He decided.

He took a deep inhale, and his lungs, like bellows, expanded, they pushed against his ribcage. His clenched fingers relaxed and he released his fathers neck, pulling back his fist, now covered in flakes of burned skin sizzling on the Void marks. With rage suffusing him, his body emiting wisps of flames, his pulse feeding into the embers. In his veins, molten magma flowed, blood combined with Primordial Energies boiled the air, his heart beat like a war drum.

The old man slumped against the wall, confused at the sudden release. His knees started giving out, and he slid slowly down the wall, leaving a trail of sweat on the old paint, deepening its color.

As his father body hit the floor, his throat reacted to the previously imposed pressure and started coughing madly, grabbing his neck. Craving the air with the need of a drowning man, he inhaled maniacly, coughing up his own frophy spit. Letting go of that damned bottle, it cracked on the floor and spilled the cheap licour inside. Broken glass shards digging into the legs of the old man through the tattered, stained gray sweatpants.

The man was sitting on the floor now, primal panic overatking him, unable to find the source of danger. He shook, trembled in anticipation.

Old, frail man. Ridden by heart failure, diabetes, old wounds from the times he served in the army. A man not so far away from natural death already, barely few short steps.

An exhale escaped Luke's mouth. Almost relieved it seemed as the body moved with incredible speed. The air whined as his fist passed through the space, suffused with the Void and with Primordial, it twisted and bent the magic that surrounded them, it tore at the Veil.

The tightly knit fist was pulled back, and the muscles along the right arm wiggled sickly under skin, twitching. Neon bright, white veins guided incinerating power along the arm, taking root at the doused heart and pumping whatever was available along the inside of the limb, creating a path to channel the blaze. Taking a short step forward with his left leg, and rotating the left heel, lifting it up, the generation of tornado like momentum started.

The hips twisted to the left, a bridge for power long awaiting release.

Behind them, the fist was brought down, like a wrecking ball, it traveled in a pendulum motion, air ripping apart on contact, it traversed mashing through the space itself, burning and distorting.

Luke's body lowered, adding as much power and momentum as he could generate. His knuckles slid across the accured tiles, effortlesly digging deep furrows in them, turning them to dust without even cracking the ceramics.

The left arm acted as a counterbalance, it shot upward, and the elbow drove it backwards, mid-movement opening the arm as if a wing. The clenched fist at the end almost jelous as it moved further and further away from the pray.

The right arm shot forward, an nameless uppercut with enough force to shake mountains. Packed with all the anger, hatred, fear, regret and shame Luke could muster.

As if in slow motion, the fist got closer to his fathers face. As Luke's pupils dilated in focus, he could barely perceive the old mans face through the distortion of heat and light. The rippling wind distorting the old man's skin like a Pugs, folds upon fold, centered around dull eyes full of fear.

Luke winced, his eyes shut just a moment before impact.

He remembered.

He remembered all the times he took joy in such actions as this one, and the joy flooded his body. The ecstasy of bringing pain, the heights he stood on while trampling the back of those, weaker than him. The Pure, unfiltered pleasure that shocked his body as he played the role of the punisher, the executioner, the hand that brings pain.

How thrilling it was to punch down, to hurt, to injure, to share the pain that filled him.

At that moment, shame assuleted him. He could feel the weight of his mothers gaze, her scorn for such actions, her dissapointment.

BANG~!

The clenched fist hit the wall with earth shattering force, passing through the specter-like form of his father and erupted on impact. The moment the fist came into contact with his face streatched into eternity, Luke could feel the pores, the sweat, the heat upon touch and in a quickly, instinctivly made decision, he allowed it to slip further.

His fist dug deeply into the concrete walls behind his fathers head and tore at them, and everything in the kitchen behind them in blaze of destruction, ripping out the wall on the end of the room together with any furniture inside.

His fist tightened upon impact, and from it a heat blast emitted, making the air wobble and rip, and tear, and burn. The blast emitted outwards scorching the rot, the flaky paint on the walls and smashing into the wall at the end of the kitchen, eradicating it.

In the real, similar, yet weaker wave of flames passed, and hit the gas stove in the kitchen. Making it explode, matching the cacophony of destruction Luke brought behind the Veil. The power that passed through was enough to crumple the old, wooden furniture and to tear the gas pipe from the wall, igtniting its content with tongues of flames that slithered from the fist.

A small explosion shook the kitchen, ripping out doors leading to the hall and smashing them into the wall, right in front of his fathers eyes. At the same time the already cracked window was pushed out by the pressure of the gas explosion, making it rain glass onto the street.

The damaged fridge started beeping madly.

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The walls crumbled, and the house started quickly filling up with smoke. His fist remained motionless, burried passed his wrist where his shocked and confused drunk fathers head was resting against the crumbling wall. Passing through his head.

Some pieces of the ceiling dropped on the old mans head and he choked on the smoke that was quickly filling the room. He blinked away the confusion, and tried to get off the floor.

