The blood wasn't red like he thought it would be.
It was too dark. Too thick. It crept in every direction — between floorboards, under the table, soaking into the couch like it belonged there.
Hernan sat in it anyway.
His knees were wet. The sleeves of his shirt were smeared with it from where he'd tried to reach out. His hand still clutched his father's shoulder, but Solaris didn't move. He wasn't warm anymore.
Neither was his mother.
She lay crumpled near the window, arm twisted underneath her, half her face hidden in shadow. Hernan couldn't bring himself to walk over to her. It felt wrong — like stepping into something sacred. Like he'd make it worse.
He'd stopped crying a while ago.
His body had tried, for a time. Gasping. Shaking. The kind of crying where no sound came out, only the ache. But now there was nothing left.
Just the hum of scorched power lines behind the walls. The distant buzz of his father's shattered communicator. And the dripping.
Somewhere in the kitchen, water still ran. A pipe must have broken.
Hernan turned his eyes upward. The ceiling above the living room had cracked straight through — a jagged split like lightning frozen in plaster.
Every part of the house looked wrong now.
Too quiet. Too hollow. Too dead.
His father had been alive five minutes ago.
He had spoken. Touched his shoulder. Told him to hide.
That voice still echoed in Hernan's skull.
"No matter what happens…"
The words burned hotter than the blood.
He didn't know how long he sat there, watching his father's chest for some impossible breath that never came.
The door creaked.
He flinched — too hard, scrambling backward until his spine hit the wall. Something sharp jabbed into his shoulder from the broken frame, but he didn't feel it. Not really.
A woman's voice filtered in from outside.
"…hello?"
The door nudged open further, revealing an outline against the gray daylight.
A woman — not armored, not glowing. Just someone… ordinary. She wore a patchwork jacket, canvas boots, dark hair pinned back in a hurry. Her eyes scanned the wreckage with widening horror.
"Gods above…"
She stepped inside, arms raised, as if afraid of triggering a trap.
When her eyes landed on Hernan — tiny, shaking, red up to the elbows — she froze.
He didn't say anything.
Didn't move.
The woman knelt slowly, like she didn't want to startle an animal. Her hand extended partway, then stopped.
"Are you hurt?" she asked.
Hernan blinked at her.
She softened her voice. "Where are your parents?"
His lips moved, but no words came out. His throat felt like it had been filled with sand.
"They're…" He swallowed, hard. "They're dead."
The woman's face didn't change, but her breath caught. "Can you tell me what happened?"
Hernan opened his mouth. Closed it.
Villains. That's what they'd say.
He remembered the faces. He could still see the insignias on their shoulders — those twelve-point stars, each marking a sign. But saying it out loud felt wrong. Felt dangerous.
Finally, he answered:
"Bad people came."
The woman looked around again — this time slower, as if confirming what her instincts already told her.
She reached out. Gently touched his hand.
"Okay," she said. "Let's get you out of here."
The police came an hour later.
Too late, like they always were.
They cordoned off the house. Cameras swarmed. Drones hovered. A few reporters tried to lean over barricades. Someone in a long coat and sunglasses muttered something about "rogue villains," while uniformed men hauled sealed body-bags past Hernan's line of sight.
He sat wrapped in a thermal blanket in the back of a rescue van, sipping hot water from a chipped plastic cup. The woman who'd found him — Reina — stood nearby, arms crossed, eyes narrowed as she watched the officers swarm the yard.
None of them spoke to Hernan at first.
Eventually, a man with a notepad crouched in front of him. He had kind eyes, but too much perfume. Hernan hated how it smelled — like fake flowers trying to cover something rotten.
"Son," the man said, "Can you tell us anything else about what you saw?"
Hernan didn't answer.
"Did you see their faces?"
He shook his head.
"Do you know what they looked like?"
He looked down. "Armor."
The man jotted something quickly. "Did they say anything to your father?"
Pause.
"…No."
A lie.
They'd said nothing. That part was true. But Solaris had spoken. He'd begged.
"You don't have to do this," Hernan whispered, almost to himself.
The man leaned in. "Who said that?"
No answer.
The page turned. More writing. Then a long silence.
Eventually, Reina intervened.
"He's in shock," she said, voice edged with steel. "You've got enough."
That night, Reina made him a bed in a small upstairs room at the orphanage. The sheets smelled like lemon soap and old quilts.
He didn't sleep.
He stared at the ceiling while shadows crawled across the walls. His fingers twitched every time the wind knocked the shutters.
In the morning, the world moved on.
A headline flashed across every screen in the district:
"TRAGEDY STRIKES: HEROES FALL IN VILLAIN AMBUSH"
Solaris and his partner found dead after rooftop battle. Sources say rogue villains were to blame. Heroic Concord declines to comment.
No mention of Hernan. No child. No survivors.
No mention of who pulled the trigger.
He stood in the corner of the common room, watching the broadcast in silence.
Reina sat beside him. She rubbed his back gently, but he didn't respond.
When she looked down and said, "Maybe those bad people really were villains, honey," he didn't argue.
But his eyes never left the screen.
The camera panned over five smiling heroes giving a speech at a press podium.
Their uniforms shone under the lights.
Their medals caught the sun.
The one in front — a tall man with bright eyes and a commanding voice — spoke to the crowd like a father would to frightened children.
"We mourn the loss of a great man. Solaris was a hero to the end. He died protecting this world."
Hernan blinked slowly.
That face.
It had been the last thing his father ever saw.