Ethan lay in the eye of a scorched hurricane. To any observer, he was no longer a man; he was a relic of a catastrophe. His physical body was completely carbonized, a blackened husk missing limbs and patches of torso. He was little more than a skull and a shattered spine, clinging to fragments of burnt muscle that looked like obsidian ash.
For the last hour, there had been no sign of life. No breath, no pulse, no flicker of thought.
But if one dared to press their ear against the scorched earth, they would hear it: a war drum, beating with a furious, rhythmic intensity.
