All Chapters of THE WAR THAT FOLLOWED ME: Chapter 1
- Chapter 10
25 chapters
CHAPTER 1: WHEN THE SKY CRACKED
The neon rain slicked streets of New Ardent glimmered like broken jewels, reflecting the chaos of a city that had forgotten sleep. Holographic ads flickered above, promising everything from synthetic noodles to neural enhancements, while hover-bikes screamed past in uneven streams. Down here, on the cracked streets between towering spires, life had a rhythm all its own—fast, sharp, and unforgiving.Kade Reyes crouched under the dim shadow of an old maintenance tower, sleeves rolled up, elbow-deep in the engine of a broken hover-truck. Oil and grease smeared his hands and forearms, but he didn’t care. Work was a distraction. Noise was a distraction. The city’s pulse—its chaos was a comfort.A sudden hum vibrated through the ground, faint at first, almost imperceptible. Kade froze, wrench in hand, listening.It grew, deep and insistent, resonating through concrete and bone. His jaw clenched. He’d heard this before.The sky split.Not figuratively—literally. A jagged tear tore across the
CHAPTER 2: SHADOWS OVER NEW ARDENT
The city of New Ardent was alive with chaos. Neon lights flickered through columns of smoke, illuminating streets that had once been bustling with hover-bikes, neon markets, and skyscrapers that reached above the clouds. Now, shards of concrete and fire reflected in puddles like broken glass. Somewhere in the distance, a building collapsed with a roar that shook the city to its foundations.Kade Reyes ran. Every step was precise, calculated, measured against the chaotic pulse of the city and the relic thrumming inside him. It was subtle at first, a low hum at the base of his skull, growing sharper with every passing second. Ish’Rael was alive, aware, feeding him threads of possible futures but none were safe.Above him, the sky crack glowed blue and jagged. Massive Vaelith dropships poured out of the rift, their smooth, alien surfaces gleaming with a metallic light that made the neon signs feel cheap and fragile. Beams of energy lanced toward the streets, incinerating hover-bikes mid-
CHAPTER 3: THE FIRST BREACH
The city of New Ardent shuddered under the alien assault. Explosions lit the streets in crimson and neon blue, glass rained from shattered skyscrapers, and the smell of burning ozone and wet concrete filled the air. The Vaelith had arrived in force, and Kade Reyes knew that tonight, survival alone was not enough.From his vantage point atop a half-collapsed skybridge, Kade observed the first wave of the Vaelith shock troops sweeping through the central districts. Their movements were precise, coordinated, and terrifyingly intelligent. For the first time, Kade felt a pang of dread, he had faced aliens before, yes, but not like this, not in a city filled with innocents.Beside him, Mila Okoye crouched, adjusting a makeshift energy drone. “They’re scanning for us,” she said, voice low but urgent. “If they detect the underground network, the entire city’s gone.”Kade’s eyes narrowed. The relic pulsed in his mind, faint but insistent. They are testing the defenses. They will exploit the fi
CHAPTER 4: WHEN THE CITY CHOSE
The explosion swallowed the street whole.Light tore through concrete and steel as the Vaelith dropships discharged their synchronized pulse. Cars flipped like toys. Neon signs shattered into rainstorms of glass. The air itself seemed to fold, pressure crashing inward before blasting out again in a thunderous wave.Kade Reyes stood at the epicenter.For a single heartbeat, the world went silent.Then pain arrived.It slammed into him from every direction—burning heat, crushing force, the taste of copper in his mouth. He felt himself lifted off the ground, flung backward through smoke and debris. His body struck something hard, rolled, then skidded across wet asphalt until motion stopped entirely.Darkness pressed in.You are still alive.The relic’s voice cut through the haze, sharper than before.Kade groaned, forcing his eyes open. The street was gone—replaced by a battlefield of fire and ruin. Buildings leaned at impossible angles. A crater smoldered where the hologram of the Vaeli
CHAPTER 5: AFTER THE FIRE FELL SILENT
Silence came first.Not peace—just the absence of sound so complete it felt unnatural, as if the city itself had stopped breathing.Kade Reyes was dimly aware of falling.Wind tore past him, hot at first, then cold. The sky above burned white as the Siege Mech’s redirected explosion ripped upward, punching a hole through cloud and atmosphere. The blast didn’t roar—it screamed, a column of light vanishing into space.Then darkness swallowed everything.A City Still StandingKade woke to pain.It was dull, constant, everywhere. The kind that told him he was alive when he very much wished he wasn’t.He lay on cracked pavement beneath a half-collapsed overpass. Smoke drifted lazily through the air. Fires still burned in the distance, but the screaming was gone.Too quiet.He tried to move.His body responded slowly, clumsily—like something that hadn’t been used in a long time.“What…?” he rasped.No voice answered.Inside his mind, there was nothing.No whisper.No probabilities.No cold,
