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The Last Pulse by 0000000uiiii0000

The Last Pulse

The ground beneath us was fractured, glowing like veins of a dying world.

I could barely move—something inside me had snapped when the blast hit. I was lying in the center of a ruined street, the buildings around us scorched silhouettes, the air thick with smoke and that strange metallic scent that always came before her power unraveled.

And there she was.

Aria.

Floating.

Her feet no longer touched the earth. Her hair whipped around her like she was underwater. Red light poured from her eyes, her chest, her very skin, pulsing with every beat of a heart no longer fully hers.

"Aria..." I rasped, trying to sit up. "It's happening again."

She didn't hear me. Or maybe she did, but couldn't respond.

Her arms were outstretched. Her body trembled with effort, as if she was holding back the very sun. Energy rippled outward in waves, distorting the air. The ground cracked wider beneath her.

I knew this version of her. The one she fought so hard to contain.

This wasn't the girl who made me laugh when the world went dark.

This was what they made her into.

A weapon.

A force of nature.

A star collapsing.

I staggered to my feet, pain screaming through my ribs. "Aria! Look at me!"

Her head twitched. For a moment, the red flickered in her eyes, like something human still lived behind the blaze. And in that tiny window, I saw her.

Terrified.

"Kael..." Her voice cracked like glass under pressure. "I can't hold it. I can't—"

"I'm here," I said, stepping into the storm. The heat peeled the skin from my arms, but I didn't stop. "Come back to me."

She dropped to her knees midair, still levitating inches above the rubble. "If I let it go, you die. If I don't... I do."

"You think I'd ever want to live without you?"

The silence after that was thick and final.

Then she whispered, so softly I almost missed it:

"Then remember me... when the world goes quiet."

Her body arched backward.

And the sky ignited.

A storm of red and gold burst from her core, sweeping the city in an instant. My knees gave out. Time shattered. I felt the heat pass through me—not burning, but rewriting. Healing. She was pouring herself into the broken pieces of everything she loved.

And then—silence.

The light faded.

I opened my eyes to find myself alive.

Breathing.

Whole.

But she was gone.

No trace. No voice. Just ash drifting like snow, glowing red at the edges. And a single heartbeat still echoing in my chest that didn't belong to me.

Her last pulse.

Still carrying me.

[© 2025 Arim White. All rights reserved.

No part of this story may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in reviews or scholarly work.

This work is a piece of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or real events is purely coincidental.]