THE WAR THAT FOLLOWED ME

CHAPTER 5: AFTER THE FIRE FELL SILENT

Silence came first.

Not peace—Kade knew the difference. This was just the absence of sound, so complete it felt wrong. Like the city had stopped breathing mid-gasp and forgotten how to start again.

He was falling. He knew that much.

Wind tore past him—hot at first, then suddenly, impossibly cold. Above him, the sky burned white where the Siege Mech's reactor had exploded upward, punching a hole through clouds and atmosphere. The blast didn't roar. It screamed—a column of pure light vanishing into space like a spear thrown at God.

Then everything went dark.

Pain woke him.

It was everywhere. Dull and constant, the kind that told him he was alive when part of him really wished he wasn't.

He was lying on broken pavement under what remained of an overpass. Smoke drifted through the air like ghosts. Fires still burned in the distance, but the screaming had stopped.

Too quiet.

Kade tried to move. His body responded slowly, like a machine that hadn't been maintained in years. Everything hurt.

"What...?" he croaked.

No answer.

Inside his mind, there was nothing. No whisper. No calculations. No cold, clinical presence showing him futures that hadn't happened yet.

The relic was gone.

Panic hit him hard. He reached inward instinctively, searching for that familiar pressure that had lived in his skull for years.

Nothing.

For the first time since the Aurelian War, Kade was alone in his own head.

He laughed. It hurt his ribs, turned into a cough that tasted like blood, but he laughed anyway. "Guess you weren't bluffing."

He forced himself to sit up. The world spun, settled.

The street was unrecognizable. Where the Siege Mech had been, there was now just molten wreckage fused into the pavement. Buildings nearby bore scorch marks but still stood. Farther away, emergency lights flickered. People were emerging from hiding—moving slowly, cautiously, like they couldn't quite believe it was over.

Sector Nine had been spared.

The city still lived.

But Kade felt smaller than he ever had. Weaker. More fragile.

Human.

"KADE!"

The voice cut through the haze like a lifeline.

He turned just as Mila Okoye sprinted toward him, skidding to her knees beside him. Her face was smeared with soot, one sleeve torn clean off, but her eyes—

Her eyes were furious.

"You absolute idiot," she said, voice shaking. "Do you have any idea what you just did?"

Kade smiled faintly. "Saved a district?"

She hit his chest—not hard, but enough to hurt. "You almost died."

"Still working on it."

Her hands hovered over him, unsure where to touch without causing more damage. "Your vitals went dark. Every sensor we had lost you completely. I thought—" Her voice caught. She stopped, swallowed hard.

Kade saw it then. Not just relief. Real, raw fear.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Mila shook her head hard. "No. Don't. Not for this." She helped him sit up properly. "The blast went clean. Civilians are alive. The Mech's gone. And for the first time since this started..."

She looked up at the skyline.

"...the Vaelith pulled back."

That got his attention. "They retreated?"

"Not completely," Mila said. "But they stopped advancing. Like they're... reassessing."

Kade frowned. Without the relic, he felt blind. No insight. No probabilities. No certainty about what came next.

Just instinct.

And instinct told him this wasn't over.

They moved him to a temporary shelter in an old transit hub. Medics worked quickly—patching burns, stabilizing fractures, muttering about how lucky he was. Nothing life-threatening, they said. But without the relic enhancing his healing, recovery would be slow. Painful.

Every breath reminded him of what he'd lost.

Rashid arrived an hour later, limping, blood dried along his temple. He looked at Kade for a long moment, then nodded once.

"You saved them," Rashid said simply.

Kade looked away. "I chose."

"That's what makes it matter."

Around them, survivors were doing what humans always did—adapting. Sharing food. Wrapping injuries. Comforting frightened children. The city hadn't collapsed into chaos. It had pulled together.

Humans always did, eventually.

Mila sat down beside Kade, quieter now. "The council's furious, by the way. They wanted you extracted the moment your signal spiked."

"Let me guess," Kade said. "They still do."

She nodded. "They see you as a liability now."

"Good."

She gave him a sharp look. "Kade."

"I mean it. Without the relic, I'm not their weapon anymore. I'm just..." He gestured at himself. "This."

"And without it," she said softly, "you're vulnerable."

That was the truth he couldn't run from. The relic had made him powerful, yes. But it had also made him something more—or less—than human.

Now he was just Kade. And Kade could die like anyone else.

The lights flickered.

Every screen in the transit hub crackled to life simultaneously.

Mila was on her feet instantly. "That's not our system."

A symbol appeared on the displays—alien, angular, pulsing with faint light.

Then a voice filled the room. Not the relic. Not the Vaelith commander from before.

Something older. Deeper.

"Kade Reyes."

The temperature dropped. Kade felt it on his skin, saw his breath fog in the air.

Civilians backed away from the screens. Children cried.

"You severed the governor," the voice continued, calm and vast. "You disrupted balance."

Kade slowly stood, ignoring the screaming protest from his ribs. "If you're here to threaten us, get in line."

Something that might have been amusement rippled through the sound.

"No. I am here to inform you."

The symbol fractured, rearranging into a star map. Kade recognized Earth at the center. The Vaelith positions around it.

"The Vaelith does not retreat from loss," the voice said. "They retreat from uncertainty."

Mila whispered, "Kade..."

"You introduced chaos," the entity continued. "And chaos invites attention."

The map zoomed out. Far beyond Earth. Far beyond the solar system.

Dozens of new signals ignited across the display. Other forces. Other watchers.

Other things that had been waiting.

"Your war," the voice said, "has just expanded."

The screens went dark.

Silence returned—heavier this time. Suffocating.

Mila stared at the dead screens, then slowly turned to Kade. "What did you do?"

He exhaled slowly, every breath painful. "For the first time in years, I chose something without knowing the outcome."

Rashid clenched his fists. "And now?"

Kade looked around the room. At the people huddled together. At the city that still stood despite everything. At the future that no longer obeyed anyone's rules—not the Vaelith's, not the relic's, not his.

"Now," he said, voice steady despite the fear crawling up his spine, "we fight without gods. Without weapons that think for us."

Mila smiled faintly. "Just humans?"

Kade nodded. "And whatever comes next."

She reached out, squeezed his shoulder once. "Then we better get ready."

Outside, far above the city, beyond the fractured sky and the smoke and the dying fires, something ancient turned its gaze toward Earth.

Something that had been watching for a very long time.

And this time, there would be no predictions.

No probabilities.

No certainty.

Just humans, making choices in the dark.

And somehow, that felt more dangerous than anything that had come before.