THE WAR THAT FOLLOWED ME

CHAPTER 8: BLOOD MAKES A DECISION

The gunshot echoed longer than it should have.

Not because it was loud, but because nobody expected it. For one impossible second, the city of New Ardent froze. Conversations died mid-sentence. Drones stuttered in the air. Even the distant hum of alien engines seemed to hesitate, like the universe itself needed a moment to process what had just happened.

A human had shot another human.

While aliens watched from above.

Kade Reyes lay on the pavement, blood pooling beneath him, spreading into the cracks in the concrete.

Mila's scream cut through everything.

"Kade—Kade, stay with me!"

Her hands pressed hard against his side, fingers slick with blood, trying to stop the flow, trying to deny the reality spreading warm beneath her palms. The shot had come from above—high-caliber, precise. Meant to kill.

Kade gasped, vision blurring at the edges. Pain radiated out in vicious waves, sharp enough to make his teeth chatter. "No relic," he whispered hoarsely. "This... hurts more than I remember."

Mila laughed once—broken, furious, desperate. "Shut up. You're not allowed to die right now."

Elira Voss was already moving, weapon raised, scanning rooftops. "Two o'clock! Old telecom spire! Move, move!"

Resistance fighters poured into the street. Civilians scattered, panic spreading like wildfire.

Above them, council drones continued their broadcast, cold and relentless.

"—enemy of planetary stability—neutralization authorized—"

Elira fired. The nearest drone exploded in a shower of sparks and shattered metal.

"Stability my ass," she muttered.

Three blocks away, the sniper lowered his rifle.

His name was Jonah Kreel. Former city guard. Former resistance sympathizer. Former believer in things that made sense.

He watched through thermal optics as Kade was dragged into cover, watched Mila's frantic movements, and watched the city erupt into chaos below.

His hands were shaking.

"This was supposed to stop the war," he whispered.

Behind him, a figure stood in the shadow.

"You did your duty," Councilor Bren said calmly. "History will vindicate you."

Jonah swallowed hard. "He wasn't armed. Wasn't attacking anyone."

"He was destabilizing everything," Bren replied, voice smooth as glass. "Some men are too dangerous to let live freely."

Jonah didn't answer. Just stared at the rifle in his hands, wondering when protecting humanity had started to feel like betrayal.

The underground corridors beneath New Ardent shook as Mila and Elira hauled Kade through reinforced doors and down emergency stairwells. Sirens wailed above. Gunfire crackled somewhere in the distance.

Kade drifted in and out.

Every time his eyes closed, he expected the relic's voice. Some cold calculation about his odds, some probability curve for survival.

It never came.

Instead, memories surfaced—unfiltered, uncontrolled. Faces he couldn't save. Cities burning in wars that never made the history books. Moments where certainty had felt like righteousness, right up until it wasn't.

"This is what it feels like," he murmured, barely audible. "To not know."

Mila squeezed his hand. "Good. Stay with that feeling. Just stay."

They burst into a medical bay carved out of an old subway junction. Medics rushed forward, pulling Kade onto a stretcher, shouting vitals and blood types.

"Elira," Mila said urgently. "Seal the tunnel."

Already done. The heavy doors slammed shut with a sound like a tomb closing.

For a moment, the chaos outside felt impossibly far away.

Above ground, the assassination attempt did what no alien invasion had managed.

It divided humanity completely.

Some districts erupted in fury, openly blaming the council, tearing down authority nodes, broadcasting pirate signals calling for resistance.

Others cheered the announcement, believing desperately that removing Kade would somehow bring safety back. That submission to someone—anyone—was better than the uncertainty of freedom.

The Vaelith watched.

So did the Concord.

Envoy Serex observed the chaos through streams of data, its luminous form shifting subtly.

"Internal fracture confirmed," it intoned. "Intervention probability rising to critical thresholds."

Another presence answered—not Vaelith, not Concord. Something older, watching from farther out.

