The sky burned the night he was sent away.
Not with fire alone, but with intention.
He held his mother close as the ground trembled beneath their feet. The air tasted metallic, sharp enough to sting his lungs even through his cries. Above them, the world fractured. Towers meant to touch eternity collapsed like tired bones. The horizon glowed with experiments gone too far, power unchained, purity long forgotten.
This world had once believed it was becoming divine.
Now it was dying.
"Do not look," his mother whispered, though she knew he already had. He had always seen more than he should.
"Mother, I'm so sorry" he said.
"Stop, there's nothing to be sorry about, and there's nothing you can do" his mother held both his hands and stared into his watering eyes
"My beautiful boy, you must go now."
"Come with me" he sobbed but in a firm position he stood.
"I must stay with your father to get everyone to safety, but you must go now before it's too late."
"Zeno…it is time" his father spoke.
His father stood at the ship's console, hands steady despite the chaos screaming around them. He had designed this vessel not to conquer, not to explore, but to hide.
"This planet will fall," his father said, voice low and final. "But he will not."
Zeno was too young to understand what they needed to do. He only understood the way his parents' hands trembled when they touched his face, memorizing it as if memory itself were fragile.
"There is another world," his mother said softly. "One that has never known power. One that does not crave it."
"A world of restraint," his father added. "Of limits."
Zeno looks at the dashboard his father designed, a planetary system holographed out, zooming into the planet… Earth.
His father noticed. His jaw tightened.
"You must never use what he is," he said. "Not there. Not ever."
"Even if it means he breaks?" his mother asked.
"Yes," his father replied. "Because if he doesn't… they will find him."
The ship's core began to hum. Outside, a silhouette moved through the smoke and ruin, unbothered by falling debris. Someone who did not run from destruction, but walked through it as if it belonged to him.
Zeno cried out, a sound sharp enough to make the lights flicker.
His mother pressed her forehead to his.
"Listen to me," she said. "You are not weak for holding back. You are strong because you choose to."
"I love you Mom." Zeno cried
His father joins in and gives them a hug as he kissed the top of Zeno's head. Caressing his hair.
Zeno looks at both of them as he walks back into the ship's entrance.
The ship sealed.
The world screamed.
And then there was silence.