Darkness stirred.
Then came the light.
It started as a whisper of warmth—a glow beneath ruined skin. It shimmered, then ignited.
Blue fire.
Not wrath.
Not vengeance.
Grief.
Jay woke in a storm of cold flame, his soul tethered to a body that wasn't fully his—a cage of bone and sorrow haunted by a name he once whispered in reverence.
The world around him was ash and ruin, but the fire that surrounded him didn't burn.
It wept.
His skeletal fingers twitched.
His voice broke from his chest, hoarse and broken.
"Angela…"
The name slipped from his tongue like a prayer. The flames reacted—fanning upward, streaking toward the ceiling like a soul trying to escape.
He didn't remember how he got here.
He didn't care.
He only remembered her.
Her face.
Her voice.
Her blood.
The blaze convulsed, casting wild shadows that danced like mourning spirits across the walls. Consoles crackled. The windows began to blister.
Widowmaker had stepped in to check on him.
A mistake.
Now the room was flooding with firelight—and the demon was rising again.
Jay staggered upright, unsteady. His cloak reformed in flickers of ethereal smoke. Blue light radiated from his eyes like twin suns behind a skull.
He didn't see her.
Not really.
Just a shadow in the wrong place.
He stepped forward, chest heaving.
"Where is she…"
The flames pulsed—once, twice.
Then—
They shifted.
The tranquil blue began to splinter with hints of red.
Sorrow distorting into fury.
Grief remembering what it had lost.
Widowmaker's instincts screamed at her.
She drew her sidearm but didn't raise it.
"Jay…"
His eyes snapped toward her.
He took a step closer.
The red surged.
She felt it before it struck—heat like a blade pulled from the forge.
She shielded her face, refusing to retreat.
She had faced monsters.
But none like him.
Jay raised a hand.
The flames twisted in his palm.
This wasn't grief anymore.
It was about to become violence.
Beneath it all… within the abyss… Gérard screamed.
He was buried in obsidian.
Drowned in ash.
Trapped beneath endless fire.
He saw it through Jay's eyes—saw Amélie backing away, helpless. The demon didn't recognize her.
But Gérard did.
His mind pounded against the cage of flame.
"STOP!"
Jay didn't hear.
Didn't care.
But Gérard did not relent.
He felt the seal—fractured, wounded—but present.
He felt her voice. Her name.
He felt love.
And in that instant… something gave.
The seal flared.
Blue light burst from the demon's ribs.
Jay staggered.
The fire collapsed inward.
And for the first time since Angela died…
Gérard stood.
The flames vanished.
Jay's body fell forward, caught mid-collapse by Widowmaker's arms. His skull-mask faded. The blue retreated to faint lines across his chest and spine.
He wasn't awake.
But he wasn't burning anymore.
Not her.
Not today.
Widowmaker gasped for breath and cradled him gently, confusion and horror warring in her chest.
She didn't know what had just happened.
But somewhere, deep in the man's fractured soul—
Gérard reached for her.
And held Jay back.
Jay burned because he couldn't forget her.
Gérard returned because he refused to.
Chapter 5: The Memory Burns
There is no escape.
Only flame.
It peels spirit from spirit.
It strips thought from shape.
And still—Jay kneels.
He doesn't resist the fire.
He *is* the fire.
But this… this is not power.
This is mourning.
Blue fire coils around his soul, wrapping him like a burial shroud.
The Abyss trembled.
Not from movement.
From memory.
Jay knelt in the ruin of it—flames flickering from his shoulders like mourning veils. He didn't cry. He didn't scream.
He remembered.
Over and over and over.
Angela's final breath.
Her warmth, extinguished.
And he, alone.
That's when the god came.
Not with thunder. Not with fire.
Just a voice, smooth as broken glass:
"My, my… such misery over one mortal."
A silhouette emerged from the dark—tall, regal, carved in shadows.
"You have what you begged me for. All those years ago. When you came crying like a child…"
Jay didn't look up. The flames around him hissed softly.
"Is my hatred too much for you now?"
Jay raised his head.
Slowly.
Eyes like dying stars—glowing white, cracked with grief.
"…you."
The fire flared.
The god's expression didn't change.
"Don't be dramatic. I merely opened a door."
"The wraith pulled the trigger."
Jay stood.
Each motion cracked the world beneath him.
"She would've wanted—"
The words caught. Broke. Died.
The fire turned white-hot.
"She's not here."
"But I am."
"Again. And again. And again."
"What must I do… to die?"
He roared—pure, soul-rending anguish.
The flames around him didn't roar. They screamed.
The god stepped back. A flicker of hesitation.
Then came the heat.
The real heat.
Not vengeance.
Oblivion.
The Abyss cracked like ice under his feet.
The sky—a void—melted like wax around him.
The god stumbled, shielding his eyes from the rising inferno.
"Your rage…" he murmured. "It's… rejecting the dimension…"
Jay didn't answer.
He just burned.
The Abyss collapsed inward, a black hole devouring itself in fire—
—and Jay melted through it all.
Not escaped.
Unmade it.
Real WorldGerard stared into Amélie's eyes.
Eyes that once loved him.
Eyes that had once killed him.
He parted his lips to speak.
And stopped.
A searing pain struck his chest.
He gasped, clutching at his ribs.
The seal—
It twisted.
Warped.
Smoked.
Faded.
And far away—beyond the horizon of worlds—a fire screamed its way home.