Let them bleed, it whispered across the void. Choice is proven only through suffering.

Hours passed in the medical bay.

Mila sat beside Kade's bed, blood crusted on her sleeves, eyes red but dry. She hadn't cried yet. Fear had burned that instinct out of her.

A medic approached quietly. "He's stable. The round missed his lung by millimeters." She paused. "Any deeper and we'd be having a different conversation."

Mila exhaled shakily. "Thank you."

The medic hesitated. "There's something else."

Mila looked up sharply.

"His neural scans," the medic continued carefully. "They're... unusual."

"Unusual how?"

"It's like something burned pathways into his brain and then left." The medic pulled up an image—natural tissue with strange, empty channels running through it. "We're seeing residual structures. Ghost patterns."

Mila's throat tightened. The relic. Not gone—scarred into him.

Kade woke screaming.

Not from pain. From silence.

He sat bolt upright, ripping sensors from his skin, chest heaving. His hands shook like he'd fallen from a great height and only just hit the ground.

Mila was there instantly. "Hey—hey, you're okay. You're alive."

He looked at her, eyes wild. "I can't see it."

She frowned. "See what?"

"The future." He laughed—a harsh, raw sound that hurt to hear. "I never realized how much I hated knowing it."

Mila's tears finally came. She pulled him into a fierce hug, grounding him, anchoring him to the present moment.

"You scared me," she said into his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "But I'm still here."

Outside the medical bay, Rashid listened through the door, jaw clenched.

Still here. That meant something now. Something it hadn't before.

Envoy Serex returned within the hour.

This time, the message was private, directed through the facility's systems.

"Kade Reyes," it said, voice reverberating through every speaker. "Your survival complicates resolution."

Kade sat up slowly, ignoring Mila's protest. "You wanted unpredictability eliminated."

"Yes," Serex replied. "And now you are something worse."

"Human?" Kade asked.

"Influential," Serex corrected. "You inspire resistance without offering order. That is the most dangerous combination."

Kade met its gaze through the flickering projection. "That's because order shouldn't be imposed. It should be chosen."

"Then understand this," Serex said, its form sharpening. "The Axiom Concord will intervene within seventy-two planetary cycles. Governance will be established. With or without your consent."

The transmission cut.

Silence filled the room.

Mila spoke quietly. "That was a threat."

"No," Kade said. "That was a deadline."

Rashid entered moments later. "The city's asking for you."

Kade sighed. "Of course it is."

"They're not asking for a weapon," Rashid continued. "They're asking for direction. For someone to tell them what comes next."

Kade looked down at his hands. Once, they'd held futures. Probabilities. Certainty.

Now they just held responsibility.

"What if I'm wrong?" he asked quietly. "What if my choice gets everyone killed?"

Mila stepped closer. "What if it doesn't?"

Elira folded her arms. "Leaders don't get certainty, Kade. They get consequences. That's the job."

Kade closed his eyes. This was the struggle the relic had never allowed him to face. Not how to win—but how to choose.

Hours later, Kade stood before a citywide broadcast system—patched together, unstable, but functional.

Millions watched. Some with hope. Some with hatred. Some with nothing but fear.

He took a breath.

"My name is Kade Reyes," he said. "And I don't have the future mapped out for you."

Murmurs spread across the city.

"I can't promise safety," he continued. "I can't promise victory. All I can promise is that no one—alien, council, or cosmic overseer—gets to decide what humanity becomes without our consent."

Outside the city, fleets shifted position.

Inside the Concord, alarms sounded.

Kade looked straight into the camera.

"If that makes me an enemy of stability," he said, voice steady, "then stability was never worth saving."

The feed cut.

Across the planet, people made their choices. Some to follow. Some to resist. Some to flee.

And far above, beyond the orbital blockades and watching fleets, something ancient smiled.

The war was no longer about survival.

It was about sovereignty.

And sovereignty, it turned out, was written in blood.