CHAPTER 50: The Fiftieth Fracture

We headed back to the house—maybe because part of me thought I could find something. A necklace. A keepsake. Anything I could hold on to.

Saaya wandered through the living room while I stood still, staring at the cold remains of the table, the chair my father used to sit in, and the empty spot where the family dog’s bed once lay. The silence weighed heavily—until Saaya’s foot brushed against something buried in the dust near the shelf.

A thin metal cylinder rolled free. A recording capsule.

She picked it up, brushing off the ash. “Sukara,” she said quietly, “you should see this.”

I looked over, numb, and took it from her hands. The casing clicked open with a soft chime, and a blue holographic interface flickered to life.

[RECORDING: ENCRYPTED. OPENING LAST MESSAGE.]

[DATE: UNKNOWN. SIGNAL CORRUPTED.]

Then—

My mother’s face appeared. Fuzzy at first. Then slowly stabilizing. Her hair was tied back. Her eyes were red.

She’d been crying.

My father stood behind her, one arm around her shoulders, the other resting firmly on her back—trying to steady her. Or maybe steady himself.

“If you’re seeing this… then maybe—maybe you made it back,” my mother said, her voice shaking. “Maybe this got to you. I don’t know. But we had to try. Just in case.”

My body froze. My lungs forgot how to breathe.

“The sky’s burning,” she whispered. “The cities are falling. People are disappearing. And we still haven’t heard from you.”

My father stepped forward slightly.

“We don’t know what took you. But we never stopped believing you’d find your way back.”

A sound broke from my throat—half-whimper, half-fracture.

“Your room is still here,” she added. “I sit in it sometimes. Just to feel like you’re near.”

“I keep it clean,” she laughed softly. “Like you’d come back and get mad at me if I didn’t.”

His voice cracked.

“We’re proud of you. Always. You were our light, Sukara. Our miracle. Our little genius. If this message is the only thing that finds you, then know this—”

“We love you. Don’t ever think you weren’t enough.”

“We love you, son.”

The image fractured. Static. Glitching.

[SIGNAL LOST.]

I didn’t cry right away.

I just stared at the space where they’d been. Jaw slack. Shoulders twitching like my body didn’t know how to respond. Saaya reached toward me, but I stepped away.

Then my fists clenched.

And I walked out the door.

The sun was lower now—dimmed by the gray. The ash was thicker. It was hard to tell where the air ended and grief began.

Halfway down a fractured avenue, a voice rasped through the quiet:

“Hey… wait… you there…”

We turned.

A figure slumped against a wrecked transport pod. Skin pale. Clothes tattered. A gaunt body failing to keep itself upright. Tubes and ports flickered weakly across his neck, cybernetic stabilizers barely functioning.

But his eyes were sharp.

And locked on me.

“You… you’re him,” the man rasped. “The one who vanished. The boy genius.”

I took a step forward, stunned.

“I remember you,” he wheezed. “You were the kid always in the lab. Talking to yourself. Always talking about scalars… how they’d change the world.”

My throat tightened. “How do you know that?”

“I was the janitor at your school. I never bothered you. You were always so focused… didn’t want to break your flow. But we all watched. Everyone thought you’d save us.”

He coughed. Blood painted his hand.

“Then one day… you were gone.”

I froze.

“They searched for you. Your parents led entire campaigns. Search networks. Broadcasts across the net. Then she came. The Goddess. She turned people into what you see now—stone, silence, death.”

Saaya covered her mouth.

The old man’s voice grew faint. “If only you’d finished your work. Maybe you could’ve stopped her. Maybe…”

His head slumped forward.

I caught him before he hit the ground.

We buried him under a slab of broken glass.

I didn’t speak.

Not to Saaya. Not even when we returned to the statues.

The two stone figures still stood in the square. Unchanged. Eternal.

I sat beneath them.

Staring.

“I had everything,” I whispered. “A future. A family. I was building something real.”

I looked down at my hands—like they were weapons.

“They took me because they feared me. Because they knew what I could become. So they tore me from the people I loved.”

Saaya knelt beside me. But I didn’t look at her.

“They never got to see what I became,” I said. “They never saw me fight. Or fly. Or laugh again.”

My voice cracked.

“They just… died. Waiting.”

Tears carved lines through the ash on my face.

I looked up at the statues. Hollow.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve been here. I should’ve protected you.”

I reached out, pressing my palm against my mother’s stone hand.

“And now I’m nothing,” I said. “Too late. Always too late.”

I bent forward. My forehead touched the base of the statue. My whole body shook.

“I wasn’t there when it mattered most…”

The silence pressed down harder.

And then—

A whisper.

Not from Saaya. Not from the wind.

Something old. Female. Cold.

“But you are now.”