CHAPTER 6: THE WORLD WITHOUT PROPHECY
The first thing Kade Reyes learned after losing the relic was fear. Not the sharp, immediate kind that came with gunfire or alien blades but the quieter one that crept in between breaths. The kind that had no calculations to drown it out, no probability curves to flatten it into certainty. Fear that had no answer. He stood on the roof of the transit hub as dawn bled slowly into the smog-filled sky of New Ardent. The city looked different in daylight—wounded, scarred, but alive. Smoke curled from distant districts. Emergency sirens wailed intermittently, like a city calling out to itself just to prove it could still speak. Kade flexed his fingers. They shook. He clenched them into fists and forced the tremor down. Get it together, he told himself. You chose this. But choosing didn’t make it easier. A Soldier Relearning Gravity “You’re compensating too late.” The voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Captain Elira Voss stood a few paces away, arms crossed, eyes sharp beneat
CHAPTER 7: THE WEIGHT OF BEING CHOSEN
The sky over New Ardent did not darken naturally.It dimmed as if something immense had passed between the city and the sun—an unseen hand lowering a veil. Vaelith dropships cut through the clouds in precise formations, but above them, farther out, unfamiliar silhouettes moved like patient predators.Three factions.Three intentions.And one planet caught between them.Kade Reyes stood at the edge of the transit hub’s roof, watching contrails slice the atmosphere. For the first time in his life, he didn’t know where the next blow would land or who would strike it.No relic.No prophecy.No safety net.Just responsibility.The City Turns to HimThey didn’t call him a leader at first.They didn’t need to.It started with looks. With quiet pauses in conversation when he entered a room. With messengers asking what he thought, what he wanted done, whether he believed they could hold the next district.Kade hated it.He moved through the hub like a ghost, ignoring the way people straightene
CHAPTER 8: BLOOD MAKES A DECISION
The gunshot echoed longer than it should have.Not because it was loud but because no one expected it.For a split second, the city of New Ardent froze. Conversations halted mid-sentence. Drones stuttered in the air. Even the distant hum of alien engines seemed to hesitate, as if the universe itself needed a moment to register what had just happened.Kade Reyes lay on the pavement, blood soaking into the cracks beneath him.Mila’s scream cut through everything.The Ground Truth of Mortality“Kade—Kade, stay with me!”Her hands pressed hard against his side, trying to stop the bleeding, trying to deny the reality spreading warm and slick beneath her fingers. The shot had come from above—high-caliber, precise, meant to kill.Kade gasped, vision blurring. Pain radiated outward in violent waves, sharp enough to make his teeth chatter.“No relic,” he whispered hoarsely. “This… hurts more than I remember.”Mila laughed once, broken and furious. “Shut up. You’re not allowed to die right now.
CHAPTER 9: THE SHAPE OF FRACTURE
The city did not sleep after Kade Reyes spoke.It argued.Across New Ardent, lights burned through the night as people gathered in apartments, shelters, and ruined plazas. Some replayed the broadcast on loop. Others shut it off in anger. Some watched in silence, feeling something they couldn’t name tighten in their chests.Hope, maybe.Fear, definitely.And above it all, unseen by most, systems moved into motion that could not be undone.The First RiotIt started in District Twelve.A council security convoy rolled in just before dawn, armored vehicles pushing through debris-clogged streets under the banner of “Stability Enforcement.” Loudspeakers blared orders for civilians to disperse, to return to shelters, to trust the process.Someone threw a bottle.No one could say who fired first after that.By sunrise, the district was burning.Mila watched the live feeds from the transit hub, jaw clenched. “They’re not even pretending anymore.”Rashid stood beside her, arms folded. “They’re
CHAPTER 10: ISOLATION PROTOCOL
The sky above New Ardent turned metallic gray, the clouds reflecting the unnatural luminescence of the Concord strike platform. It hovered like a predator suspended in still air, its immense bulk blotting out the sun and scattering the city’s shadows into a fractured grid.Below, the streets trembled—not from explosions or alien fire but from anticipation. Every living thing seemed to sense the change, a prelude to a new reality that none had asked for.Kade Reyes stood at the command hub’s central balcony, staring up at the hovering platform. Mila and Elira flanked him, their expressions mirrors of his own—tense, determined, aware that this was a threshold no one could cross lightly.“They’ve isolated us,” Mila said, voice tight. “Communication networks are collapsing. Every district is effectively cut off from each other.”Kade nodded. “They don’t want a united response. They want chaos in pieces.”Elira’s gaze swept the city. “Then we’ll have to create our own unity—one street at a