He cursed, and the Veil did something to his mind. Made the memories “correct”. He was drunk, he left the stove on, it exploded the old darned thing. He rushed madly outside, screaming and cursing, yelling to get the firefihters here or he will kill somebody.

Luke just stood there, and as the flames intenified, his own body calmed down.

* I could have done it* he thought to himself, * and it would have been so easy!*.

He exhaled again and as he pulled out his fist from the concrete, the cracks from the wall grew deeper and wider, splitting the ceiling.

“But it wouldn't be the right thing to do,” He tried to convinve himself. “not what Mother would have wanted, it's what he would have done, what he would have wanted. I would be like him, praying on the weak, the pitiful, that fucking bastard. He is worthless now, poses no threat, he is a piece of shit stuck to my boot. Fuuuuck. Does he deserve it. I hear the voices pounding, I can still get him, catch him, split him into pieces...but I won't, I won't, I really won't do it. Not now, not ever.” He said almost as if trying to convince himself that's the truth. Erraticaly shifting weight from leg to leg, like a bull preparing for a charge.

He clenched the fist that almost took his fathers life and bore his gaze into it.

“My expieriences, my trauma, it shaped me but it does not define me.” he said with determination, the Heart beating loudly, adding tremble and depth to his declaration.

“ I will not yield to the suffering, I will never allow myself to be like that. I always need to remain better then that, even if just a little, I need to be better.” something clicked, and responded to his promise. He looked around surprised, still unajusted to the magical senses he couldn't pinpoint wheather it came from the inside or from the world outside but something Resonated with those words.

He made his way out, still assulted by his own mind, its contents, the countless memories of violence that took place here, that were commited on him. As he was about to leave the flat, he stopped on the fallen doors and turned to his left.

He gazed into the broken mirror, and saw the broken man he has become.

His body was cooling down, still, a haze of heat distorted the air around him, clashing against the rhythm of the Void Trails pulsing calmly, deeply.

He took in the sight of his body, scarred, scorched, battered and broken. Reshaped, rebuild, improved. Impossible.

With open gashes streaming fresh blood, his throat covered in charred skin, in some places still not regenerated enough to close the wind pipe, he wheezed with every breath that seeped between his blackened and cracked teeth and slid downwards into his lungs. His chest raw, with flesh full of puss and peeling skin, his heart beating loudly yet hallow, still, the flames were doused.

With his massive, scarred palm covered in taught pale skin, he brushed away the smoke that was clouding his vision, collecting under the ceiling.

Almost afraid, he allowed himself to look into his own eyes.

Dead, depthless, hopeless.

Now that the Void receeded he could see how tired he seemed, how endless the Promise was.

Dissapointed, he shook his head and turned towards the exit.

He followed his father outside, people already gathering outside of the building en masse.

He slipped right through their etheral forms, inconsequential, they were.

He could hear the sirens in the distance, still few minutes away.

For a moment he seemed surprised, with how sensitive and broad his hearing has become.

He never did truly explore his new senses, didn't have the time. He had to block them out, too much input, too much pain, too little time to handle it. Even during his training on the Floating Island, he was only tought how to express his powers, controll them, not how to digest the inputs, how to intake it all.

The thought struck him as weird, how naturally he accepted the new senses, how his eyesight changed to see different magics as forms of light, how his hearing could register thoughts, how his nose could smell courses placed nearby. How he could touch onto something far away. He just accepted it.

He frowned.

He focused on the window on his old room, that dreaded place, hidden between the entry gate to the high rise buliding and power tranfsormer, “always in the shade” he remembered, sunlight never touched his windows, it was always dark in there.

He knew his senses were peculiar even compared to magical folk. The Void allowed to reveal where magic “wasn't” while his Primordial was the basis of many, he was equally sensitive to all forms of magic, he could see all.

TRUE SIGHT

The Avian Lord warned him about it, Jerzy had to teach him how to conciously lock it so his brain doesn't fry from overstimulation, so he doesn't get lost in the depth of the world. Forever catatonic while unraveling the threads of existence.

He allowed himself a peak, releasing the restriction slowly.

His breath stopped, trapped in shock.

He saw the manifestation of pain, memories clung to conrete, loneliness reflected in the windows, forever burned into the glass pane, he could smell the rot, the tears assulted the senses like the saltiness of the sea, while the noise of unspoken screams roared like a storm, an ocean of pain contained in a small flat. It was brimming with so many emotions, it all assulted him, making him wretch, he vomited dryly, his stomach empty. Shivering, he fell to his knees as his mental palace crumbled, it all came back to him. It all seeped into the very fabric of his being, it interwove with his body, it suffused his mind.

He fell to the side in fetal position, regreting not killing his father, shutting off all senses like closing the blinds of a window, he wanted to be blind to the world, he wanted to be separeted.

He didn't know how long he layed there, in pitch darkness, among the cacophony of his own thoughts.

Thoughts better left unspoken.

When he came out of it, it was already dark, the smoke dissapeared and people dispersed.

He rose up slowly, and turned away from the building, carefully avoiding the sight of the window.

He exhaled, with a grumble, he started walking towards city center.

“I need a drink.”