An icy breeze cut Leon to the bone, but he didn’t even blink. He couldn’t in such a big crowd. People would talk, and gossip had a way of making it to the wrong ears. Even standing in the corner of the balcony didn't provide enough privacy, the apartment behind him full of drunk teenagers. That left him standing like a statue as he waited for his friends to come back from the bathroom.

If they came back at all.

Pushing the cold to the back of his mind, Leon distracted himself by looking down at the chaos below. He’d never been surrounded by more people. The streets were filled with thousands as they walked to a nearby park, all hoping to catch the ball drop in Times Square.

Everyone was so happy and excited; so relaxed.

Maybe that would be him one day.

Finishing off his drink, Leon couldn’t help himself from wanting to check on his friends. Indecision gnawed at him. If he didn’t go now, he might just throw up from worry. They were going to leave him. It was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened, so why not now? They would leave him and he could do nothing to stop it, just like all those years ago when his father-

Mila squeezed through a gap between two groups and stepped out onto the balcony with a sigh. She searched around for a moment before spotting him, his height an easy way to find him in most crowds. Leon felt the tension leak out of his body as she walked over, but guilt replaced it when a breeze swept past, her body shivering so much that she almost spilled the drinks in her hands.

“You seem to be having a lot of fun without me,” Mila said, handing him a party cup full of cheap beer. “Miss me that much or are you still thinking about what your mom said?”

“No, I’ve gotten used to ignoring her opinions on my life.”

“Which is funny since she’s doing most of the ignoring. But if she wasn’t on your mind, what was?”

Seeing her huddle up beside him as she trembled from the cold, Leon opened his coat and put his arm over her shoulder, draping the warm fabric around her body.

“I was actually thinking about the one part of my life that’s going well.”

“Oh really?” She said, taking a moment to regain her bearings. “Between your parents and your training, what could you possibly be thinking about that brings you even the slightest trace of happiness?”

“What else?” Leon whispered, pulling her closer. “I was thinking about you.”

Mila blushed and playfully nudged him, mumbling something about him being a hopeless flirt. Leon just smiled. He was never the most outgoing person, but he had managed to learn quite a few social skills that many people tended to overlook. It was either that or stumble through conversation with a stutter for the rest of his life.

Getting sick as a kid had messed him up in more ways than one.

Mila went back to watching the crowds as they gathered at the nearby park, but Leon didn’t care about them. His eyes refused to leave her. He just couldn’t get her out of his mind. She wore a flowing white dress that contrasted beautifully with her red hair, and yet it was still her personality he found the most attractive.

She was so carefree, optimistic, and kind, not to mention the other million wonderful things about her. Just being in her presence made his body feel lighter, and as she tugged on his sleeve to point out a man walking around on stilts, he finally realised what he’d been feeling all night.

With her, he was at peace.

“Look!” Mila bounced up and down on the spot, pointing at a big screen in the park as it flickered to life. “It should be starting soon!”

Leon turned to find her looking up at him, her cheeks red from the cold. Something felt right about this moment, almost as if the pieces of his life had finally woven together into a beautiful tapestry, Mila being the final thread he needed for the picture to become clear.

“Ten!”

They both jumped. Leon turned and looked down at the park below while Mila fiddled with her hands, finding the white acrylic on her nails endlessly fascinating. They had been friends for nearly three years but only officially started dating a few weeks ago.

“Nine!”

The screen in the park sparkled as it displayed the Ball Drop in Times Square.

“Eight!”

People began to count inside the apartment, the same footage playing on a flat-screen television in the lounge.

“Seven!”

Mila gasped, and that was when Leon saw what she was looking at. One of the couples inside the apartment were kissing before the ball had even dropped.

“Six!”

Leon glanced at Mila and silently prayed that she didn’t notice the heat in his face.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Five!”

Leon took a deep breath and reached down, lightly brushing his hand against Mila’s arm. She looked up at him, and his heart softened as she nervously fidgeted.

“Four!”

Mila bit her lip and looked down, but as the seconds passed, her expression relaxed until she gathered the courage to look into his eyes.

“Three!”

He smiled back and pulled her closer.

“Two!”

Her eyelashes fluttered, and Leon gently tilted her chin up with his hand. She melted into his embrace as their faces came closer and closer until…

“One!”

Their lips met as a wave of cheering and fireworks exploded around them.

“Happy New Year!”

She pressed her body against his, and Leon became absorbed into her touch. All of his worries melted away as each second passed slower than the last. With newfound confidence, he slid his arm around her waist, and the world narrowed down to just the two of them.

A bright flash – likely from the light show in the park – made him turn Mila so that she was against the railing. She didn’t fight it. In fact, she kissed him more deeply as he pressed her back against the glass balcony. People cheered inside the apartment but he didn’t pay them any mind. This was their first kiss, and it was more important than anything else in the world. She was more important than anything else. It felt like that moment would stretch on forever until he noticed something odd.

There was a slight tremble in his legs.

