Error

  Unable to process request…

  A blue box appeared in the corner of his vision, but only for a second. At least he thought it was a blue box.

  “What the heck was that…” he turned his head, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it was. Instantly, a bright flash exploded outside. Lightning, so intense and violent that it immediately made him forget about so hallucination.

  He watched as the bolt split across the sky, only catching the end of it. Its trail, snapping and branching off in way too many directions.

  Although this one wasn't like anything he'd ever seen before. He spent a lot of his formative years in Tampa. seen plenty of lightning storms, but this... this particular bolt had a dark, eerie purple tinge to it.

  He had to quickly blink away the spots that now flooded his vision, while still trying to focus on the road.

  A deafening roar followed almost instantly.

  He gritted his teeth, his heart pounding from the sudden shocking vibrations.

  It had struck close. So very close. Not even half a mile by his old counting trick.

  “Well damn, that's not terrifying.” He muttered as he reached over and turned the music down lower. He needed to focus.

  He was only a few miles from town now, but the storm had picked up drastically within the last mile. Big, thick raindrops pelted his windshield so hard it sounded like hail.

  Eyes straining from the spots and the thick sheet of rain. He felt a sense of foreboding, and his anxiety began to rise. He took a measured, controlled breath.

  “I can do this.” He muttere,d trying to pep himself up. He had to just keep going. Taking it slow and steady. "You've driven through these Texas storms many times before.

  He knew the road well enough. He traveled it every day to and from work, but this storm made it hardly recognizable. Ahead, he knew, not too far away, the road would curve hard. But now, the barely was hardly recognizable through the curtain of rain.

  With a light press on the brake, cautiously, he slowed down even further as he began to round the corner.

  The was another bright flash of light that illuminated the interior of his car, lighting up his vision. And instantly after it, another flash, but this time it was blue.

  Error override in progress...

  Then a third flash. This time... It was headlights. And they were barreling towards him. The blue box flickered and disappeared as his stomach lurched.

  His terror flared, and his heart leapt into his throat. He watched as the car started to veer into his lane. It was coming at him way too fast. His heart skipped a beat, and panic shot through him.

  On instinct, he slammed down on his horn and jerked the wheel, hoping to avoid a direct collision. His horn blared, erupting into the night, cutting through the storm, but it was already too late.

  For just a single heartbeat, time seemed to stretch on. The reality sped up like a bullet. Suddenly, the world in front of him pitched sideways as he began to lose control. All traction was lost into a hydroplaning drift, just barely out of the path of the oncoming car.

  He threw the wheel in the other direction, trying to regain some control as the car began to start its slow swing the other way, just as another set of headlights entered the blind curve.

  "Fuuuu....

  Now, he was drifting right into oncoming traffic. Right toward the other set of headlights. These were raised. Another bright and sudden flash of lightning lit up the world around, and his heart stopped. It was just enough for him to see the huge semi-truck and watch in horror as he was heading directly at it.

  An earth-shattering boom of thunder, followed by a heavy, bone-jarring crash. The front of his car slammed into the oncoming truck.

  Terrified, he watched as the glass surrounding him exploded in every direction, a frag grenade of shrapnel glass, slick and wet from the torrential rain. They slashed into his face, his hands, anything exposed.

  The seatbelt bit deeply into his shoulder, like a steel vice trying to clamp him into his seat. And his momentum abruptly stopped.

  The airbags deployed so fast he felt the eruption of pain as his wrists shattered, sent flying upwards. It caught his face next, instantly breaking his nose. The impact to his chest was followed by a force that knocked all the air from his lungs. His ribs cracked, caved in by the impact, severed bone fragments, stabbing and rupturing, into his lungs.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  His head snapped sideways, a sickening crunch of bone as his skull impacted with something hard. Everything became foggy.

  Suddenly, there was no up, no down, just a dizzying whirl of metal, glass, and noise.

  A thick acrid tang of burning rubber with a sharp hint of ozone assaulted his almost numb senses, coupled with the coppery tang of blood in his mouth.

  Darkness began to creep in at the edges of his vision.

  ‘This… the end…’ He thought numbly. A calm detachment washed over his hazy thoughts.

  Just an observer in his demise. It was the chilling realization that there was nothing he could do. There was no way out of this.

  "This is only the beginning." A soft voice cooed in his ears. reaching through the fog.

  Before he could register the words, an abrupt stop jerked him again as his wrecked car slammed violently into a tree.

