, with exposed wires and glowing etch-lines carved into the plating. It looked primitive, but something about it thrummed with familiar power.
"This… isn't local tech," Dævd muttered, voice low. "Where'd you get this?"
Kade didn't look up from his soldering. "Pulled it from an old Division-7 stash two years ago. Some failed op near the Delta. Figured it was junk. Lila said it might be connected to your kind."
Dævd traced a finger over one of the glowing blue lines. It flickered under his touch, pulsing once.
"It's not junk," he said quietly. "It's… responsive. Definitely Aetherian."
Kade let out a grunt, finally rising and walking over to get a closer look.
"Then that's one more reason I should've thrown it into a river," he muttered. "You don't build things like that unless you're expecting war."
He leaned closer, lowering his voice, and his expression turned serious.
"You've been holding back, kid. I know it. Something's going on in that head of yours, and behind that blindfold."
Dævd tensed. His grip tightened around the gauntlet, and for a split second, a faint glow bled out from beneath the edge of his blindfold. It vanished as quickly as it appeared.
"There are things I can't explain yet," he said quietly. "Things I don't want to remember."
Kade studied him for a moment, then placed a firm hand on his shoulder. Not demanding, steady. Grounded.
"Then don't run from it," he said. "Shape it. Control it. Or someone else will."
There was a long pause between them. The weight of shared understanding. Dævd finally nodded once.
Kade turned away, the mood shifting as he crossed to a shelf stacked with rusted tools and half-dead gadgets.
"Now, pass me that wrench before I do something useful without you."
Dævd let out a short laugh. "Impossible. You'd probably short-circuit your own knee again."
Later That Day – Outside the Workshop
The sun had shifted towards late evening, casting a dim warm gold glow across the Nigerian skyline. The streets buzzed with life. Hoverbikes drifted down paved lanes beside old yellow kekes, while Afro-fusion beats blared softly from smart-speakers rigged to solar-powered cafés. Buildings rose like smooth concrete spires—modern, yet textured with culture.
Dævd walked with his hands in his hoodie pockets, blindfold now resting fully over his eyes again. His footsteps were casual, but his thoughts weren't.
"Something about today feels… off."
The wind picked up. A dry breeze brushed against his silver-white locs, and for a heartbeat, the world seemed to hush.
He froze mid-step.
A flicker of pressure tugged at his senses, an untraceable ripple in the air. Beneath his blindfold, one eye glowed faintly, and the world around him shifted just slightly. The vibrant street dimmed, the air thickened, and something cold slid down his spine.
What was that?
He turned sharply, scanning the rooftops.
And then he saw it.
A hazy, dark silhouette stood perched on the ledge of a distant building. It was hard to make out, wreathed in smoke, its outline distorted by spiked energy. A burning sigil flickered across its chest, like fire carved into flesh.
"What the hell is that…?"
He vaulted up a drainpipe with unnatural ease, scaling three stories in seconds. His shoes thudded against the concrete as he landed on a wide rooftop.
Empty.
The figure was gone.
Only a faint wisp of dark smoke lingered in the air where it had stood.
Dævd scanned the horizon, pulse quick, heart thrumming with the old rhythm of danger. His breath came heavy, but controlled. Beneath the blindfold, energy still surged—alive, awake, alert.
"…So they've found us."
He didn't know who it was. Or how. But they were watching.
And he didn't like being hunted.