Darius First Spate of Fire (eBook)

A. J. Bassiri (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
480 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-0-00-112598-8 (ISBN)

Infos

He saved thousands of lives with his scalpel. One night took everything from him. Now he will burn the world to get it back.

Dr. Darius Stark was the best surgeon alive-until a rainslicked road and a moment of exhaustion stole his wife and daughter. That first night shattered his world, awakening a dark heritage long buried in his blood. Forty days later,
something ancient whispers in the dark and offers him a bargain no mortal should accept: a forbidden deal for power beyond imagination.

The gift of bending fire to his will. Bending earth to his command. Bending shadows themselves.

But every gift has a price, and some debts can only be paid in ashes.

The man who slays the eternal may have to take its place.

Book One of the Darius Cycle

Textauszug

Impact

The towering skyline of New York City loomed above, a labyrinth of cold steel and gleaming glass that reached hungrily toward the heavens. The city pulsed with an energy that seemed to hum in the very air—alive, constant, unwavering. The streets below, filled with the restless tide of people, moved in a synchronized rhythm, as though each individual was an essential piece of an intricate machine, destined to play their part in an endless routine. The distant flicker of neon lights reflected off the rain-slick pavement, adding splashes of color to the otherwise gray world. The dull roar of traffic mingled with the occasional scream of a siren, forming a steady, almost comforting symphony of urban chaos. The city felt immovable, permanent—its structure, its logic, its reason, all unshakable. In this world, science was the law, and it ruled with the precision of a well-oiled machine.

Magic, the supernatural, anything that existed outside the realm of equations and cold, hard evidence—these were just relics of childhood fantasy. They were whispers, old stories told around campfires, fading memories of a time when the world was still a mystery. No room existed for wonder here. The city, bathed in artificial light, had no space for things that couldn’t be explained, and it seemed that no one noticed the quiet shift that had begun. That was the nature of logic. It didn’t leave room for what was coming.

Forty days ago, the world had tilted on its axis, with a single, tragic accident that had altered the course of everything.

Dr. Darius Stark, once hailed as the finest surgeon in the world, stood at the very pinnacle of human achievement, a man who had saved countless lives with hands that seemed to defy the natural order. His touch was sure, steady—a surgeon who had stared death in the face countless times and won. Yet, on that fateful night, exhaustion had stripped him of his usual clarity. His focus, once sharp as a scalpel, dulled. His hands, the hands that had once wielded the knife with expert precision, faltered. The wheel of his car spun in his grasp, his tired eyes failing to catch the glint of the rain-slick road. A sharp, screeching sound—metal on metal—then the world around him was swallowed in a blur of flashing lights and blinding pain.

The sharp thud of impact against the gnarled tree still echoed in his mind, a sound that now haunted him in every waking moment. Everything had changed in that instant, in the heartbeat of chaos that followed. His wife, Sarah, had been taken in an instant, her life snuffed out with brutal finality. His daughter, Sophia, had been left hanging by the thinnest of threads, barely clinging to life, her body broken and bruised.

And Darius? His own body had borne the brunt of the collision—his stomach a patchwork of metal and blood, a wound that, in another life, might have been considered a mortal injury. But that, in comparison to the emptiness that threatened to swallow him whole, had been insignificant. The cold, hollow ache of loss far outweighed any physical pain.

Covered in his family’s blood, he had stumbled into the hospital, his every step an effort of will. His fingers, slick with the warmth of his daughter’s fading life, had trembled as he gripped the doorframe, trying to force himself to move, to do something, anything, to save her.

But there was no saving her. Not that night.

His knees had hit the sterile, cold tiles of the operating room with a muted thud as he knelt beside his daughter’s lifeless form. His breath came in shallow gasps, his body trembling not from the physical wound, but from the overwhelming weight of the grief that had crushed him in that moment. His heart, once so filled with purpose and clarity, had shattered. The sterile, clinical lights above him only emphasized the deep shadows within his soul. The clock on the wall ticked in the background, each second a reminder of the precious moments lost. When the needle of the clock hit 10:01 PM, time itself seemed to stop.

That was the moment he truly became alone.

The sterile brightness of the operating room felt more like a tomb now, and as the cold air pressed against his skin, Darius could feel something inside him break. The sharp, bitter taste of fear and whiskey lingered at the back of his throat, mixing with the iron scent of blood that clung to him. The once-pristine figure of Dr. Stark, the man who had stared down death with unflinching resolve, now felt like a distant memory—a ghost trapped in a body that no longer fit the man he had been.

