[h3]A Fire Rages[/h3]
The roaring of an inferno, blistering heat suffocates him, his lungs rebel the foul air, infected by smoke and ash. With eyes stinging and sweat dripping from every pore in his body, Leon's vision blurs, everything looks alike. Scorching tongues of red devour anything in sight, growing larger and more dangerous with each meal. In its roar is power, the power of an entity that is unstoppable; insatiable; nigh-unquenchable; the harbinger of destruction. 

Having long ago abandoned his leather coat, Leon blindly rushed through the halls as quick as he could, crouching down to avoid the blunt force of the poisonous smoke, wheezing breaths escaping past chapped lips. Grime mars his face, and tears from his irritated eyes mix with sweat, matting his hair to his forehead. 

The building groaned in its cremation, collapsing under its own weight as the beast of flame fed on its bone and marrow. A rafter, lit alight falls from its place above, crashing onto the concrete below, releasing a fresh hive of floating embers. 

A wretched, hacking cough tore itself from Leon's throat, hoarse and dry, sending him to his hands-and-knees. Why was he in here? What was he looking for -- who!?

Weakly lifting his head up, his eyes caught sight of a window, just large enough for him to fit in. Stained by the soot and smut within the furnace, Leon took no more time to guess at its height before he used any excess energy he had within himself to vault himself towards it. His limbs ached with the buildup of lactic acid, and fresh burns stung at his flesh, but the pain was numbed through sheer adrenaline. Forcing himself to push on, he ducked himself into a crouch shortly before hurdling through the glass portal, barely feeling the impact pass as his stomach flip-flopped, empty air left to catch him. 

Time seemed to slow as he reached the climax of the fall. Fresh oxygen inflated his lungs; cool air eased his flesh; and he felt free of the fire...but the fall remained. 

Those few seconds of free-fall felt as though they'd last forever. He saw the shards of glass that had propelled themselves with his impact, his own limbs flailing on their own accord, his heartbeat violently raging within his eardrums, a hollow cry leaving his scorched cords. 

His vision went black before he hit the ground.

The clean air that had no sooner entered his lungs was forced out in a harsh wheeze. Loose pieces of gravel tore at his hands and embedded themselves in the fresh lacerations. His legs tingled with pinpricks of sensation, radiating up through his entire body. Rolling to his side, Leon spat out an unholy amalgam of phlegm and bile as air slowly began to process within his system once again. 

Weakly rising to his feet on shaky legs that bade not. Leon swallowed arduously as he took the building aflame in its full and terrible might. The heat was terrible even from here, and he was forced to shield his face with a single arm from the still-prevailing smoke and gas. Many of the windows that had not burst already were distorted and malformed, except for one....something, no...[i]someone[/i] was in there; screaming, crying. A boy. 

What happened next was a blur, a shatter-point of fate where all time seemed to halt and the inescapable feeling of dread set in the pit of Leon's stomach. There he was, right arm shielding his face from assault, keen eyes locked onto that [i]one[/i] window. Plans were already forming inside his mind on how he would rescue the boy. Shatter the window, get him to jump. Run inside, risk the flames again. Find another exit on the backside. His thoughts were jumbled, full of discord. 

Then the building imploded.

A detonation of egregious magnitude that started from its foundation, worked itself up. There was the boy - and then there wasn't. His face, full of fear and panic was smothered by a jet of flame and shrapnel that shattered the window and volleyed any loose item or debris it could. Furniture, bricks, wood, concrete, glass, junk - devastated carcasses. 

The explosion's volume threw Leon backwards, his feet leaving the ground and his life left to luck - and the forces of nature. His right arm erupted with pain and excruciation. Leon could feel it being splintered from within by harsh metals and stone, mauling bone and mangling tissue; muscles rending and tendons splitting. 

The pain was brief, but the worst he had ever experienced. His body cascaded on its back fifteen feat from where it once was, fresh gravel meeting the back of his head like a baseball bat, throwing him into unconsciousness. 
[hr]
[hr]
Leon jolted himself awake with a sharp intake of oxygen, his entire body feeling as though it should have been on fire. Eyes narrowed with fatigue, he took in his surroundings as his vision cleared, swallowing back a bad taste in his mouth. Rising up from his half-laying-down posture on the sofa, Leon brushed the stray hair from his face as his mental faculties returned to him. He was [url=http://static1.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2982677-2.jpg]home[/url]. 

The apartment was quite nice when first purchased, and even now retained a sense of its former Renaissance-esque glory. But its interior was muddled with stray junk and boxes, blankets and pillows tossed about from too-late-nights spent sleeping on the couch instead of the bed. A few hours of cleanup and a bit of better lighting would be more than enough to spruce it back to full vitality, but Leon never seemed to find the time. 

Leon stretched out his arm towards the flask that stood upon the small glass coffee table, but stopped just inches away. Leon's gaze was affixed on his prosthetic, its full artificial nature left uncovered. Sure the hand looked natural enough, even some of the wrist, too. But the rest of it...metal and plastic and polymer and fibers. Sure the pressure sensors inside the appendage allowed him to [i]touch[/i] things, so to speak. He couldn't [i]feel[/i] them. Textures, temperature, quality. It was alien in this arm. And no matter how long he had it, it would still feel unnatural - a weight that merely [i]looked[/i] like an arm. 

He enclosed his grip around the flask, and brought it to his lips, throwing his head back as the lukewarm liquid passed his lips and down his throat. The taste of it was bitter and caustic, leaving a noticeable burn in its wake. Already the nanomachines inside his blood were working diligently to break down the liquid before it would even reach his stomach. 

After everything the government had done to him - after every wrongdoing and maltreatment. They couldn't even let him self-destruct. Where was the joy in smoking if the addictive feeling of nicotine was replaced by your body automatically repairing the damage? How could you get hooked on pain pills if you couldn't even catch a damn cold?

Putting the flask down with a heavy sigh, Leon turned his head towards the glowing digital clock on the wall. It was barely past sunset...too early to go back to bed. Most of the Alpha citizens would be schmoozing with each other in some big-name club on a penthouse, completely oblivious to the goings-on in Beta. 

Sure, not all of Beta was a slum, and people could find success if they worked hard enough. But there was that rift, that wedge that had distanced the two for decades: the difference between being born lucky, and being lucky enough to be born. 

Moving to stand, Leon suppressed a groan as his joints popped. [i]'Limb actuator...great for running...hell for lounging.'[/i] Leon thought to himself with a cynical half-smirk, making his way towards the front door. 

Grabbing his jacket, Leon moved to put it on, not sure where he was going or why; just that he was. He opened the door and stepped out, leaving no more sound behind than that one lasting [i]shut.[/i]