THE RELIC OF VEINS

The alarms screamed long before the flames reached the emergency ward. Bruce Willis pushed through the smoke, sleeve over his mouth, voice hoarse. “Move the kids out first! East stairwell’s still clear!”

“Bruce, that corridor’s collapsing!” someone shouted behind him.

“Then run faster!”

The fluorescent lights flickered above the haze. The world smelled of burning plastic and oxygen tanks leaking doom.

Halloween decorations, paper skeletons, fake cobwebs, curled and blackened along the walls as if mocking the chaos. A nurse stumbled toward him, carrying a little boy in her arms. “The elevator’s jammed!” she gasped.

Bruce took the child. “Stairs. Now. Don’t stop for anything.”

The boy coughed against his shoulder, face streaked with soot. “It hurts,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Bruce muttered. “That means you’re alive.”

They reached the stairwell, but the upper landing had caved in. A steel beam lay twisted across the steps. Flames licked through the gap like the tongues of some angry god.

“Go back, find another way!” the nurse cried.

Bruce looked at the boy, then at the beam. His heartbeat thudded in his ears, drowning out the alarms. “No time.”

He shoved the child into her arms. “You go. Now!”

“What about you?”

“I’ll clear it.”

“Bruce”

He lifted the beam with a grunt, muscles trembling. The pain in his shoulder burned deep, but the nurse squeezed past, clutching the boy tight.

When they were gone, the ceiling cracked above him. The sound was wrong, like ice breaking underwater. He looked up, eyes wide. “Aw, hell.”

The world fell. The ceiling crushed him before he could move. A roar of fire swallowed the hallway, and everything turned red, then black.

When Bruce opened his eyes, it was silent. The fire was gone. The smoke was gone. The air was cold and sterile.

He lay on a metal table beneath a single flickering light. His chest ached like someone had split it open. When he sat up, the sheet slid off, his body was bare, pale, and stitched down the middle. A morgue.

“What the” His voice rasped. “No. No, no, no.”

He stumbled to his feet, legs shaking. The toe tag swung from his foot: WILLIS, BRUCE – TIME OF DEATH: 11:47 P.M.

The clock on the wall read 12:03. Sixteen minutes. He pressed his hand to his chest. His skin was hot. Beneath it, something pulsed, not a heartbeat, not really. A throb, heavy and molten.

Then he heard it. A whisper. Low, crawling, like wind through cracked stone. “You’ve been chosen to finish what death began.”

Bruce spun around. “Who’s there?”

The room stayed empty. He backed toward the door, breath quick and shallow. His reflection caught in the steel cabinet, eyes glowing faintly amber. “What the hell is happening to me?”

“Awaken,” the voice murmured again, softer now, almost tender. “The fire remembers you.”

He staggered, grabbing the table for balance. His hand slipped, blood smeared across the surface. Only it wasn’t red. It shimmered orange, like liquid ember.

The morgue light flickered once. Twice. Then exploded. He bolted into the corridor, barefoot, body trembling. Every step left a faint scorch mark on the tile. The exit sign glowed ahead, green and unreal in the dark.

A security guard turned the corner, flashlight up. “Sir-hey! You can’t—wait, are you… are you naked?”

Bruce grabbed him by the arm. “What’s today?”

“Wh, what?”

“The date!”

“October thirty-first. Halloween, man, what’s wrong with”

The flashlight beam hit Bruce’s face, and the guard froze. “Your eyes…”

Bruce’s pupils were fire. “Stay back!” the guard shouted, fumbling for his radio.

Bruce raised his hands. “I don’t—look, I don’t know what’s”

The radio sparked. A stream of static hissed into the air, words forming in the noise: “The relic remembers. Feed it.”

Bruce doubled over. The pain in his chest flared again, scorching. He tore open his shirt, or what remained of it, and saw it: a black shard embedded just below his sternum, faint runes glowing beneath the skin.

“What is this thing”

The shard pulsed once. The world ignited. Flames erupted along the corridor walls. The guard screamed, dropping his flashlight, but the fire curved around Bruce instead of touching him.

It moved like it knew him, like it obeyed. “No… no, stop!” Bruce shouted, pushing out with both hands.

The fire recoiled, coiled, and vanished into his veins. The pain eased, replaced by a heavy silence.

The guard lay on the ground, staring in shock. “You, you were on fire,” he whispered. “But you didn’t burn.”

Bruce stared at his hands, faint heat radiating off his palms. “I think I did.”

He fled into the night. Outside, the air was crisp and sharp, heavy with the smell of rain and smoke. Fire engines howled down the street, red lights cutting through the dark. He stopped under a flickering lamppost, breathing hard.

The city looked normal. Halloween decorations still dangled from balconies, kids in masks laughing a few blocks away. Ordinary world. Unaware that something had just shifted.

He looked down at the blood on his arm, still glowing faintly, fading now like dying embers. “What the hell did you do to me?” he muttered. “I gave you what you already earned,” the whisper said from nowhere and everywhere. “You saved life through death. Now your veins will remember both.”

“Get out of my head!”

“You invited me in.”

The lamppost above him burst into light, white-hot. Bruce flinched, shielding his eyes. When the glare faded, he saw a figure across the street, a woman standing beneath the opposite lamp, coat whipping in the wind.

Her face was shadowed, but her voice carried clear. “Bruce Willis.”

He froze. “Do I know you?”

“You will.” She lifted her hand, revealing a badge engraved with an unfamiliar symbol: a circle split by seven lines, like veins in a heart. “We need to talk. Before it does.”

“It?”

“The thing in your chest. The relic.”

Bruce stepped back. “You think I’m gonna follow some stranger in the middle of the night?”

“You died tonight,” she said flatly. “And you’re still breathing. You don’t have the luxury of pretending anymore.”

He hesitated. The world suddenly felt thinner, like the air itself could tear. The whisper returned, sly and hungry: “Trust her… and you’ll burn slower.”

Bruce looked up, eyes catching firelight from the distance. “Lady, I don’t know who the hell you are.”

She smiled slightly. “Name’s Lena Raith. I’m here to keep you from exploding.”

“Exploding?”

“Figure of speech. Mostly.”

The sirens grew louder behind him. Bruce exhaled. “Fine. But I’m getting answers.”

“You’ll get more than that,” she said, turning away. “You’ll get the truth about what you’ve become.”

The relic in his chest pulsed once, warm, alive, almost eager. Bruce followed her into the darkness.

Behind them, the morgue light flickered back to life, and in the reflection of the steel drawers, something like a smile shimmered, made of flame and whisper. “He’s awake.”