He was no longer Darius Stark, the great surgeon. He was something else now—something hollow, something adrift. And as he rose from the floor, his hands shaking as if they had lost the knowledge of what to do, he realized with a sickening clarity that the man he had once been was gone. His soul was fractured, broken by a grief too heavy for the human heart to bear.

The room, once filled with the sounds of life-saving surgery, now hummed with the quiet murmur of death. And standing at the edge of the abyss, Darius felt it—the watching presence of something far older than the city around him, far older than anything science could explain.

Death had been watching from the shadows, waiting for this moment.

And now, it had come.

“This is the moment that shifts the balance.”

The words rang out, not in the room, but in his mind, echoing like a prophecy he couldn’t escape. The balance had already begun to tip, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Now, forty days later, the story truly began.

Darius stood alone at the heart of Greenwood Cemetery, his figure a shadow against the haunting backdrop of twisted branches that arched like gnarled hands reaching for the heavens. The cold fingers of fog curled around the gravestones, shrouding the scene in an eerie, spectral veil. The air was thick with the smell of wet earth, the lingering scent of rain from a storm that had passed just moments before. There was a heaviness in the atmosphere, as if the very ground beneath his feet exhaled the sorrow of centuries.

The sky above was a muted gray, the remnants of the storm casting a pallor over the cemetery. The trees, bare and forlorn, whispered in the wind, their branches creaking as though they, too, mourned the lives that had come and gone. The distant caw of a raven echoed through the silence, its harsh cry sending a shiver down Darius’ spine—like a warning, or perhaps a reminder of something he couldn’t yet grasp.

He knelt at the graves, his movements slow and deliberate, as though the weight of the world rested on his every step. Two names were etched into the cold stone before him: Sarah Stark and Sophia Stark. Both names were final, carved into the marble with a permanence that no grief could undo. The flowers resting atop the graves, wilted and forgotten, stirred in the wind, scattering their fragile petals into the air—drifting like memories that time had long since abandoned.

Darius’ fingers hovered over the letters, tracing them with reverence, as though the simple act could somehow revive the souls beneath. His breath caught in his chest, a silent sob lodged deep within him, its weight heavy and suffocating. The grief was unbearable, pressing down on him like a vise, tighter than any scalpel he had ever held. His body trembled, not from the cold, but from the rawness of the emotion that surged through him.

“Why? Why did this happen to me?” The words came out in a rasp, barely audible, as if speaking them might make them real. “I wasn’t ready…”

The silence seemed to thicken around him, suffocating in its intensity, before the soft, hesitant sound of footsteps broke the stillness. Darius didn’t have to turn to know who it was. James. His oldest friend. The one who should have been here all along.

James stepped into the clearing, his presence a contrast to the desolation around them. His suit was rumpled, his posture slumped, as though the weight of sleepless nights had taken its toll. In his hands, he held a small bouquet, its colors faint in the dim light, the flowers trembling slightly, as if they, too, felt the gravity of the moment.

He placed a hand on Darius’ shoulder, the touch warm but fleeting, as if unsure how to comfort someone so deeply lost. “Darius,” James murmured, his voice soft but urgent. “It’s been forty days. We need you. Please… come back to life. This isn’t what they would have wanted.”

Darius let out a bitter laugh—sharp and hollow, like the sound of an empty barrel tumbling down a stone staircase. He slowly rose to his feet, his movements stiff, almost mechanical, as though the pain in his chest had locked him in place. His face twisted with a mix of fury and despair, his eyes burning with an intensity that could have scorched the earth itself.

“Where were you when I buried them?” His voice dropped low, dangerous, like the rumble of thunder before a storm. “You want me back now? Just shut up and go.”

James faltered, the weight of his words heavy between them. “At least let me take you home. I’ll make dinner—”

“Just grab me the damn shovel.”

James felt his stomach tighten, a knot of anxiety forming deep within him. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words caught in his throat. There was something in Darius’ voice, a finality to it, that sent a chill creeping up his spine. “Darius… what are you going to do?”

The response came quicker than James could anticipate. Darius turned to face him fully, his eyes wide and wild, burning with a manic intensity. His jaw clenched, his fists curling at his sides, the knuckles white with strain....

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.12.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 0-00-112598-2 / 0001125982
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-112598-8 / 9780001125988