The school bus groaned down the road like some aging beast, its frame rattling with every pothole it lumbered over. The early morning fog clung to the windshield in greasy streaks, a ghostly curtain that blurred the outside world into shapeless forms. Every window buzzed in time with the wheels, vibrating to a rhythm that made teeth itch and nerves fray. Somewhere near the back, teenage laughter bubbled up—sharp, chaotic, and hollow.
Clumps of students clustered like tribes, each bonded by class schedules, shared trauma, and the unspoken pain of adolescence. Friends out of necessity. Survivors of boredom. Prisoners of routine.
Seventeen-year-old Kai Reyes slouched against the window, cheek pressed to the cold glass. His breath fogged the pane in lazy exhales. Outside, skeletal trees reached for the sky like starving hands, their bare branches scratching across the heavens. The heater coughed out lukewarm air that reeked of dust and burnt plastic.
Kai stared into the gray blur. Nothing mattered. Nothing changed. Strip malls passed like ghosts. Leafless trees. Office drones in coffee-stained sedans. The world was stuck on repeat.
Across from him, Malik tapped at his phone, hoodie half off his head. The glow from his screen made his dark skin look like polished stone.
"You finish Mr. Belkin's essay?" Malik muttered, not looking up.
Kai grunted. "Barely. The conclusion's bullshit."
"Classic," Malik smirked. "Wanna compare after lunch?"
"If we're not dead by then."
Malik snorted. "Damn, bro. Morbid much?"
Kai didn't laugh. His eyes drifted forward.
Sarah sat sideways up front, all smiles and giggles with Emily. Their voices blended into a constant hum—gossip, Snapchat drama, and drunken hookups from last weekend's party. Just another Monday.
But something twisted in Kai's gut. A quiet wrongness.
Maybe it was the low-hanging fog smeared across the morning sun like bruised glass. Maybe it was the way their driver, Mr. Sullivan—old, reliable, broken—looked even more hollow-eyed than usual. Or maybe it was the whisper clawing at the back of Kai's brain, the one that screamed this morning didn't feel real.
He pressed his forehead to the glass and watched the road stretch forward.
Then—The horn.
Too loud. Too long.
A deep, bestial roar that shattered the bus's quiet drone.
Kai's heart jackhammered as his head snapped up—just in time to see a semi-truck, too fast, too close.
The trailer jackknifed into the intersection ahead. Tires screamed, black smoke pluming from rubber worn past redemption. It twisted sideways, a steel guillotine swinging toward them—unstoppable, merciless.
Then—
Impact.
Not the sound of metal.
No.
It was the sound of reality shattering.
Screams tore through the air. Windows burst like bombs. A shriek of tearing steel. Fire.
And then—Silence.
Kai came to with blood in his mouth and fire in his lungs.
He couldn't breathe.
Couldn't move.
He was upside down—no, sideways. Something sharp dug into his ribs. Pain laced every nerve. A jagged rod of metal jutted through the space beside his shoulder, coated in blood that looked too dark to be real.
The world rang like a struck bell. His ears buzzed.
He blinked. His left eye wouldn't open. The other saw only red.
Everything smelled like oil and burning hair.
He tried to speak but choked on something thick and metallic. Blood. He could feel it pooling in his throat, warm and wrong.
"Malik…" he croaked, barely audible.
A hand dangled limply off the edge of the seat ahead.
Kai forced himself to lift his head. The pain made him see stars.
Malik's body was folded grotesquely, skull split wide open. One eye stared blankly into nothing, while the other socket was a gory pit. His mouth was locked in a slack, final scream, his jaw snapped halfway off.
Kai tried to scream. Only a wet gurgle came out.
Tears burned down his cheeks, mixing with blood, sweat, and soot.
He wanted to move. He needed to move. But his legs are gone. Or too broken to feel.
Smoke filled the cabin. Through the shattered windshield, he saw the front half of the bus on fire. Someone—something was crawling out, skin sloughing off in red sheets. Sarah? Emily? He couldn't tell anymore.
Shapes. Screams. Silence. A world in ruin.
Kai wept.
This isn't how it's supposed to end.
I never told Mom I loved her this morning.I never kissed anyone.I never even tried to be more than a shadow in someone else's life.
Why do we wait?
Why do we pretend there's time?
Why do we live like death isn't waiting just around a fog-choked corner?
His heart slowed.
His vision faded.
The world grew cold.
I don't want to die.
But death didn't care.
Darkness claimed him.
There was no tunnel of light. No peace.
Only void.
No breath. No body. No self.
Kai floated—or thought he did. There was no up. No down. Only the sense of drifting through a black sea thick as blood.
Then—
A hum.
Mechanical. Cold. Female.
"Template loading..."
His soul flinched. It felt like razors slicing through his essence.
"Template Selection = Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga."
A symbol ignited in the dark.
A wheel. Bladed. Burning in blue fire. Marked with ancient runes that seared themselves into his consciousness.
It hurt.
Like a new language being carved into bone.
Then—CRACK.
The void shattered.
A scream exploded from Kai's soul as light ripped through the abyss. Not warm light. Not divine.
It was surgical.
It peeled him open. Reforged him. Bent his humanity around something divine and monstrous.
He gasped.
His lungs filled like a dam breaking. He convulsed, hacking up black water—or was it blood?
He flailed. His hands found ground—rough, cold, real.
He was alive.
He rolled over, coughing.
The sky above him wasn't gray. It was hyper-real. A radiant blue like nothing on Earth. The colors screamed with too much clarity, like a world drawn in ink and fury.
He sat up. His body obeyed. His body. Whole. New.
Stronger.
The earth around him was cracked stone. Ruins. Twisted rebar and scorched trees. Smoke coiled on the wind. Gunfire echoed like drums of war.
Then came the voice again, behind his eyes.
"Loaded World: DC Universe."
His stomach dropped.
"What…" His voice was lower. Sharper. Like someone else was speaking with his tongue.
He looked at his hands—clean, unscarred. Lean muscle pulsed beneath his skin. Strength hummed through his veins like static.
Inside, something moved.
A wheel.
Spinning. Waiting.
"Mahoraga," he whispered.
And the symbol flared again, searing into his vision.
Then the agony returned.
A surge of memory. A storm of violence.
A boy with snow-white hair. A cursed world. Cities ruined by monsters. The wheel—his wheel—spinning, adapting, never falling.
He screamed and fell to his knees.
Power coursed through him like fire.
When it passed, he was shaking. Changed.
"I… I died," he said.
"And I came back with this."
Another crash split the sky.
He turned.
A man in a black cape—Batman?—was hurled through a concrete wall. Dust billowed. A second figure landed behind him, laughing, fists glowing green.
Lex Luthor.
The real deal.
Kai's blood ran cold.
His mind screamed.
His body moved.
And everything turned Red.