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 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.”

Elira Voss was already moving.

“Two o’clock,” she snapped into her comm. “Rooftop, old telecom spire. Move!”

Resistance fighters poured into the street, weapons raised. Civilians scattered, panic igniting like dry fuel.

Above them, the council drones continued broadcasting, cold and relentless.

“enemy of planetary stability—neutralization authorized—”

Elira fired.

The drone exploded in a shower of sparks and shattered alloy.

“Stability my ass,” she muttered.

The Sniper’s Truth

Three blocks away, the sniper lowered his rifle.

His name was Jonah Kreel.

Former city guard. Former resistance sympathizer. Former believer.

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

His hands trembled.

“This was supposed to stop the war,” he whispered.

Behind him, a figure stood in shadow.

“You did your duty,” Councilor Bren said calmly. “History will thank you.”

Jonah swallowed hard. “He wasn’t armed. He wasn’t attacking anyone.”

“He was destabilizing everything,” Bren replied. “Some men are too dangerous to let live freely.”

Jonah didn’t answer.

He 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 in the distance.

Kade drifted in and out of consciousness.

Every time his eyes closed, he expected the relic’s voice.

It never came.

Instead, memories surfaced unfiltered.

Faces he couldn’t save.

Cities burned in wars that never made the history feeds.

Moments where certainty had been mistaken for righteousness.

“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.

“Elira,” Mila said urgently, “seal the tunnel.”

Already done.

As the doors slammed shut, the outside world felt impossibly far away.

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

It divided humanity completely.

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

Others cheered the announcement, believing desperately—that removing Kade would bring safety.

The Vaelith watched.

So did the Concord.

Envoy Serex observed the chaos through streams of data, light shifting across its form.

“Internal fracture confirmed,” it intoned. “Intervention probability rising.”

Another presence answered—not Vaelith, not Concord.

Something older.

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

Hours passed.

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

A medic approached quietly.

“He’s stable,” the woman said. “The round missed the lung by millimeters. Any deeper and…”

She didn’t finish.

Mila exhaled shakily. “Thank you.”

The medic hesitated. “There’s something else.”

Mila looked up sharply.

“His neural scans,” the medic continued. “They’re… unusual.”

Mila’s heart skipped. “Unusual how?”

“It’s like something burned pathways into his brain then left,” the medic said. “We’re seeing residual structures. Empty channels.”

Mila swallowed.

Ghosts of the relic.

Not gone—scarred.

Awakening Without Permission

Kade woke screaming.

Not from pain.

From silence.

He sat bolt upright, ripping sensors from his skin, chest heaving. His hands shook as if he’d fallen from a great height and only just landed.

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 whispered.

Then he laughed—a harsh, raw sound.

“I never realized how much I hated knowing it.”

Mila blinked, tears finally spilling. She hugged him fiercely, grounding him, anchoring him to the present.

“You scared me,” she said into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “But I’m still here.”

Outside the medical bay, Rashid listened, jaw clenched.

Still here meant something now.

The Concord’s Ultimatum

Envoy Serex returned within the hour.

This time, the message was private.

“Kade Reyes,” it said, its voice reverberating directly through the facility’s systems. “Your survival complicates resolution.”

Kade sat up slowly, ignoring Mila’s protest. “You wanted unpredictability gone.”

“Yes,” Serex replied. “And now you are something worse.”

“Human?” Kade asked.

“Influential,” Serex corrected. “You inspire resistance without offering order.”

Kade met its gaze through the projection. “That’s because order shouldn’t be imposed.”

“Then understand this,” Serex said. “The Concord will intervene within seventy-two planetary cycles. Governance will be established. With or without your consent.”

The transmission cut.

Silence followed.

Then Mila spoke softly. “That was a threat.”

“No,” Kade said. “That was a deadline.”

The Core Struggle Exposed

Rashid entered the room. “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.”

Kade looked at his hands.

Once, they’d held the future.

Now, they held nothing but 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. They get consequences.”

Kade closed his eyes.

This was the struggle the relic had never allowed him to face.

Not how to win.

But how to choose.

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

Millions watched.

Some with hope.

Some with hatred.

Some with 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.

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

Outside the city, fleets shifted.

Inside the Concord, alarms sounded.

Kade looked straight into the camera.

“If that makes me an enemy of stability,” he said, “then stability was never worth saving.”

The feed cut.

Across the stars, something ancient smiled.

The war was no longer about survival.

It was about sovereignty.