Nature plays many tricks, yet none is as cruel as the calm before the storm. On this peaceful afternoon, nobody could sense the deadly atmospheric perturbations brewing thirty miles away, not even the Fraxians.

  Albert stood in the middle of the bustling market. With a snap of his finger, a few blasts went off, catching everyone’s attention.

  Amidst a shower of orange and blue confetti, a newly built restaurant stood tall, its roof bearing a gigantic sign that read “Bert’s Brewrey.”

  “Thank you! Thank you for coming to my grand opening!” Albert grinned. This was the moment, the culmination of a decade of hard work. Even Mother Nature seemed to rein back her cruelty today, bestowing him a windless day and a cloudless sky.

  Albert scanned the crowd until he found his friend hiding in the back. He smiled. Did he think he would forget him? He swooped down.

  “Come on, Sam,” Albert said, pushing his friend of twenty years onto the stage. “You deserve this moment as much as I do.”

  However, with every step, Albert felt Samuel’s muscles grow tenser. He followed his friend’s gaze and immediately understood.

  Beneath the stage, an ocean of blue eyes stared at them — cold, unblinking, disapproving. In contrast, Samuel’s orange eyes stood out like a flame in the dark. Sweat beads slid down his face, and a wave of cold air hit Albert’s spine.

  However, Albert was no stranger to this.

  “Don’t be nervous, Sam,” He patted his friend on his back. “You got me.“

  Loud gasps. Hushed whispers. The crowd quickly noticed Samuel’s orange eyes. Many kept their mouth shut, but the unspoken words were written in their stares.

  He was a Fraxian.

  Albert took the podium. Perhaps the only thing he shared with the crowd was their eye color, but he would not let some stupid, outdated prejudice ruin his big day.

  “This is my friend, Samuel,” He pointed to his friend. “My dream would be impossible today without him. His daughter just got into the best high school in the province. To celebrate that, a round of free drinks for everyone!”

  The crowd clapped, and most put on a smile. However, some did not share the enthusiasm.

  “What’s a goddamn Fragger doing at this place,” a middle-aged Valerian in the crowd whispered.

  Albert fell silent. He stared at the man. Around him, the crowd watched in anticipation, a few whispering and pointing their fingers. Albert knew exactly what they wanted. What better spectacle was there than a blue-eyed businessman defending his orange-eyed friend?

  Well, they could have it then. He couldn’t just stand by and do nothing, even if this meant losing customers on the first day.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Albert said in a slow staccato. “Why don’t you repeat what you just said?”

  The man looked a little embarrassed, but not at all remorseful. He took a deep breath and projected his voice.

  “I said, what’s a goddamn Fragger doing in our place!”

  The crowd hushed, their gazes now fixed on Samuel. His face flushed red, but not a word came out of his mouth. He turned to Albert and whispered. “It’s fine, Bert. Don’t let me ruin your big day. I’ll just leave.”

  However, Albert stopped Samuel with a firm hand on his shoulder. There were matters of business, and there were matters of personal principle. The former must never precede the latter.

  “I’m going to ask you to leave, sir,” Albert stared at the man with a gaze as cold as steel. He pointed at his restaurant’s mural, on which a Valerian was walking side by side with a Fraxian. “We got no place for your prejudice.”

  “What?” said the man. “You are gonna ask me to leave for a Fragger?”

  “Precisely, and I won’t ask twice.”

  They stood still like rock cliffs in a storm, unmoving amidst the restless atmosphere. After a few too many seconds, the Valerian man finally gave in.

  He snickered, spat on the ground, and walked away. A few more Valerians left with him, but most stayed in the crowd.

  “Don’t mind these assholes, Sam,” said Albert, putting a hand over his friend’s shoulder. “Good riddance.”

  However, Samuel’s eyes were hollow, his expression dreadful. Compared to his earlier composure, right now he looked as if he had seen a ghost.

  “Something feels off,” muttered Samuel.

  “Of course, they had just -”

  “No, not them. The air felt off.”

  Unfortunately, Albert was too slow to understand Samuel’s words.

  A few loud bangs tore open the air, far louder than the confetti blasts. With each bang, the earth tremored violently, bringing the crowd to their knees. Screams erupted, and the crowd took off, scattering in every direction.

