Souls Through Time (EzioxOC/DesmondxOC)

Chapter 39 - Claire

Claire's heart pounded as she looked at him, pride mingling with a fierce, consuming fear. Desmond had asked for the truth, had faced the unknown with a strength she had only seen him grow into over the course of their journey. She could feel his hand tighten in hers, a silent reassurance, an unspoken promise that he would see this through, no matter the cost.

The air thickened, and Claire's vision blurred as the room seemed to fold in on itself, bending space and time, unspooling a vision before them that was more than mere illusion—it felt like prophecy. She took a sharp breath, feeling her chest constrict as images began to form, pulling her in, immersing her senses in a future that felt terrifyingly real.

A shimmering aurora filled the sky, but its beauty was laced with doom, the fiery colors illuminating the chaos beneath. Claire's heart raced as she watched civilians scatter in panic, clutching their phones, their faces twisted in fear as the aurora bathed the world in unnatural light. Sirens screamed in the distance, their piercing wails blending with the terrified cries of those below.

Her gaze flicked to Desmond, his face etched with horror, and she felt her own dread deepen as she saw the devastation reflected in his eyes. This was the world that awaited them if Minerva's path was chosen—a world on fire, torn apart at its very seams.

"The ground will crack and spit fire into the sky," Juno's voice resonated through the vision, her tone unsettlingly calm, almost reverent, as though she were admiring her own creation. Claire watched, horrified, as the scene before them twisted and changed, showing cities collapsing into rubble, their towering structures shattering like glass beneath the force of violent earthquakes.

Mountains rose up in fiery eruptions, rivers of lava snaking through the ruins of what were once thriving cities, their dense smoke rising to choke out the sun. Claire's heart ached as she witnessed this nightmare unfold, as if she were living it herself—the horror, the helplessness, the raw, unfiltered pain of seeing everything they knew reduced to dust and ash.

She felt her body tremble, but she couldn't tear her eyes away. The future stretched before her in unrelenting horror, an end without mercy. She reached for Desmond's hand, needing his touch to anchor her, to remind her that this vision, though horrifying, was not yet real. But the fear lingered, a dark presence pressing down on her chest, filling her lungs with dread.

"All the world will burn," Juno's words drifted through the vision, soft and final, like the last breath of a dying world. Claire's breath hitched, her mind reeling as the vision shifted, showing her an Earth scorched and blackened, reduced to desolate ruins. The wreckage stretched as far as the eye could see, a barren wasteland where life had once thrived.

Humanity itself seemed fragile, on the brink, scattered among the wreckage, fighting not to live but simply to endure. Claire's heart twisted as she saw the faces of survivors—hollow-eyed and haunted, skin smudged with soot and grime, their hands clinging to remnants of the past in a desperate attempt to preserve what little they had left. They were broken, defeated, barely hanging onto the threads of a once-vibrant world.

A quiet, overwhelming sorrow settled over Claire as she watched them struggle, as she imagined herself among them, trying to piece together fragments of a life forever altered. The vision was both devastating and strangely intimate, each image cutting deeper than the last, showing her what survival would mean in a world that had lost everything.

The vision continued to unfold, wrapping Claire in a dark, chilling tapestry of despair and loss. A flickering, haunting hope lingered in the edges, as though the world were clinging to life by the thinnest of threads. Slowly, she saw the ashes clear, the destruction give way to something new. Through the haze, she could see Desmond, older and wearier, but alive—an unmistakable strength in his stance as he led a handful of survivors into the dawn of this shattered world.