Paradoxical Convergence (Book 1)

Prolouge

The night was still, but fear gripped Cecile like a vice. His small, battered body trembled as he crawled from the wreckage, each movement sending waves of pain coursing through his limbs. Blood smeared across his torn clothes, and every breath felt like it might be his last, his lungs burning as if they could collapse at any moment. But still, he moved—driven by that primal instinct all living things share: to survive.

The crash site was illuminated by the cold light of the moon, casting long, eerie shadows over the twisted metal and broken glass that surrounded him. It looked like a scene from a nightmare—a twisted landscape of carnage. Shards of steel gleamed darkly, reflecting the crimson of blood that pooled around them, painting the world in shades of violence and despair.

Cecile's breath caught in his throat as his eyes fell upon the figure of his father, skewered by a jagged piece of the car's frame. His body was limp, eyes frozen wide in shock, already gone. But it was his mother—her broken body riddled with shrapnel and drenched in blood—who still clung to life. Her breaths were shallow, ragged, each one more labored than the last.

He crawled to her side, his heart pounding, his mind refusing to accept what his eyes were seeing. His hands shook as he reached for her, desperate to do something—anything—to stop the inevitability of it all. She was fading.

Her lips moved, and though her voice was barely above a whisper, her words reached Cecile's very soul.

"Cecile... live."

A simple command. A plea. Her final words, spoken with the last of her strength, cut through the chaos around him. It was a directive that hung heavy in the air, a promise he didn't know if he could keep. And then, as if the world itself exhaled, her breath stopped. Her eyes, once so full of warmth, emptied, and she was gone.

The silence that followed was deafening, a crushing void that swallowed everything. Cecile could feel the weight of it pressing down on him, suffocating, as if the universe itself had collapsed in on this single, horrifying moment.

He wanted to scream, but no sound came. He wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't fall. The world around him blurred, the wreckage and blood, his mother's lifeless body—it all became distant, surreal. And in that numbness, only one thought surfaced in Cecile's mind, clearer than anything else.

I don't want to live.

The darkness rose up, thick and comforting, beckoning him to let go. To slip away from the pain, to follow his family into whatever lay beyond. He closed his eyes, wishing to disappear, to leave behind the shattered remains of this cruel, twisted world.

But even as the darkness embraced him, his mother's final words lingered, echoing in the recesses of his mind, refusing to fade completely.

"Cecile... live."

And then, everything went black.