Chapter 4 – Burned But Breathing

There was no warning. No scream.

Just light.

White. Blinding. Consuming.

It punched through the motel like a silent bomb, flash-frying the walls in a split-second burst of heat and pressure. The floors buckled. The ceiling peeled back like scorched paper. Windows shattered outward in a perfect ring of glass. The ritual circle exploded—not outward, but upward—sending ash spiralling into the sky like reverse snow.

At the centre of it all, Max Jaeger didn’t scream.

He wasn’t awake.

He hovered – suspended in the detonation like a moth in amber. The fire passed over him. Around him. Through him. Yet somehow, did not touch him. The flames parted around his body in slow arcs, curling away as if unwilling to embrace him.

Time was broken. Sound didn’t exist. There was only pressure, like being submerged in boiling water and concrete at the same time. And beneath it all, the dead whispering—

Aamon’s voice.

Not in words.

In hunger.

In that instant – between breath and bone, between life and aftermath – Max’s body began to glow. Not from heat. From within. A golden light bled through his veins, pulsing in time with a second heartbeat.

And then…

Everything collapsed.

The motel cracked in half. Beams shattered. The walls imploded. Fire roared. And then… silence.

The wreckage of ‘Paradise Motel’ smoked in the early morning light. Concrete dust hung like a veil. Police sirens wailed in the far distance. A bystander screamed something unintelligible.

Amid the ruins, one figure lay still.

Max.

No burns. No broken bones.

Only blood-spattered skin and a faint trail of smoke rising from his open mouth.

And beneath that – just beneath the skin – something stirred.

…………………

Voices filtered through the dark like fragments of glass.

“…still no external injuries…”

“…but those burn scars—Jesus…”

“…no, old scarring. Years old. Look at the tissue. Not from the blast.”

“…then how the hell did he walk out of a fireball without a scratch?”

Max drifted beneath it all, pinned in thick molasses. Sounds stretched. Lights flickered behind his eyelids – white, sterile. The beep of a monitor ticked like a metronome in his skull. He tried to move, but his limbs weren’t there. Or maybe they were. Just too heavy to lift.

Then came the infernal heat.

It started deep in his chest, behind the ribs. At first, it was a throb. A pulse. But with each second, it grew – expanding through his organs, veins, muscles. It didn’t spread like fire. It was fire. Coiled and clawing, churning beneath his skin like it wanted out.

Max gasped.

His eyes snapped open.

The ceiling above him was white, clean, too bright. The air stank of antiseptic. Tubes trailed from his arm. A monitor beeped nearby. A nurse jolted from her chair and scrambled for the hallway.

“Doctor! He’s – he’s awake!”

Max barely heard her.

The fire was too loud.

It boiled behind his sternum, searing through him like molten metal trying to escape a cage. Every cell in his body felt like it was melting. But his skin didn’t blister. His hair didn’t burn. The flames weren’t consuming him – they were inside him. Caged. Trapped. Raging.

He groaned and sat up.

Pain spiked. A breath caught in his throat. For a second, the pressure almost made him pass out. But something in his mind flickered. A thought. A feeling. A command. He focused – not on extinguishing the pain, but on containing it.

The heat dulled. Not vanished. Just… manageable.

Like turning down the volume on a scream.

His breath evened out.

His hands trembled as he peeled off the monitor pads from his chest. The wires snapped free with sharp pops. He looked down – and froze.

His torso was bare.

The old burn scars were still there. Twisting, raised rivers of ruined flesh across his ribs and shoulders. But something was wrong. The skin around them glowed faintly—like metal cooling after a forge. His veins shimmered gold beneath the surface. They pulsed.

He touched the centre of his chest.

The mark.

It was gone from the skin, but he could feel it just beneath. Like an anchor tied to his soul.

The door burst open. Two nurses. A doctor. Security.

Max didn’t move.

One of the nurses – a young woman with wide eyes and trembling fingers – took a cautious step forward.

“Sir… you’re okay. You’re in the hospital. There was… an explosion. But you’re safe now.”

Max looked at her.

Then past her. To the hallway.

A thought stabbed through the fog.

Liz.

He tried to stand.

The pain flared again, a storm behind his ribs—but he crushed it. Pushed it down. It folded into itself like metal bending beneath will. His legs held steady. His balance returned.

The doctor approached. “Sir, I need you to lie back down—”

Max looked him dead in the eyes.

“Where is she?”

The doctor blinked. “Who?”

“My daughter.”

“I… don’t know anything about—”

“She’s here,” Max said. His voice cracked like a fault line. “I need to see her.”

He took one step forward. The air shifted.

Something heavy moved with him. Not wind. Not heat. Pressure. The kind that came before earthquakes.

And somewhere beneath his ribs, the fire stirred again – hungry, waiting.

…………………

Max locked the bathroom door behind him.

Not just closed – locked. Bolted. He yanked the privacy latch into place, shoved the trash can under the handle, and turned on every faucet until the rush of water drowned out the hospital hum.

The mirror above the sink was cheap plastic. Warped. But it showed enough.

He stood before the mirror, gripping the sink with both hands. The man who stared back wasn’t a stranger but he wasn’t quite the same either.

Shaggy, dirty-blonde hair hung in uneven strands around his temples, damp with sweat. A darker beard traced his jaw, unkempt but thick. His eyes were pale blue, rimmed in red. Sleepless, but clear. Haunted. His body – muscular and thick with strength earned, not sculpted – still looked like it belonged to someone who worked out daily to keep from falling apart. The kind of strength born from therapy sessions that didn’t work, and long runs that only made the pain manageable. He looked thirty-something but worn hard. Burnt twice. Maybe three times.

