The Day Before Fire
In a place where the sun forgot to shine kindly, Daniel walked unnoticed.
He wasn't hated. He wasn't bullied. Not in the way TV shows make it look. He was simply ignored. The world passed him by with the indifference of drifting clouds.
The halls of Saint Delilah's Middle School echoed with voices and footfalls, the clatter of backpacks against lockers, the shriek of sneakers on waxed floors. Daniel's own footsteps made no sound. Or maybe no one was listening.
His hoodie was too large, the sleeves eaten at the wrists. He didn't wear it for fashion — he wore it like armor. Not to block out punches, but people.
"Blessed are the meek," read the banner over the gym.
Daniel had passed beneath it every day for three years.
He still wasn't sure if it was a promise or a threat.
***
The room smelled of dry markers and plastic chairs. Daniel slouched in the second-to-last row by the window. That seat was always free. He never had to fight for it — like everything else in his life, it was available by default.
Gil sat beside him — not out of friendship, but out of habit. He liked windows, too.
Korean. Short hair. Calm voice. A face that rarely changed expression, but his eyes missed nothing.
"You forgot your homework," Gil whispered without looking up.
"Didn't forget," Daniel said. "Just didn't do it."
Gil nodded. "Makes sense."
Daniel appreciated that. No judgment. No lecture. Just simple math.
The teacher, Mr. Harlow, droned about civic duty and community leadership — words that felt like broken tools in a world held together by rust.
Veronica raised her hand, arguing about something. She always did — sharp, stubborn, luminous like a blade catching light. Her accent curled her words in soft fire, Brazilian vowels striking like percussion.
Daniel didn't love her.
He didn't even know her.
But he admired her like someone admires a cliffside — something massive, impossible, and far away.
Lunchtime
The cafeteria was chaos wearing a plastic smile.
Kids traded chips and insults. Someone yelled about soccer. Someone else threw milk. It was a kingdom of small rulers and loud declarations.
Daniel sat with Gil and Veronica because no one else did. It wasn't a group. It was a gravity well — three satellites in the same orbit, circling something they couldn't name.
"What do you wanna be when you grow up?" Veronica asked, mouth half-full of bread.
Gil said nothing.
Daniel thought. "Not weak."
She blinked, then smiled — not mocking, just amused. "You read too much manga."
Gil smirked. "He doesn't read."
"Shut up," Daniel said, smiling in spite of himself.
It was nothing. A fragment. A moment. But it made his chest ache. Like joy… or grief.
***
The sky outside was low and gray, like a lid placed over the world.
Daniel didn't take the bus. He walked. Three miles of cracked sidewalk, half-dead lawns, and fences missing boards. California wasn't sunshine and palm trees. Not here.
He passed a dead cat on the side of the road. It had been there three days. No one moved it. No one noticed. Except him.
When he got home, the house was quiet — the bad kind. Not peaceful. Waiting.
His father was on the couch, the TV flickering across beer cans and ashtrays. The room smelled like sweat and television static. His mother was in the kitchen, humming the same off-key lullaby she always did when she was nervous.
Daniel slipped past like a ghost.
His father grunted something.
Daniel didn't reply.
***
His room
It was small. Yellow light from a dying bulb. Walls bare except for a single page torn from an old Bible: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures." Daniel wasn't religious. He just liked the way it sounded — like something safe.
He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Counting cracks. Listening to his parents argue quietly in the other room. He didn't cry. He hadn't in years.
That night, the sky flickered.
Just once. A stutter, like a bad connection. The stars seemed to blink — not twinkle, but falter.
Somewhere far above, something ancient opened its eyes.
Daniel didn't see it. He had fallen asleep with his clothes on, a math book open on his chest. In the silence, a whisper tried to reach him.
But it was not time.
Midnight
His mother screamed once — not in pain, but surprise.
Then silence.
Daniel didn't wake up.
The television downstairs turned itself off. The dead cat outside was gone.
Clouds crawled across the sky like fingers.
Something stirred in the corners of the world.
Beneath everything, deep in the folds of the dark where light was swallowed before it could be born, something counted the seconds.
Its name was Grim.
Not a demon. Not a devil.
Something older. A fallen intention.
Once a hand of God. Now the shadow of a will betrayed.
It waited. Not impatient. Not angry. Just ready.
"Soon, begin."
Morning — The Last Normal Day
Daniel woke with sand in his throat. His neck ached. He had slept wrong again.
His mother had already left for work. His father was still on the couch, now snoring with the TV flashing blue across his face. An empty beer can balanced on his chest like a trophy.
Daniel dressed. Same hoodie. Same jeans. Same shoes.
Breakfast was a slice of bread and a cold egg. He didn't complain.
He walked to school. Same cracks in the sidewalk. Same broken fence. The cat was still gone.
But something was different.
Birds weren't singing. The air had weight.
At school, Gil noticed it first.
"Something's off."
Daniel frowned. "You mean the math test?"
Gil shook his head. "No. Just… off. Like the world's holding its breath."
In history class, Veronica drew stars in the margins of her notes.
Perfect little stars. None of them twinkled.
At lunch, the sun turned pale. Not behind clouds — just dimmer. Like someone turned the brightness down.
"You ever think the world could just end?" Daniel asked.
"End?" Veronica said. "Like bang, it's gone?"
He nodded.
"Sometimes I hope it does," she said, looking up. "But only if I'm holding Gil's hand."
Gil dropped his sandwich.
"Kidding," she laughed.
Daniel smiled. But deep in his chest, something pulled tight.
A thread.
A whisper.
Rise.
He blinked. "What?"
"What?" Veronica asked.
"Nothing."
Sunset
He walked home.
The wind moved wrong. Trees didn't sway — they stiffened. The clouds were like bruises across the sky.
At home, no one was fighting.
His father was gone. No note. Just gone.
His mother's humming had stopped.
She sat at the kitchen table, eyes wide, hands clasped around a rosary she hadn't touched in years.
"Daniel," she whispered. "Don't go outside tonight."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
That night, the sky tore.
But that's not this chapter.
That's tomorrow.