  Branches and leaves cascaded down onto his car. Followed by a very loud groaning snap. Whatever he hit, the tree, maybe, fell. His car was crushed under the weight as the massive tree crashed into it.

  A large sheet of twisted metal groaned as it ripped from the crumpled roof and found its way down. He stared at it bleary-eyed. It had gone through his chest. He quickly lost what little feeling he had left in one arm as his pain slowly began to soften.

  The metal that had pierced deep into his ruined chest had also severed his right arm just below the elbow. He didn't know how to feel. He stared in absence at it.

  A weight of sharp, searing pain erupted through him, leaving no room for anything else. His ragged gasps began to slowly ground to a halt. The air felt thick in his lungs as it started to mix with blood and other bodily fluids.

  His heart pounded erratically in his chest, too fast, then slow, then steady,and then very slow. Each beat, a desperate pulse to keep him tethered to this world. But each became less powerful, less meaningful.

  ‘Oh… God, that's… not good.’ The thought was there, but the words never escaped his lips. They only played out in his mind.

  Then, there was no more breath his lungs could pull in. His vision blurred completely, a dark ring that had hung in his periphery, now encompassed almost all of his vision.

  Everything slowly slipped away.

  The heavy pelting rain, the creaking groan of the tree smashed into his wrecked car, and even his pain.

  His last thought was of his kids... his wife...

  System Override complete

  Only a deathly silence remained, then, that too faded.

  ---

  He came to, floating lazily in an endless void. The pain was gone.

  He wasn’t aware of his body at all. He was just... there.

  Everything was gone. Everything he was—his existence, his soul, his body—had simply ceased to exist. Only his conscious thought remained.

  He couldn’t remember the sound of his heartbeat, nor the rhythm of his breath. There was no sensation of being alive. Just drifting along in the ether.

  Then, something new. Something enchanting. A soft harmonic voice broke the silence. It was smooth like silk, sweet like honey l, yet carried the weight of something ancient and powerful, something significant.

  It filled the empty void around him, reverberating through the emptiness like a light breeze over still water.

  "Hmm…” the melodic voice cooed at him. “Still so small... So fresh..."

  The intoxication of it had him yearning for more. And when it finally came, it was rapturous.

  "So many broken pieces." The voice paused; he yearned for it to continue.

  “Yet, the threads of fate are such malleable things.” This time, there was a slight hint of humor hidden in the musical voice.

  But he was confused; the words didn’t make sense to him, yet they calmed him even more. He waited for the harmonic melodies that seemed to follow the voice.

  "And yet, they saw fit to bring you before me.". The words, they weren’t meant for him, right, or were they?

  “I shall aid you the best I can. A gift, a boon. Something that will help bind the pieces back together.” The words felt sickly sweet this time, but sweet all the same.

  There was a snap, a snap of the fingers or a pop in the void. He couldn't figure it out.

  Then, a sudden rush of sensations flooded his consciousness, warm and serene, cold and dark, newly born and ancient. It embedded into him, deep within his chest, his soul.

  He wanted to speak, to call out to the voice, but he had no means to. He wanted to hear her voice serenade him. He cared nothing about a gift or what was happening; he just wanted her voice.

  "That should do it, my Paragon."

  He bathed in the warmth of echoes for as long as he could, wallowing in it until suddenly, awareness slammed into him like a tidal wave.

  His lungs burned as though he'd forgotten how to breathe, and a harsh breath ripped from his throat as his senses flickered to life.

  But something was very wrong. He knew it. He could... feel it.

  His body felt distant, and yet, his essence, his soul, was being pulled—drawn somewhere far away. It was as though something inside him was being yanked against his will, his very being torn apart by a cold and relentless force.

  Panic clawed at his mind. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was... rain. His car spinning out of control, the headlights blinding him as the world twisted and folded, the sharp screech of metal against metal.

  His death.

  The shattered pieces of him were scattered far and wide. Yet they were being pulled together like they were attached to high-powered magnets.

  It didn't let up, the pull came harder. The voice was no longer resonating. Whatever presence he felt with it before was gone. Like the strings of an instrument that were abruptly severed. The song was gone.

  And then, like the snap of a whip, everything stopped, and sudden reality came crashing before him.

  NEXT TIME ON HARMONY OF THE FALLEN!

  Now reborn in a twisted new world with a glitching System and powers he doesn’t understand, can he survive the horrors waiting in the dark?

  Corruption? Check.

  Existential dread and soul-shattering secrets?? Double check!

  easy part.

  DON'T MISS IT!