So this is how it ends. Good doesn't win. Not always.That was the thought running through the crowd's mind that Preston Whitlock, in broad daylight, in front of half the school, had just openly tried to kill someone.And Damon Sterling the one guy who usually walked away from every clash with Preston on top had apparently lost his mind completely, walking straight into an obvious trap like he'd forgotten how to think.Well. Guess Kingsley Prep officially belongs to Preston Whitlock now.Nobody wanted to see it end this way. But with the fire already roaring and the outcome seemingly written, most of the students standing around could only shake their heads and quietly hope whoever inherited this mess after Preston took over would have it easier than they would.Then, out of nowhere, a woman came sprinting through the crowd with a bucket of water sloshing in her hands."Somebody help me put this out! Please, help me!"Her voice shook as she ran back and forth along the edge of the bla

"Oh my God they just killed a sheriff!""What are these people even trying to prove? Have they completely lost their minds?""Girl, why are you still standing there calling for help? Run! You're going to get yourself killed for nothing!""Let's go, let's go this isn't the kind of drama worth sticking around for.""Damon Sterling's a dead man walking after this. We are not getting caught up in it."The crowd scattered in a chaotic wave, voices tangled together in panic."Get every brother on this moving clear every student and faculty member off Kingsley Prep grounds. I want this campus empty inside three hours."Damon scanned the fleeing, screaming crowd with an unreadable expression before adding, flat and final:"As for the deputies who stood by and let this happen kill them.""Anyone too ashamed to be associated with what happened here, anyone who tries to isolate or bury the truth throw them off this campus. Permanently. No exceptions."Marcus tilted his head, working through the

Under the weight of every stunned gaze around him, Damon tilted his head back and stared straight up into the sky, eyes sharp enough to cut through the heavens themselves."Because... the apocalypse has officially arrived."Eight words. That was all it took.And in the space of a single breath, everything changed.The sun bright, steady, hanging exactly where it always did simply vanished. No warning, no fading twilight. Warmth and light were ripped away in an instant, and the entire world dropped into something closer to a void than nightfall.A vast black curtain swallowed the sky whole, and the earth beneath it full of life just seconds earlier plunged into absolute darkness.Skyscrapers lost their edges entirely, reduced to hulking black silhouettes crouched against the void, like sleeping giants nobody wanted to wake.Cars sat frozen at odd angles across the streets, headlights guttering weakly before drowning completely in the dark, leaving nothing behind but dull metal shells c

Washington, D.C.A city carrying centuries of history in its bones and for just as long, the place where real power in this country had always pooled and settled.In a quiet, tucked-away courtyard belonging to one of the city's oldest and most influential families, an elderly man with white hair and an unnervingly alert gait set his phone down and walked out into the open air.This was Augustus Whitlock. Preston's grandfather. Father to Victor Whitlock, the Lieutenant Governor currently trying to hold Texas together by force.A man wielding that kind of generational power should have carried himself like still water unshakable, untouched by anything as crude as excitement.Instead, the old man's sharp, hawkish face was lit up with something close to euphoria.He stared up at the bleeding crimson moon overhead, eyes bright with an ambition that looked almost feverish, chest heaving with barely-contained emotion."Reborn. I've actually been given a second life. And it lands on the exact

While Damon sat deep in the crystal core absorption, something stirred in the metal-lined room just down the hall.A small red panda let out a roar that had absolutely no business coming out of something that size."ROOOAR!!"A dim, dark-red light rippled outward around him the instant the sound faded, and his small body began expanding fast, visible, unmistakable.Short, soft limbs thickened into something dense with muscle. Claws split out from his paw pads, curved and gleaming, sharp enough to open steel. His stubby tail stretched out into something closer to a whip, cracking through the air with an audible snap.His head reshaped itself just as violently ears sharpening into twin points like blades, jaw stretching open to reveal a full set of vicious fangs. Every trace of "cute" burned away, replaced by something ancient and predatory.This wasn't a red panda anymore. This was something old a creature straight out of forgotten legend.The Ironjaw.The dark-red glow faded, and the