The scars across his chest were raw maps of an older war – jagged lines, discoloured flesh, surgical stitching faded with time. And something else now. A mark, just beneath the skin. Something that hadn’t been there before.

He leaned forward, studying himself. Shirtless, the hospital gown discarded on the tile behind him. Burn scars mapped his torso like the aftermath of a war. But between those scars… something new pulsed.

Light.

His veins weren’t blue anymore.

They were gold.

Faint, flickering beneath the skin like candlelight behind thin paper. With every heartbeat, they shimmered—like whatever was inside him was trying to escape. Trying to breathe.

He flexed his fingers.

A crackling sound—faint, like static over old radio.

Pain surged.

His entire right arm went rigid, muscles tensing. His vision blurred. The heat returned, blooming from his sternum outward. This time, it didn’t ask.

It demanded.

He gritted his teeth, pushed it down with all the mental force he could muster. It didn’t leave. But it bent. Curled. Coiled into itself like a serpent waiting beneath the surface of his soul.

He exhaled slowly.

Then, without thinking, he reached out his hand – palm facing up, fingers splayed.

And willed it.

A spark.

Then a flicker.

Then fire.

Golden, radiant, silent flame bloomed from his palm like liquid sunlight. It didn’t spread. Didn’t burn. But it twisted in the air, writhing like it had a mind of its own.

Max’s breath caught.

It was beautiful.

And it hurt like hell.

He dropped to one knee, clutching his side. The pain didn’t come from the fire – it came from him. From summoning it. His nerves screamed. His muscles seized. The heat was real. It wasn’t metaphor. It was power. Alive, clawing at his insides, tearing at him every time he used it.

It’s a weapon, he realized. And a curse.

The fire winked out.

Only smoke remained, curling from his fingertips.

He stared at his hand, veins still glowing.

“What the hell did you do to me…” he whispered.

No answer.

But he felt the echo of something stir inside himself.

Aamon. Still there. Not alive. But still… a presence. A disturbing feeling within his soul. Moving like a beheaded snake – a wriggling in its death throes.

Max rose slowly, one hand gripping the counter to steady himself. His breathing was ragged, but steady. His chest ached, but it held.

And then, almost as an afterthought, he grabbed the stainless steel soap dispenser bolted to the wall. Just to lean on.

It crumpled in his grip like wet paper.

He froze.

Looked down.

The metal was twisted inward, warped under his fingers.

Max stared.

Then released it.

The thing dropped to the sink with a hollow clang.

“…okay,” he said softly, staring at his hand like it belonged to someone else. “Not normal.”

Not just fire.

Not just pain resistance.

Not just the soul prison.

Strength.

He didn’t understand it. Didn’t control it. But it was there.

And if he didn’t learn how to master it, it would tear him apart from the inside out.

…………………

Max found the rooftop by accident.

He’d followed the emergency exit stairs until the hospital’s noise faded behind steel doors. Now, the city spread below him – grey buildings, sharp glass spires, the distant haze of smoke still curling from the ruins of Paradise Motel.

The sun had started to rise. Pale light bled across the sky, painting everything in orange and gold. From the rooftop, Singapore stretched out before him – gleaming towers rising like needles, endless rows of identical high-rise apartments, and the faint, hazy curve of Marina Bay off in the distance. Below, the city stirred awake in organized silence: early morning traffic whispered through manicured streets, and the occasional chirp of mynas echoed between buildings. A layer of tropical humidity clung to his skin, thick and heavy even in the dawn breeze. Somewhere far below, a hawker centre was already frying something pungent in garlic and oil. Max had only been here a few weeks – just long enough to get lost twice, sweat through every shirt he owned, and learn that Singapore never really slept. People were friendly enough but there was still a cultural divide. It wasn’t home. Not even close. He didn’t trust the stillness. This city was too clean, too vertical, too precise. But it was where his daughter lay sleeping. And it was where he’d died – and come back as something else. The hospital’s rooftop was empty. Cold wind pushed against the rising of the morning heat. Max sat on a concrete ledge and watched the foreign city breathe.

His hands were still shaking.

Not from weakness. From pressure. The power inside him never stopped moving. Even when dormant, it pressed against his bones like a tide. His ribs ached. His back burned. He couldn’t tell if it was the Hellmark or the prison inside it.

The echo of Aamon stirred faintly, a flicker of memory that wasn’t his.

Max ignored it.

Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out something small. Blackened. Bent.

A photo.

Crumpled at the edges. Slightly burned. He didn’t remember grabbing it. Maybe it had been in his wallet. It was a miracle that it has survived. Maybe fate had saved it.

April and Liz. Smiling. Beach day. Liz had been eleven. She wore a stupid sun hat. April had laughed so hard she’d fallen backward into the sand.

Max stared at it.

“I should’ve died.” he muttered.

“But I didn’t.”

“Now I need to make it mean something.”

He didn’t say it with pride. Or relief. He said it like a promise.

He folded the photo carefully and tucked it away. His muscles still hurt. His hands were scarred and glowing. Something old and terrible lived in his spine now.

But his heart still beat.

Hi daughter Liz was still breathing.

That was enough.

He stood. The wind pulled at his hair. Somewhere below, the machines that kept Liz alive still ticked on.

“I’m coming,” Max said.

And turned toward the stairwell.