Chapter 3 – Feast and Fragments
The blood hadn't even dried.
Tony sat alone at the mouth of the old vault, watching the crimson pool slowly spread beneath a broken drainage pipe. The corpses of the abominations still smoldered outside, split open by his hand, their life essence now tangled within him. He could feel it slithering under his skin—new instincts, alien senses, memories not his own. It was like swallowing lightning and being told to smile.
Inside the vault, Mr. D was asleep, or at least pretending to be. His breathing was steady, but his hand never strayed far from the staff at his side. Smart man. No one ever truly trusted a devil, even when he looked like a man.
Tony blinked up at the ruins. Something felt different now. Like something had shifted in the world's rhythm. It wasn't just the hunger. It was the way the air vibrated. Like the planet itself had taken notice of his return.
The first fragment hit him without warning.
A flash of teeth. Screaming. Hands trying to claw out of their own flesh. A boy, no older than ten, strapped to a slab while surgeons with halos carved sigils into his ribs. He wasn't watching it.
He was in it.
Tony gasped and lurched forward, gripping his head.
The memories. The ones he devoured. They were pushing back. Not just energy. Not just power. But trauma. Identity.
He stumbled out of the vault and fell to his knees. His fingers dug into the dirt. He growled low, fighting for control.
"Not yet," he hissed to himself. "You don't get to own me. I took you. You don't get to take me."
The air around him shimmered. A black mist rose from his back, whispering in forgotten tongues. Somewhere in the fog of his mind, a voice laughed. Envy, maybe. Or Pride. It didn't matter. They were dead. He had eaten them.
He stood slowly.
If he was going to survive this cycle, he had to master what he took in. Fast.
Mr. D stepped out from the vault just in time to see Tony's eyes flicker from orange back to dull brown.
"Thought you might've gone berserk," the old man said.
Tony didn't answer.
Mr. D held out a flask. "Here. Water. The real kind. Not that processed piss the machines spit out."
Tony took it. Drank. The water hit his system like a balm. His vision cleared. For a moment, he remembered what it felt like to just be a man.
But it didn't last.
They moved on by mid-morning. The sun—if it could be called that—hung high in the broken sky, casting long shadows between the jagged remnants of buildings. The Blue World was beautiful in its own ruined way. Vines had begun to reclaim the metal. Flowers bloomed from skulls. Nature was taking revenge, petal by petal.
They passed through a collapsed subway station, crawling through the remnants of what looked like an old refugee camp. Tents made from reprocessed banners. Campfires built on piles of tech. Bones hidden under every sleeping mat.
"This wasn't a war zone," Tony muttered.
Mr. D nodded. "No. This was a shelter. Until the angels came."
Tony crouched by a wall. Someone had scrawled something in dried blood:
"The light burns too."
He traced the letters with his fingers. The truth was never simple in this world. The lines between salvation and slaughter blurred a long time ago.
A sound caught his attention.
Not a monster. Not a machine. Something lighter. Quicker. He raised a hand to signal Mr. D.
Then he saw her.
She darted between the pillars—lean, fast, wearing scavenger armor patched with scavtech plating. A crossbow on her back. Hair silver under the sunlight, tied in a loose braid. She moved like someone who had been hunted before. But her steps—they weren't just cautious.
They were familiar.
Tony stepped forward. "Hey," he called. "I see you."
The girl froze.
Then turned slowly.
Her face was streaked with dirt and sweat, but her eyes… blue. Deep. Not just in color, but in recognition.
Tony didn't know her.
But something inside him did.
"Name?" Mr. D asked from behind.
She hesitated, then replied, "Yuri."
Tony's chest tightened.
The hunger surged.
But not for flesh.
For answers.
For her.
Yuri lowered her crossbow. Not completely, but enough.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," she said.
Tony swallowed hard. "I have. Just not sure if it's yours or mine."
They stared at each other for a long moment. Then she nodded.
"You're not from here," she said. Not a question.
"No," Tony replied. "But I keep waking up here."
She smiled, small and crooked. "Then we have that in common."
Mr. D cleared his throat. "If we're done flirting, can we get moving? Before whatever killed the last ten settlements finds us standing around with our pants down?"
Yuri snorted. "Relax, old man. I've got eyes on the high ground. Nothing's moved in two clicks."
"She's got skills," Tony muttered.
"She better," Mr. D grumbled. "Because we just tripled our scent trail."
They moved on. The streets narrowed, funneled between skeletal towers wrapped in thorns. A billboard crackled above—a half-broken message on loop: "Peace Through Unity. Unity Through Fire."
Yuri walked beside Tony now. She didn't speak for a long while.
Then she said, "I've seen you before."
Tony turned to her. "Impossible."
"Maybe. But I dream things that feel too real to be mine."
Tony froze. "Like what?"
"A boy chained in heaven. An angel with silver wings offering lies. A beast with a crown of teeth." She hesitated. "And... a man who carries them all."
Tony looked ahead. The fog was lifting.
"You're remembering fragments," he whispered.
She shrugged. "Or maybe I'm just broken."
He wanted to tell her she wasn't. That he knew who she had been. That her soul had touched his before this world ever existed. But the words stuck.
Above them, the clouds churned. A tremor shook the road.
From a nearby rooftop, a watcher blinked—not human, not machine. An eye with no pupil, wrapped in robes of starlight. It turned away, vanishing into smoke.
Tony felt it.
Something bigger was coming.
A chill moved through the upper atmosphere. In a realm layered between light and thought, Gabriel hovered over a translucent map of the Blue World. Lines of energy flickered like veins beneath continents, pulsing with every step Tony took.
"You're waking up," Gabriel said quietly, voice laced with venom and awe. "Good. A beast must stretch before it is broken again."
Behind him, a choir of winged constructs hovered in eerie silence. Their faces were masked in gold, expressions eternally weeping.
Gabriel extended a single finger. The map shifted. Images danced—Tony, Mr. D, Yuri. Their path painted in heat trails and essence resonance.
"He gathers them," Gabriel whispered. "The fragments call to each other. Like moths to judgment."
A flick of his hand, and the construct choir began to hum. Not music. A weapon.
"Let them walk," Gabriel murmured. "Let him hope. It makes the fall sweeter."
He turned from the map. The realm dissolved behind him.
In the ruined city below, Tony stopped mid-step. A tremor rolled through his spine. No sound. No wind. But he knew.
He was being watched.
And somewhere beyond the stars, judgment prepared its blade.
Behind them, the shadows twisted.
And above them, Gabriel smiled wider.