APEX RISING

Chapter Two Ashes of Dawn

The rain had stopped.

The storm had moved on, leaving behind a gray, lifeless dawn. Mist hung low over the forest, clinging to the trees like a veil. The world was eerily quiet, the ground soaked and muddy, littered with shattered glass, twisted metal, and the smeared remains of a family once whole.

Blue and red lights flashed through the trees.

Sirens broke the silence, their howls cutting through the morning fog as the first squad car pulled to a stop near the ravine. Moments later, an ambulance followed.

“Over here!” an officer called out, stumbling down the slick slope.

Another cop gasped behind him as his flashlight illuminated the overturned car, the bodies strewn around it. One of the paramedics whispered a curse under his breath at the sight. Blood had painted the earth, soaked into the grass, dried on metal and skin.

Then they saw him.

Curled beside his mother’s body, caked in blood and mud, was a boy—barely nine.

His face was pale, his eyes wide open but vacant, staring at nothing.

“Dear god,” one officer murmured. “He’s alive.”

“Damian?” another voice said gently, kneeling beside him. “Kid? Can you hear me?”

Damian didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

His small hands still clung to the remains of his mother’s clothes. His knuckles were stiff, locked.

“Get him to the ambulance,” someone ordered.

They had to pry his fingers away.

He didn’t scream. He didn’t resist. His body was in shock—his mind somewhere else, somewhere far away, still stuck in the nightmare.

They strapped him onto the stretcher and loaded him into the back of the ambulance. The doors closed with a metallic thunk. The engine rumbled to life.

Inside, as the vehicle sped toward the hospital, Damian remained still. Only his eyes moved—slowly, silently—tracking the shadows on the ceiling.

Later that day…

The story broke across every local channel.

“Tragic family slaughter—five dead in mysterious crash and brutal murders,” the headlines read.

But then—something strange.

By that evening, the news shifted.

A man had walked into the local police station. Calm. Quiet. No weapons. No resistance.

He confessed.

Claimed responsibility for the entire massacre.

Said he followed them. Caused the crash. Killed them all.

He gave specific details—somehow knew things the public hadn’t heard yet.

There was only one problem: Damian had seen the real killer.

And it wasn’t this man.

In the hospital bed, Damian finally spoke—hoarse, broken, but clear.

“That’s not him,” he said, staring at the TV screen where the alleged killer’s face was shown.

The nurse blinked. “Sweetheart…?”

“That’s not the man who killed my family,” Damian whispered.

But it was too late.

The case was closed.

And the real monster—with golden eyes and an impossible smile—was already gone.

…

The hospital lights were sterile and pale—too clean for a boy soaked in death.

Damian sat upright in the hospital bed, his arms trembling beneath the weight of fresh bandages and dried blood. The room around him buzzed faintly with the sounds of machines and muffled footsteps in the hallway, but he heard none of it.

All he could hear was the ringing silence that followed the man’s smirk.

That golden-eyed demon.

That smile that mocked everything he had lost.

On the TV screen mounted in the corner, the news anchor kept talking. Kept lying.

“—and in a surprising twist, the suspect, 47-year-old Marcus Fielding, turned himself in this morning, confessing to the murder of the Nakamura family. Authorities believe—”

Damian’s fists clenched, veins rising under his skin.

That was not him.

He knew every contour of the face that ended his world.

He remembered the unblinking golden eyes, the way they watched him suffer. He remembered the way reality cracked when that man opened his mouth and death obeyed.

He remembered the blood.

His mother’s headless body in his arms.

His father’s broken shell slumped against the car.

Elian’s lifeless form twisted in the wreckage.

Lisa’s empty eyes.

His own screams.

He gritted his teeth so hard it hurt. His jaw ached. His nails dug into his palms, breaking skin.

And then—

He stood, pulling the IV needle from his arm. It burned, but he didn’t care.

He dragged himself to the mirror across the room.

The boy in the glass was unrecognizable—hair matted with sweat and blood, his eyes wild and hollow, the innocence burned away overnight.

“I won’t forget you,” he whispered, staring into the reflection as though the golden-eyed man was there. “Not ever.”

Tears stung his eyes, but he forced them down, curling his fingers against the sink.

“You’re out there somewhere,” he muttered. “Walking. Laughing. Breathing.”

His breath trembled.

“I’ll find you.”

His voice cracked.

“I’ll kill you.”

And just like that, a promise was born.

Not one made out of justice. Not one for peace.

But a pure, burning vow—fueled by rage and grief—that no matter how long it took, no matter what he had to become…

The Man with golden eyes would die by his hands.

...

…

After the incident, Damian was kept in the hospital for several days—under observation for his injuries, and later, for his silence. He didn’t speak much. When the detectives asked questions, he only gave one answer: “You have the wrong man.” No one believed him. The case was already closed. A false confession had sealed the truth behind bars, and the world moved on without him.

With no living relatives and no one willing to take him in, Damian was quietly transferred to Sakura House, a state-run orphanage on the outskirts of the city. The nurses called it “a fresh start.”

But there was no starting over for Damian.

Every night, the memories came back.

The smell of blood and wet earth.

The cold of the rain.

The sound of his mother’s body hitting the floor.

His father's scream.

His sister’s final gasp.

And always—always—that smirking face with golden eyes, standing untouched by fire, rain, or bullets. A man who defied the very rules of reality.

Damian would wake in a cold sweat, gasping, screaming, his throat raw from voiceless terror. The caretakers said it was just nightmares.

But Damian knew better.

It wasn’t a dream.

It was a warning.

And a memory he would never let fade.