CHAPTER 16: "THE BEACH"

"AHHHHHHH!"

The scream came from somewhere deep in his chest, from a place that didn't have words, that just had sound. His body convulsed. His eyes snapped open. Sweat covered every inch of his skin—soaking his shirt, running down his face, dripping from his hair.

He sat up, gasping, his hands flying to his chest like he could slow his heart down through force of will.

"What... what the hell was that...?" he whispered.

His hands were shaking. His entire body was shaking. Speed pressed his palms against the ground, trying to ground himself, trying to confirm that he was here and not there and not being crushed under the weight of a Titan's foot.

The ground beneath him was warm. Sandy. Wet.

Speed's eyes snapped open fully.

He wasn't in the village anymore. The burning was gone. The screaming was gone. The Titan was gone.

He was on a beach.

A real beach. Ocean in front of him, waves crashing against the shore in a rhythm that was almost peaceful. The water was crystal clear, glowing faintly in the pre-dawn light. The sand was white and clean and completely untouched except for where Speed was sitting.

Behind him: an island. Lush vegetation. Trees that glowed faintly with bioluminescence. Plants that shouldn't exist mixed with plants that were almost normal. A jungle that looked like it had been painted by someone who'd dreamed about paradise and then decided to make it real.

Speed looked up.

The two moons were fading. One blue, one silver, both losing their glow as the sun started to rise. The sky was shifting from black to dark blue to something that might eventually become normal daylight.

But it wasn't normal.

Nothing about this was normal.

Speed looked down at his hands.

They were real. Solid. Still here. Still his.

He'd survived.

He'd survived the burning village. He'd survived the massacre. He'd survived holding the boy's hand as the Titan's foot came down and—

Speed's breath came out as a sob.

Then another.

Then he wasn't breathing anymore—he was just crying, his entire body shaking with sobs that came from somewhere deep inside, from a place that had been broken and wouldn't be whole again. He'd tried. He'd tried to save that kid. He'd held his hand. He'd promised him ice cream and swings and a park that didn't exist. And the Titan had come and crushed them both and—

Speed fell forward onto his knees.

"I can't..." he started, but the words got caught in his throat. He tried again. "I can't do this anymore..."

His voice broke.

He screamed. Not the scream from before—not a scream of fear or panic or being jolted awake. This was a different kind of scream. A scream of grief. A scream of someone who'd witnessed something they couldn't unsee, something that would haunt them forever.

Speed screamed until his voice gave out.

Then he just knelt there on the beach, his shoulders heaving, his eyes closed, his entire body shutting down because it couldn't handle anymore. Couldn't process anymore. Couldn't exist in a world where little ghost boys died under the feet of Titans and all you could do was hold their hand and lie about promises you'd never keep.

That's when he felt it.

A gentle landing on his leg.

Soft. Warm. Something small and delicate.

Speed opened his eyes.

There was a creature on his leg.

Glowing.

Beautiful.

Fairy-like, with butterfly wings that shimmered in the early morning light. The wings caught the fading moonlight and refracted it into a spectrum of colors—blues and greens and purples that shouldn't exist together but somehow did. The creature itself was about the size of a hummingbird, with a body that glowed softly like it was made of bioluminescence.

It tilted its head as it looked at Speed.

Then it chirped—a soft sound, like wind chimes in a gentle breeze.

Speed stared at it.

The creature fluttered around his head, leaving a trail of glowing orbs in the air. The orbs drifted upward slowly, fading as they went. It was the most beautiful thing Speed had seen since arriving in this nightmare world.

"What..." Speed whispered, his voice hoarse from screaming. "What are you?"

The fairy chirped again, softer this time. Comforting, almost.

It landed on his shoulder.

The moment its tiny feet touched his skin, something in Speed's chest loosened slightly. Not fixed. Not healed. Just... loosened. Like the weight of the world had shifted, just a little bit, to a place where he could breathe.

The fairy nuzzled against his cheek.

The touch was so gentle it was barely there. But it was there. Something was touching him. Something that wasn't trying to kill him. Something that seemed to care, even though Speed was a stranger and the fairy owed him nothing.

Speed exhaled slowly.

"You're kinda cute, you know that?" he said, and the words came out weak, broken, but they came out.

The fairy chirped, settling onto his shoulder, and for the first time since waking up in the void, Speed felt something other than terror.

He felt safe.

Just a little bit.

Just enough to breathe.

The sun continued rising. The two moons faded completely. The beach became less dream-like and more real, the colors shifting from fantasy to something that resembled actual daylight.

Speed sat there with the fairy on his shoulder, both of them watching the sun rise over an island that shouldn't exist, in a world that couldn't possibly be real.

But it was real.

And Speed was alive.

And the fairy was—

The creature suddenly went rigid.

Its glow flickered.

Then dimmed.

Speed's entire body tensed. Something was wrong. He could feel it. The air had changed. The peaceful morning had shifted into something else. Something that tasted like copper and ash and the screaming of villagers who'd died under the weight of a Titan's foot.

The fairy's head snapped upward, toward the forest.

"What's—" Speed started.

The fairy bolted skyward, abandoning his shoulder, heading directly toward the jungle canopy. It moved fast. Too fast. Like it was running from something.

From something.

The silence fell suddenly.

The waves stopped. Not literally—Speed could see them still moving, still crashing against the shore—but he couldn't hear them. The sound had been muted. Shut off. Like the world had turned down the volume on everything except for the sound of Speed's own rapid heartbeat.

A branch snapped.

Not far away. Close enough that Speed's entire body responded, tensing, preparing for flight or fight or whatever came next.

Speed spun around, his eyes searching the jungle.

Movement. In the trees. Something big. Something that was moving toward the beach with the kind of purpose that suggested it knew Speed was here and wanted to change that fact.

Speed's breath came in short gasps.

The something emerged from between the trees.