Page 2 of Eclipse Born

I gritted my teeth and kept moving. One foot in front of the other. Toward lights. Toward people. Toward normalcy I could mimic until it felt real.

As I stumbled toward the park's edge, flashes clawed at my mind.

Metal hooks digging into my skin, voices whispering in a language I shouldn't understand but did. Flames licking my bones while something watched, patient and hungry.

I stopped, pressing my hands to my temples, but the images wouldn't fade. They overlapped with reality, superimposed like double-exposed film. The path before me ran slick with blood that wasn't there. The trees burned without being consumed. Distant screams echoed, though the park was nearly empty at this hour.

I forced myself to breathe. To focus on the physical world. The cold air in my lungs. The gravel crunching beneath my boots. The distant rumble of traffic. Real things. Present things. Not the echo of torments I couldn't fully remember.

What did they do to me?The question formed and dissolved, too dangerous to examine closely. The answer lurked behind a wall in my mind, and some instinct warned that breaching it would destroy what little stability remained to me.

I saw a homeless man huddled near a bench, bundled in layers of ragged clothing against the autumn chill. The man looked up as I approached, his weathered face registering first confusion, then shock, then primal fear.

The man's eyes widened, focusing on something I couldn't see—something about me that triggered deep, instinctive terror. I tried to speak, to reassure, but my voice emerged as little more than a hoarse whisper, the words malformed after so long unused.

“Help,” I managed, the simple request taking enormous effort. “Need... help.”

The homeless man scrambled backward, abandoning his makeshift bed in his haste to create distance. “Not human,” he muttered, eyes never leaving my face. “Not human. Not human.”The words became a panicked litany as he retreated, finally turning to flee into the darkness.

I watched him go, understanding settling like cold lead in my stomach. Whatever had happened to me in Hell, whatever changes had occurred, they were visible to those who knew how to look. The man hadn't seen an injured person—he'd seen a predator wearing human skin.

And he wasn't wrong.

I finally reached the street, the transition from park to city jarring in its abruptness. Concrete and asphalt replaced grass and dirt. Streetlights cast harsh illumination that left no shadows to hide in. Cars passed, their headlights burning trails across my retinas, leaving afterimages that lingered too long.

I stood at the edge of the sidewalk, swaying slightly, taking in the city spread before me. New York continued its relentless rhythm, oblivious to my return. People walked past, eyes averted in the practiced isolation of urban dwellers. No one looked at the blood-stained man with the thousand-yard stare. No one wanted to see.

For a moment, I felt suspended between worlds, no longer in Hell but not fully rejoined with the land of the living. A ghost caught between states of being.

Then my instincts reasserted themselves, pragmatic and clear. I needed clothes. Weapons. Information. I needed to find Sean, Sterling, anyone who might understand what had happened.

I looked up at the skyline, orienting myself with practiced ease. The familiar silhouettes of buildings provided direction, a map I didn't need to consult. I began walking with renewed purpose, each step steadier than the last as my body remembered its function.

I was back. But at what cost?

An hour later, I stood in a gas station bathroom, staring at my reflection in the cracked mirror. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, the sound grating against my enhanced hearing. Water dripped from my face, running rivulets through the grime and blood I'd attempted to wash away.

My face was the same but not. Cheekbones sharper, eyes deeper set. Hair longer than I'd worn it before, curling against my collar. But the most significant change wasn't physical—it was the expression. Or rather, the lack of one. My eyes held no warmth, no emotion, just watchful assessment like a predator cataloging potential threats.

I tried to smile, the gesture mechanical. Muscles pulled my lips into the appropriate shape, but the effect was unsettling rather than reassuring. The smile of someone who had forgotten how but was attempting to mimic it from memory.

“Cade Cross,” I said to my reflection, testing the name. It felt both familiar and foreign on my tongue, like clothing that no longer quite fit.

Alone in the confined space, I lifted my shirt to examine the mark. It sat over my heart, precisely where it had always been, but changed. The scar tissue had darkened, the edges more defined, as if it had been recently branded rather than carried since childhood. The skin around it was feverish to the touch, pulsing with its own internal rhythm.

I pressed a finger against it experimentally. Pain flared, sharp and clarifying, radiating outward in tendrils that reached to my fingertips, my spine, my skull. With the pain came a flash of something else—power. Raw and dangerous, curled beneath my skin like a serpent waiting to strike.

I inhaled sharply, dropping my hand. The mark was more than a brand now. It was a conduit for something I didn't fully understand but instinctively recognized as not entirely my own.Something that had filled the hollow spaces where my humanity should be.

I needed to test its limits, to understand what I had become. But not here. Not now. First, I needed to find Sean.

The thought of Sean brought no emotional response, just a recognition of something that had once existed. The knowledge that Sean would have resources, information, weapons. Useful. Necessary.

The lack of feeling should have been troubling. It wasn't.

The date on a discarded newspaper stopped me cold. Six months. I'd been gone six months. The revelation should have been shocking, terrifying. Instead, I processed it with detached interest.

Six months of what for Sean? For Sterling? Had they searched for me? Mourned me? Moved on?The questions formed without emotional context, simple data points to be gathered.

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