  Albert slowly turned his head. The fine brewery he and his wife had scrimped every cent to build — with the nice Gothic lamps, white marble floors, and oak wood countertops — now became a pile of heaping rubble. A few gigantic boulders, each the size of a train car, stood in the wreckage of their demolition, as if claiming a brutal victory against human civilization.

  Albert froze in place. His life’s work. Gone. In an instant.

  “A storm is coming!” the crowd screamed. “To the bunkers!”

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  What was that? A storm? Albert looked up.

  In mere seconds, a thick curtain of sand rose on the horizon, shrouding the sky in thick veils of darkness. Only a few strands of sunlight penetrated through, dimly painting the buildings with a faded golden edge.

  Albert felt someone grab him, and his legs numbly followed. He looked up and saw Samuel leading him to the nearest bunker.

  Yes. There was a storm. He had to go to the bunker. Albert’s body was half numb, but thankfully, Samuel’s brawny arms dragged him along.

  A hundred yards. Fifty yards. Thirty yards.

  Before they could reach the bunker, another volley of rocks was hurled at them. It narrowly missed Albert and Samuel, but the mother in front of them was not so lucky. The fist-sized shrapnel impaled her lungs with the speed of bullets. The mother fell with a thud, gasping uselessly for breath in her leaking windpipe. The toddler on her shoulder tried to climb away, but a large boulder landed on top of him, instantly crushing his body.

  “Stop! The entrance is blocked!” someone yelled.

  Albert looked up. The bunker door was now sealed by a tower of rubble. Before he could react, a shrill whistle echoed around him.

  “Winds! Dive away!” Samuel yelled, pushing Albert into a sewage ditch nearby. He dived in right after.

  The shrill whistle grew louder, a haunting melody of Mother Nature. A few seconds later, a monstrous force swept everything off the ground.

  A Valerian man, standing mere inches away from where Albert had been moments ago, was immediately swept off his feet. Albert’s guts clenched. Without the foresight of a Fraxian friend, that poor soul could never see the winds coming. The man struggled to get up, only to get knocked down again and again by the ferocious torrents. Albert tried to crawl out of the ditch to help him, but Samuel pinned him down.

  The winds lifted hundreds of gravel pieces into the air, spinning and accelerating them into a deadly maelstrom. Soon enough, the spinning air also lifted up the man. The man screamed, kicking and struggling to no avail. The moment his body got sucked in, the hundreds of jagged stones tore up his body like a meat grinder disassembling cattle, leaving him as a bleeding, lifeless pulp of flesh that continued to spin lifelessly in the air.

  After a few moments, the winds moved away, dumping the remnants of his flesh and bones in front of Albert.

  “Follow me!” Samuel yelled at Albert. He seized Albert’s arm and plunged into the storm. Albert followed him without protest. In a storm, a Valerian like him was completely blind. Only a Fraxian could see. Albert could only put his faith in Samuel, trusting that his thermodynamic instincts could find them a chasm through the clashing air pockets of hot and cold.

  “The next bunker was two hundred yards away!” Samuel yelled.

  Winds lashed their faces, and shrapnel whizzed past their heads. Torrents of gravel shards sliced through their skin, leaving streaks of blood along their tattered clothes. They squinted their eyes open against the clouds of dust, desperate to stay alert as they dodged the large pieces of debris.

  Finally, they reached the bunker. The door was still open. They hurried towards it.

  However, someone blocked their way.

  “It’s this Fragger lover,” the person snarled.

  At a closer look, Albert realized it was that Valerian man at his restaurant opening.

  Shit.

  “I’m going to ask you to leave, sir,” the man said mockingly, imitating their earlier exchanges. Before Albert could react, the man delivered a powerful kick right to his chest. Albert fell back, coughing. The bunker door slammed shut.

  Albert got up. Adrenaline gushed through his every vein. Fear. Rage. Despair. He slammed his fist against the metal door. Once. Twice. Again and again. Until his knuckles bruised purple and blue. Until blood seeped through his fingernails. But even so, nobody opened the door. Albert dropped to his knees, burying his face in his hands. He closed his eyes.

  That was it, huh? What way to go. Just another statistic of the Republic. Just another victim of Mother Nature.

