There’s warmth.

  A pressure on my hand: firm but trembling.

  Someone whispers my name. The words drift through the fog in my skull, light as ash.

  I try to move.

  Can’t.

  My body’s a weight I can’t lift, suspended and sinking like a forgotten thing dropped into the deepest part of the sea. Limbs drift upward, slack and lifeless, while my core pulls downward as though the abyss has claimed me. Sound warps. Light bends. And I sink, not with fear, but with finality into something vast, quiet, and unknowable.

  “Stay with us, Max.”

  Eric’s voice.

  Rough. Raw. Like he’s been calling my name through every hour of the night, hoping heaven would answer.

  I want to speak. To squeeze his hand. To show him I’m here.

  But I’m stuck in the in-between, where shadow dances with light, where silence hums louder than sound. Voices float around me, some panicked, some hushed. A hand brushes my forehead.

  Samantha?

  Warmth trickles into my bones like sunlight after winter. She’s trying to heal me.

  But something halts her.

  “Give her time,” Alec says. He’s trying to sound certain, but I hear the edge, the crack in the armor. “She’s strong.”

  Then Jamey’s voice slices through like broken glass.

  “But what if she doesn’t wake up?”

  A breath.

  Shaky. Controlled.

  Eric, again.

  “She will. She has to.”

  Time slips sideways. I don’t know how long I drift. But someone is always there, touching my hand, whispering news, tending to what I cannot.

  Then:

  “Max… when will you wake up?”

  Alec’s voice.

  Frayed. Ragged.

  It hits harder than pain.

  “I need you. I might not be able to see you for a while.”

  No.

  No.

  Alec wasn’t supposed to sound like that.

  Like goodbye.

  I lunge toward his voice, but my limbs don’t answer. Darkness swallows the motion whole.

  I woke to arguing.

  Voices cracked through my skull like lightning splitting a tree.

  “She has to wake up, Samuel!” Samantha’s voice shattered the stillness. “If she doesn’t, it might be too late to save Alec!”

  Alec.

  His name hits like fire to the lungs.

  “Sammy, lower your voice!” Samuel, cautious, always the steady one.

  “If Eric hears we’re stirring chaos...”

  “I don’t care what Eric thinks!”

  Something crashes, her foot, maybe, against the floor. It echoes straight through my ribs.

  “Do you think she’ll forgive us if Alec is harmed? If he’s... executed?”

  Executed?

  No.

  A crack spiders through the void.

  Jamey enters, and the air sharpens.

  He doesn’t yell. He doesn’t need to.

  “I will throw both of you out if you don’t control your words.”

  His voice is low, measured, dangerous.

  Samuel grunts, annoyed.

  “Alec’s trial starts within the hour. Don’t be late.”

  He and Samantha leave.

  Trial. Execution. Alec.

  The words hammer together in my mind like a war drum.

  The crack widens.

  Jamey draws closer. The mattress dips.

  His warmth settles beside me.

  “Max, we really need you to wake up.”

  His fingers brush my brow.

  “Alec was charged with attempted murder,” Jamey says, voice tight. “He beat the crap out of someone from another team. Some idiot who slandered you.”

  A pause.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  “He claimed your powers aren’t divine. Said they were dark… tainted.”

  Jamey’s breath hitches.

  “He said you were possessed. That everyone’s too blind to see it. That’s when Alec snapped.”

  Another breath, rougher now.

  “He was drunk. But the charges stuck.”

  His fist slams into the mattress beside me.

  Well, that mattress didn’t insult anyone, but okay.

  He exhales sharply.

  “If Alec hadn’t gotten there first, Eric would’ve ripped the guy to shreds. That’s what’s eating him, he thinks it should’ve been him, not Alec.”

  Jamey keeps going. Not because I can’t hear him, I can, but because I can’t answer, can’t tell him I’m here, listening, every word carving deeper.

  “He broke three of the guy’s ribs, his arm… and his foot.”

  He pauses, blinking like the math doesn’t add up.

  “I mean… how do you even break someone’s foot in a fight? Stomp on it mid-sentence? Alec’s a menace.”

  He paces again, hands in his hair.

  “I swear, if I’d been there, I’d have flattened the guy’s teeth across two counties.”

  Then quieter, cutting deeper.

  “But what really gets me…”

  He turns back to me, eyes burning.

  “…is that they believe him.”

  He sits beside me again, jaw clenched.

  “They actually think your power is evil.”

  Another punch. Mattress abuse, round two.

  “How dare they say that, after you saved Luke. After you saved me.”

  A droplet hits my cheek.

  Warm.

  Jamey’s crying.

  And that’s when it happens.

  The scripture along my ribs trembles.

  A pulse, hot, bright—bursts outward, racing like wildfire through my veins.

