He had always hated them, but it wasn't until later that he learned how deep his hatred ran. It started with small things—the dull hum of his mother's old radio blaring out promises of a perfect country, the speeches on every corner urging sacrifice for the greater good, and the sky-wide propaganda. But he hadn't realized just how much it had consumed him until the day he saw them burn his family alive.
Jason, once a name on the lips of the hopeful, became a man twisted by the venom of the nation that had destroyed everything he had ever known. He watched as they took his life from him, piece by piece, and without mercy.
His hands, once soft from work in the fields, now curled around the raw materials of vengeance. He knew something was missing in his soul; he was only a shadow now, the man who had been Jason barely a faint trace of what remained.
It started with the books.
He didn't know why he began reading them—strange texts bound in cracked leather that spoke of power beyond the stars. He stumbled across them in a dusty corner of the library one afternoon, long after the world had stopped caring about the value of knowledge.
He knew what magic was, of course—stories and lies about powerful beings, but this was different. These books didn't talk of far-off gods or mythological forces. They spoke of the people who could pull the unseen strings, who could control death and life itself.
Jason, too, could feel the power in his bones. At first, he hesitated, but the rage gnawed at him. The world had taken everything from him. He'd be damned if he wasn't going to make them pay.
The first ritual was simple. A few words, strange symbols, and the faintest pulse under his skin. Nothing to make him believe that anything had changed, but the following day, when he stepped out onto the streets, he saw the shift.
The city had begun to unravel. It wasn't clear at first—just a subtle thing. People looked at each other differently, their eyes hollowed and vacant. The sound of children's laughter was replaced with the shuffle of desperate feet. He smiled, for the first time in years. It was working.
Jason had never meant to destroy the country, not initially. He only wanted to make them feel the same pain he had. He wanted them to see the suffering they'd caused and understand that they couldn't walk away from their mistakes anymore.
But the more he dabbled in magic, the more he learned, the more he realized how small and petty his desires had been. His actions, his power—it could reach far beyond the borders of the town. It could rip the nation apart if he truly willed it. They'd never see it coming.
He could feel it every time he closed his eyes, the strings of power pulling taut like a bowstring. Each word of the incantations he muttered in the dead of night filled the space around him with an almost unbearable tension. Magic was more than just a tool; it was a sickness. And it had him in its grip.
Weeks passed, and Jason's transformation from man to force of nature became undeniable. He stopped speaking to the few who still dared to approach him. His hands trembled with an energy that vibrated through his skin.
His eyes, once bright and full of naive dreams, now reflected the quiet rage of a man who had lost everything. He was something different now. Something greater.
One night, he stood at the center of the city, staring out at the endless horizon of concrete and steel. The streets below were empty, but in the air above, a storm was gathering. It wasn't a storm of wind or rain.
No, this storm was far worse—it was a storm of the mind. His mind. He had begun to realize that the world didn't have to burn slowly. It didn't have to fall apart piece by piece. It could be quick. It could be final.
With a slow, deliberate motion, he raised his hand, and the air around him seemed to breathe with him. The city's lights blinked out, one by one, until the world below was nothing but shadows. His voice, once human, had become something else entirely, warped and thick with power.
"Let them see," he murmured.
And then he snapped his fingers.
The ground shuddered beneath him, and the city groaned. Buildings cracked, windows exploded in a wave of sound, and screams echoed from every corner of the earth. But Jason didn't hear it. He didn't care.
The magic had begun. What came next was the unraveling, the collapse of every institution that had ever stood tall. The United States, that faceless giant that had crushed him, was now his to tear apart. Piece by piece, country by country. And Jason would be the hand that struck it down.
The days that followed were filled with nothing but destruction. Cities burned. Millions screamed. The air grew thick with the acrid smell of burning flesh and the charred remains of everything that had once been.
Jason felt no guilt. No sorrow. Just the rush of power flowing through his veins. He was an unstoppable force, a demon in human skin.
But in the deepest part of his mind, a whisper—quiet, almost inaudible—began to grow louder. The same whisper that had once warned him of the dangers of magic now clawed at his insides. Something was wrong.
Something had always been wrong. And as the world fell to pieces around him, Jason began to realize the truth—he had never been in control. The magic had always been in control.
His first sign of the truth came on the third night. As he stood above the ruins of what had once been New York, watching the endless fires consuming what little remained, he heard the scream. It wasn't the scream of a human. It wasn't the scream of a burning city. It was the scream of something far darker, far older than anything he could ever comprehend. And it came from within him.
Jason stumbled, his hand clutching his chest. The power inside him had grown too large. It had become an endless, gnawing thing, a void that wanted more, that demanded more. It wasn't magic anymore—it was madness. The city had fallen, but so had Jason. He was no longer a man. He was a vessel for something terrible.
And that something began to take over.
The next time Jason spoke, it wasn't his voice. It was something else—something that had slithered its way into his mind, its tendrils weaving themselves into the very fabric of his being. It spoke in a language that had never been spoken before, ancient and guttural, each syllable dragging him deeper into the abyss.
But he couldn't stop it. He couldn't even try. The magic had consumed him. He was no longer Jason. He was the end.
As the power ripped through the nation, turning every city into a graveyard, Jason's body began to wither. His once-strong hands trembled and shook, his skin turning pale and dry, his eyes vacant, unable to even see the destruction he'd wrought. He could feel it in his bones, the truth of what he had become. The power that had once given him strength was now taking it all away.
He fell to his knees, his vision blurring, his heart slowing. The last thing he heard was the deafening silence of a country that no longer existed. And in that silence, he heard one final, terrible truth:
Jason had destroyed everything. And in the end, he had destroyed himself.
It was over.