  He felt Samuel slapping his face.

  “Get up, Bert. It’s not over yet.”

  “Leave me, Samuel. You have a better chance on your own.”

  Samuel swallowed hard. Albert looked at his longtime friend. For a moment, Albert saw every thought behind his friend’s eyes, but in the end, only two words came out.

  “Hell no.”

  Samuel hauled him up. Together, they turned back into the storm. The next bunker was one mile away.

  Suddenly, people began yelling.

  “The Stormrunners are coming!” someone shouted. “The Stormrunners are coming! We are saved. We are —” Their voice was cut short with a scream.

  The Stormrunners were coming. There was still hope. Albert quickened his pace. Traversing one mile through a raw storm would be suicide, but if the Stormrunners could curb the storms a little, they might just have a chance.

  At that thought, a few shadows whizzed past above them. The Stormrunners soared through the storm with ease, zipping between buildings and rock walls with their grappling hooks. Like eagles hunting for their prey, they skirted around the winds, searching for weaknesses in the storm’s armor of sand and rocks.

  Suddenly, two deadly tornadoes of gravel closed in from the sides. Albert and Samuel broke into a sprint, but they were not fast enough. Once they got caught in these winds, the bullet-speed rocks would shred them alive.

  A Stormrunner flew between the tornadoes. He hurled something into the air, and a loud explosion boomed. A blast of hot air swept past Albert’s face. Miraculously, the winds around him died down, and the gravel pieces clattered onto the ground. A safe passage was carved out.

  “This won’t hold long,” the Stormrunner shouted. “Hurry! Follow the Fraxian.” Before he could say another word, a shard of debris slammed into his stomach. He tumbled from the building.

  Albert did not pause. Samuel led the way, and he followed. With each step they took, the winds regained a bit of fury. The smaller pieces of gravel stirred back to life, nicking their arms and bodies with cuts.

  Around them, the Stormrunners danced with the storm, shooting their thermal projectiles through the crevices of air and sand. Like a carnival celebrating humanity’s demise, the fireworks of thermal blasts littered the firmament, showering the earth with flaming rocks and bodies. The shrill whispers of winds harmonized with the screams of the people, punctuated by the explosions from the Stormrunners’ weapons. Somehow, through all the chaos, Samuel found a path with his Fraxian instincts.

  But instinct was not enough.

  Without warning, a canister of natural gas — likely from some restaurant in the marketplace — came hurling towards them. At this speed, the impact would create a fatal explosion.

  Albert froze. His breath caught. This was the end.

  A loud crash. A wave of scorching burns. Strangely, it was not as painful as imagined.

  Albert opened his eyes, half expecting to find afterlife. However, he was still stuck in this inferno on earth. He turned and looked at Samuel.

  Samuel’s eyes blazed with a ferocious orange glow. Sweat poured down his face, mingling with the dust and ash on his skin. The entire left half of his torso was burned to a black char, crumpling bit by bit into brittle pieces under the ravaging winds. His leg quickly buckled under his weight, and he slumped to the ground.

  Albert understood. His friend had just saved his life. At the moment of the explosion, Samuel had redirected the heat away from him. He blocked the thermal energy and dispersed it into the surroundings. So this was Fraxian thermal transfer. It wasn’t a myth after all.

  However, thermal transfer had its limits. Although still alive, Albert’s limbs were badly burned. Samuel, on the other hand, was completely incapacitated by his wounds. He looked completely drained. The thermal transfer had probably emptied him of everything he had left.

  Samuel struggled to push himself up off the ground, but his legs would not obey. He closed his eyes. His chest heaved heavily up and down.

  “Leave me, get out of here…” muttered Samuel. “Tell my family I love them…”

  Albert refused. He tried to lift Samuel on his shoulder, but his legs collapsed halfway.

  “Leave me, Albert,” said Samuel quietly as he tried to push away Albert’s arms. “Head north for two hundred feet, then turn east for seventy, then northeast for another fifty. You will be safe -”

  Before Samuel could finish, the “Bert’s Brewery” banner fell from the sky, decapitating Samuel in one clean cut.

  Albert felt nauseated and weak, but adrenaline kicked in. He had to get back to his family alive. So he walked on.