Intermission. (Chapter 3)

I scrambled up from the hill, but the Dissonance was a glitch in my peripheral vision.

I turned my head just as a jagged limb sharp as a molten metal rod swiped across my face.

My world split in two.

A searing, white hot line of agony carved through my right eye. I fell, clutching my face, the warm stickiness of fluid and blood soaking my palm. I couldn't see out of the right side anymore, there was only a throbbing, hollow blackness.

“Get up. Please, just get up. I can move. I have to get back to them..”

Adrenaline is one hell of a drug, you know?

Adrenaline is also a liar. It told me I could fight. It told me that even a "Zero" had a hero’s moment hidden somewhere inside.

As the monster loomed over me, I didn't run. I couldn’t run if I wanted to.

I screamed a raw, unmodulated sound and lunged forward with everything I had. I swung my right fist, a pathetic, rhythmic less strike aimed at the center of its shifting mass.

“IM SO SICK OF THIS SHIT!”

The creature didn't even flinch. It simply closed its "hand" around my bicep.

There was a sound like a dry branch snapping in winter. Then came the tear.

I stared, detached and horrified, as the monster ripped my right arm clean from the socket. I didn't even feel the pain at first, my brain simply refused to process the sight of my own limb hitting the dirt like a discarded prop.

Then the gravity of it hit. I collapsed, gasping, my left hand hovering uselessly over a shoulder that was no longer there.

The Dissonance stepped on my chest, pinning me to the rotted oak. It leaned down, its teeth unhinging to settle around my throat.

This was the end of me.

This was the end of lior.

My life didnt flash before my eyes like how a movie would tell you. It played out like a series of empty rooms. I saw the faces of people in Oakhaven ignoring me. I saw my parents forced smiles. I realized, with a clarity that might of hurt worse than the missing arm,

that Jax was right.

I was an extra. I was the that one note everyone wanted to skip. If I died here, the symphony would just keep playing. I wouldn't be a tragedy, I’d just be forgotten, like old props on a theatre set.

I was truly, utterly worthless.

That realization wasn't a spark, it was a black hole. It was. True despair.