Was his anxiety going to ruin the moment? Leon felt a thrill coursing through his veins, but he was still in control of himself. The shaking must’ve been from something else. As he continued to kiss Mila, he noticed that the park had gone silent. Had the fireworks also stopped? They should be going for another ten minutes, and yet he didn’t hear another bang. The silence was almost deafening.

The trembling quickly grew into an overbearing rumble. Leon broke off the kiss in a panic, earning him a bewildered look from Mila until she also noticed the odd tremors. The glass balustrade rattled as an earthquake shook the building. The apartment began to gently sway, and when Mila fell to the ground with a yelp, Leon saw it over her shoulder.

The sky was on fire. A gigantic mushroom cloud rose over the distant mountains, its gaseous form expanding as it climbed into the upper atmosphere. The pillar of ash barely contained a red inferno under its surface, illuminating the night sky from hundreds of kilometres away. And above the pillar was a swelling bulb of molten black ash that was easily hundreds of thousands of degrees.

Despite the immense distance between them, the fire was overwhelming. Leon could feel his skin tingling as the mushroom cloud rose higher into the sky. He dared not even look at it fully. Just the vague outline was overwhelmingly bright, making his eyes water and his vision go white for a few seconds.

Another flash went off, but this time it was much closer. Leon instantly shielded his eyes as people cried out down below. It was so bright that he saw the bones of his arm through his eyelids. The ground began to rumble even more fiercely. The quakes overlapped, combining their power until they forced him to crouch and hold onto the metal railing for support. Pictures inside the apartment bounced off the walls, people knocked over cups and glasses as they fell over, and the apartment building groaned as it swayed with the earth.

When the light died down enough, Leon opened his eyes and found a wall of distorted air barrelling towards them. He dived on top of Mila out of instinct, and less than a second later, the wave crashed into him like a thunderclap before sweeping through the rest of the building. He gasped as if someone had punched him in the chest. The sliding doors exploded, raining fragments of glass over everyone inside the apartment. Cups and picture frames shattered, mirrors cracked and fell apart, and the glass balustrade came loose and fell thirty floors down to the earth below.

The earthquake was overtaken by a high-pitched ringing in Leon’s ears, silencing the upheaval going on in the city. He could hear nothing over the ringing. It was like a constant, dull siren in his head, but he knew he couldn’t stop and try to fix it. He needed to move. Leon tried to get up but the quakes and the explosion had stunned him, forcing him to lay back down and process the countless streams of information that were overwhelming his mind.

He scanned his surroundings while stuck on the floor beside an unconscious Mila. The quakes were beginning to subside into light tremors, but no matter where he looked, there was no more good news to be found. A second cloud rose in the direction of the city proper. It was so close now compared to the other one; barely thirty or so kilometres away. Towering skyscrapers that were there earlier in the night, lighting up the horizon like man-made beacons, were now gone.

Only devastation was left in the wake of the nuclear strike.

Leon couldn’t find the strength to run. He just stared at the empty skyline, his body prone on the cold tiles of the balcony. Half of the city was simply gone. As for the rest, all of the buildings that survived the blast were shattered beyond repair, and nearly every building he could see in the entire city had broken windows. Not every window, as some buildings were shielded by others, but more often than not it was the exception rather than the rule.

The mushroom clouds were expanding, drifting closer to the apartment like a tide of death. After a nuclear explosion, a blanket of radioactive material would rain down onto the land, only stoppable by thick layers of brick and concrete. They had to get to the basement as quickly as possible or else they would likely get radiation poisoning.

Leon forced himself onto his feet.

He bent over to check on Mila, and then he was suddenly leaning against a wooden table, light-headed, the world spinning as he blinked his eyes. They were so dry. His muscles ached with every heartbeat, and the strength that once filled them was replaced by an overwhelming sense of weakness.

Holding himself up, Leon glanced at the two mushroom clouds in the distance. It was their fault. He could feel their presence like the overwhelming heat of a forest fire, crashing into him as they radiated endless amounts of power. Only this wasn’t pure energy. He could feel it harming him as if the power moved with intention.

It wanted to kill him.

Leon breathed deeply in an attempt to steady his mind, but his efforts were in vain. His mouth tasted of blood and his throat burned with every breath, and as his lungs filled with poisonous air, Leon's hand slipped from the table. Everything became a blur. He couldn't remember how he came to be on the floor or why he felt so ill. Something was wrong, but he couldn't figure out what.

Opening his eyes, something flashed in front of Leon’s face as the fire came alive inside him, forcing him back to reality.

*Proprietary Relay System has been initialised.*

[Warning! The dimensional fabric within your vicinity is decaying. The risk of potentially deadly phenomena is rapidly increasing. All mortals are advised to evacuate in an orderly fashion before the Incursion-]

Leon stared at the words without reading them. How could he, when he was going to die? The heat was gnawing away at his flesh and blood, corrupting him from the inside as the clouds of molten fire cooked him alive. His bones were heavier than lead, his throat burned with every breath, and his stomach felt like it was full of molten lava.

Leon’s skin cracked and bled as pushed himself off the ground, but he ignored it all as his mind and body screamed at him to move.