His eyes grated with sand and pain as he pried them open. Lapping water was the only sound that made it through the hollow roaring in his ears. His skin was alive with army ants, tearing, stinging his flesh. The air was hot, scalding. The assassin’s body was a blister of pain. Upon opening his eyes, warm fluid spewed from his left-it was dead, blind-the right showed blurred shapes around a neon green scar. He could just make out the singed remains of Lucifer’s skull. The black hair was burned away to the line of Felon’s chest, before cascading into the space between them. The Fallen’s legs were twisted convulsions of melted flesh and bone. Quickly, Felon looked away from his own forearms where they crossed over Lucifer’s breast. The skin was blackened and burned, yellow fat liquefied, oozed from cracks.
He looked across the gray gap of water. Boiled bodies floated and bobbed. Steam curled upward, smelling of pork. The buildings of the Sunken City that had stood as obstacles had been crushed by the shock waves-little remained. The ocean had swallowed their memory. The Demon’s yacht had been destroyed. The assassin was crushed against a three-yard section of scorched deck. The rest of the boat had disintegrated when the atomic tsunami rammed it into the collapsing debris of the flooded streets. It slammed against a gargantuan pile of rubble and was still.
Across from him, Archangel Tower’s upper stories were gone-the remains of the building, a burning stump, rained debris into the inferno of the City streets. The Level’s had collapsed in the nuclear blasts and burned now, white hot in their deepest reaches. All over the world a similar madness had burned the human race. He had only seen some few factions at work. There were others from below, and others from above that had fought out this final convulsion in the blood of history. He knew that the air would rain the ashes of bones.
The assassin tried to draw a breath, but drew in his own body fluids. No more breaths. That was it. His vision was fading. His heart beat heavy in his ears. The end. Felon tried to conjure something warm from his life to leave with, but he could only curse. Pain kept him nailed to the torturous present. He had pain.
Some would survive, but that was fine.
It was an old world with plenty for all now.
Roaring, teeming humanity was gone. It was over. It was the end.
And it was good.
The fiery Apocalypse had torn a hole in the overcast above the ruins. Sunrise fell across the cloud in diagonal orange bands. The assassin welcomed the darkness as his vision faded.