  Jamey gasps and rises to his feet, the mattress creaking beneath him. His eyes widen, mouth parted. He stumbles back one step, heart pounding so loud I can feel it vibrating the floorboards. Whatever he was about to say disappears behind awe. He doesn't breathe. He doesn't blink.

  The golden letters begin to crack, slow and deliberate, like something sacred breaking open.

  Thin fractures split across my skin, curling back like burnt parchment.

  But from beneath, black ink bleeds through. Not broken.

  Transformed.

  The air thickens, not with heat or chill, but with something alive.

  The scripture unravels, molten and radiant, spiraling into the air.

  It hovers, orbiting me in deliberate arcs.

  Divine law made visible.

  Jamey whispers, barely audible over the crackling air,

  “I’ve seen her angry… but this is holy wrath.”

  I open my eyes.

  And Jamey forgets how to exist.

  The Mark of Judgment burns in my irises, not just gold, but black threaded with divine fire, pulsing like it knows things I don’t.

  I see him.

  All of him.

  And for the first time since the void dragged me under,

  I move.

  No resistance. No strain.

  The air bends with me.

  Jamey stumbles back, breathless.

  I speak.

  “Take me to them.”

  Not a request. Not a command.

  A decree.

  The shadows at our feet stretch long and lean, curling like ancient serpents.

  Space shifts.

  Jamey swallows, not afraid, but in awe.

  And when we step into the hallway, the world waits.

  Chaos crashes behind courtroom doors, rage, disbelief, voices rising like thunderclouds.

  We stop outside.

  Jamey and I. Shadow and light curling around our feet.

  Inside... Eric.

  “Fifteen years?! After everything Alec’s done for this sect?!”

  A gavel slams.

  “Our decision is final.”

  Bang.

  Bang.

  “If Ryan doesn’t survive…” The judge’s voice sharpens.

  “He may face execution.”

  Something inside me fractures clean in two.

  I raise a hand, blocking Jamey’s instinct to bolt.

  He freezes, glancing at me.

  He feels it too, the shift in the air.

  Inside, Eric roars.

  “Fifteen years for defending one of his own?! Ryan got what he deserved for slandering Max!”

  Uproar explodes.

  “His wounds will heal... Max’s might not!”

  The judge slams down the gavel.

  “She might not even wake up!”

  Silence.

  Something cracks inside me.

  I whisper:

  “Shatter.”

  The doors explode inward.

  Splinters fly like shrapnel. The courtroom erupts in gasps and screams.

  Dust curls around my bare feet like obedient mist.

  I step inside.

  Measured. Steady.

  The scripture swirls around me, gold and black in divine contradiction. The Mark of Judgment glows in my gaze.

  They see me.

  And they know.

  I’m not just awake.

  I am the reckoning.

  Jamey, hovering at my flank, peeks into the chaos like a proud grandpa. His grin says told you so.

  He even waves at Eric.

  Eric still hasn’t moved.

  Frozen in awe. Or maybe fear.

  The three judges rise.

  One, the one who dared to speak as if I was already dead stands stiff, pale, reeking of panic.

  I tilt my head.

  Predatory.

  “I might not what?”

  My voice isn’t loud.

  But it echoes like thunder.

  The judge collapses back into his chair. His hands shake against the wood.

  Eric takes a step, but falters.

  Unsure if the Max standing here is still his Max.

  I’m already looking past him.

  Alec.

  Cuffed. Shackled.

  Bruised wrists.

  Heavy chains that don’t just bind, they humiliate.

  He won’t meet my eyes.

  He doesn’t need to.

  I feel it, the shame, the rage, the quiet, desperate ache.

  And I burn.

  My scripture flickers wildly, like it’s barely holding back the storm inside me.

  I raise my hand.

  “Release.”

  Chains burst.

  Cuffs shatter.

  Metal clatters to the floor like broken lies.

  Alec rubs his wrists. His hands tremble.

  They dragged him. Restrained him. Treated him like nothing.

  I remember when he stood beside me, bloodied and laughing, after saving my life with nothing but a kitchen knife and reckless loyalty.

  “Got your back,” he’d said.

  “Even if I die dumb.”

  And now they’ve chained him like a stray.

  Not today.

  The fury in me is white-hot. Reverent. Righteous.

  The swirling scripture constricts, coiling like a storm barely caged. The very air strains to contain me.

  A golden thread snaps mid-air, sparking violently.

  Alec jolts. Not in fear, but in recognition.

  He knows.

  We all do.

  Silence falls.

  Not fear.

  Reverence.

  Then, I speak.

  “Judgment is called.”

  ?? Author’s Note:

  Well… that escalated quickly. ??

  “Surprise. I lived. Let’s chat about those chains on my best friend.”

  Jamey's pride? Validated.

  The judges? Possibly wetting themselves.

  ?? Following the story

  ?? Adding it to your reading list

  ?? Dropping a comment (I read them all!)

  (wielder of plot twists and slightly feral characters)