The cuffs around Luka's wrists dug into his skin.
He sat at the back of a military transport, chained to his seat. Like cargo. Like a problem being shipped off.
Other prisoners sat around him. Some stared at the floor. Some muttered to themselves. A few were slumped over, out cold.
Luka just felt tired.
Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes. His head throbbed. His skin itched. Every muscle burned. Withdrawal felt worse than anything waiting on the other side of this flight.
He leaned back and closed his eyes.
Then someone screamed.
His eyes shot open.
One of the guards was gone.
Not dead. Not unconscious. Just gone. His uniform, boots, and gun were on the floor. No blood. No noise. Just empty gear where a man used to be.
"What the hell…?" a prisoner muttered.
Another guard ran down the aisle, pale and panicked.
"Stay in your seats! Don't move!"
Then he vanished too. Right in front of them.
Luka froze. Couldn't move. Could barely breathe. One by one, people were blinking out. Guards. Prisoners. Even the pilots.
Then the plane dropped.
Alarms blared. The whole aircraft shook. Oxygen masks fell from the ceiling.
The engines screamed. Metal groaned.
People shouted. Screamed. Prayed.
Luka felt his body lift off the seat.
"No, no, no…!" he gasped, gripping the armrests with everything he had.
Through the small window, the forest rushed up to meet them.
And then everything went black.
—-----
He woke up choking on smoke.
Everything was on fire. The wreckage, the trees, maybe even the sky. The air stank of burning metal, jet fuel, and blood.
Luka coughed, rolled to the side, and forced himself upright.
The cuffs were snapped. Seatbelt ripped. His body felt wrecked, bruised, maybe broken, but he was still breathing.
Somehow.
He blinked through the smoke.
Bodies. Everywhere. Twisted. Burned. Not moving.
No screams. No voices.
Just him.
—----
He stumbled through the woods.
His lips were cracked. Skin peeling. A shallow gash across his ribs kept leaking blood, slow, sticky. Not deep enough to kill him, just enough to remind him.
Every step was hell. Felt like his legs weren't his. Like they belonged to someone already dead.
He didn't know where he was. No water. No food. No clue what direction he was even heading.
He just moved. Because stopping felt worse.
Hours passed. Or maybe it was days. Time didn't matter anymore.
His knees buckled more than once, but he got back up every time. Out of spite. Out of survival.
Something had to be out there.
And then, there. A cave.
He staggered inside. Cold hit him first. Then the wet. The dark. The smell.
The walls... felt wrong. Like they were soft. Damp. Breathing, almost. Or maybe that was just the concussion talking.
Didn't matter.
He dropped. Hard. Hit the stone floor and didn't get back up.
Could barely keep his eyes open.
That's when he saw it.
A lump. Sitting there in the dark.
Flesh. Raw. Bloody. About the size of a fist. A jagged bit of bone stuck out like a fang.
Animal? Human?
Didn't matter.
His stomach growled. Loud.
He didn't think, just crawled over, grabbed it with shaking hands, and bit down.
It tasted like rot. And rust.
He chewed anyway.
Then everything was cut to black.
—-----
Luka woke with a sharp breath.
Cold air hit his lungs. His mouth tasted like blood and dirt.
His stomach twisted. He rolled to the side and gagged. Nothing came up.
The lump of flesh was gone.
Only a clean-picked bone sat near the cave wall. He stared at it. Wrong shape. Wrong size. Didn't look like any animal he knew.
Didn't look like it belonged to anything from this world.
He looked away.
Something was off.
His body didn't hurt.
Luka blinked and looked down.
No cuts. No bruises. Just clean skin. Like nothing had happened.
"What the hell…" he muttered.
He stood up. His legs held steady. No wobble. No pain. No weakness.
Something was wrong.
He stepped out of the cave. The wind hit his face—cold, dry, too clean. The sky was too blue. The world was too quiet.
He walked.
No plan. No direction.
Just moved forward because standing still felt worse.
Time blurred. Maybe hours passed.
Eventually, he hit a road.
Then a sign. A city name he recognized.
He kept walking.
Something was off.
Cars were wrecked. Storefronts smashed in. Fires burned with no one around to stop them.
No sirens. No cops. No people.
Just the hum of broken machines.
He found a gas station. The door was half-open. Lights flickered.
A TV behind the counter buzzed with static.
He walked up to it.
"Breaking news," a woman's voice said through the noise. "The Rapture. Millions gone. No warning. No explanation."
Luka stared at the screen.
Gone?
Millions?
His chest tightened.
Then the voice came back.
"Now reports say the dead are rising. Violent. Aggressive. Some call it a virus. Others… something biblical."
He stumbled back. Almost tripped.
None of it made sense.
But something in him knew: the world broke. And whatever was left… wasn't right.
He wandered until he found a house on the edge of town.
Normal-looking. Empty.
Door unlocked.
Fridge still full.
Closets packed.
Whoever lived there was just… gone.
Like the rest.
He showered. First real one in days. Watched the dirt, the blood, and the prison stink swirl down the drain.
Still didn't feel clean.
He stared at himself in the mirror.
Same brown eyes. Same messy black hair. Same junkie face.
But the world outside was dead.
And somehow he wasn't.
He pulled on clean clothes. Plain T-shirt. Jeans. Decent jacket.
Better than orange. Better than chains.
But not enough to feel human again.
He ate cold beans. Crackers. Curled up on the couch with a knife under the pillow.
Didn't trust the silence outside.
Didn't trust the silence inside, either.
The house had a phone. He found a charger and plugged it in.
No signal.
Then, two bars. Barely enough.
He called his mom.
No answer.
Tried again.
Still nothing.
Dad. Sister. Straight to voicemail.
Ezra sat there, staring at the screen. Waiting. Hoping.
Nothing.
Part of him wanted to go home. Just walk through the front door, see their faces, pretend none of this ever happened.
But that other part, the one that remembered the cuffs, the court dates, the mugshots, whispered:
What if somebody sees you?
A twenty-one-year-old drug dealer, popping up during the end of the world?
Yeah. They'd drag him right back to jail.
If there even was a jail left.
Still... he had to know.
Had to know if they were alive.
Then bam… the power cut out.
—------
The next morning, the lights flickered back on.
Luka almost didn't believe it.
He scrambled for the remote and turned on the TV.
A blonde news anchor stared into the camera like she was reading the weather. No emotion. No fear. Just dead eyes and a script.
"The Revelation Phenomenon," she said.
"Reports are coming in of people awakening strange powers. Strength. Speed. Fire manipulation."
Luka sat forward.
What?
Footage rolled.
Military bases were overrun.
Soldiers screaming. Bullets doing nothing.
Infected tearing through them like wet paper.
This wasn't like any zombie movie.
They were fast. Mean. Rabid.
They leapt over fences. Climbed walls. Swarmed like insects.
Luka's hands clenched the couch cushion. His knuckles cracked.
This wasn't a virus.
This was war.
And the government?
Gone.
Half the top brass blinked out in the Rapture. No leaders. No orders. Just pure, screaming chaos.
Then the camera cut to a weird handheld scanner. Looked like something out of a knockoff sci-fi prop bin.
Lines of people. Fear on their faces.
Each one scanned.
"Revelation Level: B-Class."
"Revelation Level: S-Class."
Classes?
Power levels?
What the hell was going on?
Luka stared at the screen, chest pounding.
Something had changed.
In the world. In people.
In him.
He didn't know what it was yet.
But whatever it was…
…it was crawling under his skin, waiting to break loose.