Longing Rusted Furnace Daybreak Novels & Stories

Before you leave. I woke up in the morning to a creeping breeze coming into the room and chilling my nose. I opened my eyes and saw the dark ashes of the fireplace. The fire had long gone out and there was a gap in the porch door. A handful of snow on the edge of the door wanting to get in and outside a completely white landscape. The curtain was open a little, but the day seemed dark and frosty again.

I crushed the note in my fist before I could even think about it. The next night was worse. The old furnace in this house has been dying since my parents moved in, it rattles, wheezes, sounds like it’s choking to death every time it tries to heat the place. Around 2 AM, Nero woke up crying. I got up to rock him, shivering, but then realized... I wasn’t cold. The room wasn’t cold. It was warm. Perfectly warm. The thermostat read 72. Impossible. Something in my gut told me exactly what that meant.

So when my alarm clock first became faulty after having to serve me well for 195 years, I tossed it away and settled for my raven's dusk caw. With my eyes closed, I wove at my raven that stationed itself on my nightstand, beside the sofa, overly satisfied with its continuous cawing. I must have missed my way to my coffin while I was in the wave of multiple orgasms as I laid sprouting on the sofa. I hauled myself out of the sofa with staggery steps, balancing my vision in the process. It was not until my blurry sense accentuated the hurtful sensation of burnt on my arm. I glanced at my right arm, at the burnt area. The outer layer of my skin was blotchy and blistering. Little rays of sunlight

He faded from the city, a pathetic figure no one remembered. When the dust settled, Fabio took me to his family's old estate. We walked down a stone path, his hand warm in mine. "My mother loved crabapple blossoms," he said. "She said they stand for love that endures pain." I paused, caught off guard. He stopped, turning to me seriously. "You can tear up that agreement anytime. My promise to you wasn't just for then. It's forever." I blinked in confusion. Then he led me to the rooftop, where a telescope stood. "Remember this?"

The humid night air of the industrial district was thick with the scent of unburnt fuel and the heavy, collective breath of a thousand riders. The flickering neon of a nearby scrap yard cast long, rhythmic shadows across the street, making the sea of leather vests look like a living, breathing armor plating. Dax and I stood on the threshold of the warehouse, the Norton’s silver Engine still ticking as it cooled, the sound like a countdown in the sudden, oppressive silence.

Rain murmured against the villa’s high glass windows like a thousand soft accusations. It fell in slow arcs across the veranda, each drop carving the stillness with a private grief. The leather couch beneath Savannah creaked as she shifted awake, her muscles sore from sleep without rest, her thoughts jagged and restless like broken film reels left spinning through the night. The fireplace behind her had died down to grey ash. No warmth remained—only the scent of charred birch and something older, buried.

*Aaron* I trudged through the snow, my boots crunching on the ground as a bitter reminder of the chaos that had just occurred. My heart pounded with a disturbing mix of anger and dread as I neared the lake's edge, now a deceptive sheet of glass shimmering under the relentless winter sun. It seemed cruelly beautiful, concealing the terror beneath its freezing surface. Braxton and Winter might have lost their lives there, and the image kept replaying in my mind—both of them submerged, gasping for air, while I desperately tried to reach them.

I walked to the edge of the pit and watched the flames dancing in the furnace, their orange light reflecting in the dark obsidian walls. ​The hook was a heavy iron bolt, hammered into the stone to hold the world together. As the midnight bell rang out—a dull, metallic thud that echoed through the frost—I didn't feel a celestial connection. I felt the vibration of the steam in the pipes and the steady breathing of the people in the vaults. I felt a familiar rhythm in my stethoscope, but it was just the sound of a species that refused to die. The forty-fourth year was the year of the forge, and we were the iron being shaped. The surgery was long over, and we were finally, brutally, awake. Ever

"Oh, great. This one's even worse. You're terribly drunk tonight, aren't you? Slap some sense into her, Jax. Let's see if she's still acting crazy after that. Remember, I don't want their screaming to stop until I figure out what we can do next." As such, Mom and Dad got beaten up for over an hour. It wasn't until dawn started breaking that Mr. Jarrell finally dragged them out. Ms. Lewis was a light sleeper. She'd been kept awake the entire night, but she looked downright radiant now. She said, "You might not like hearing this, but your parents… All of us have never been too fond of them all this time. Seeing them get knocked around like that actually made us happier than it is on Christmas

If it snapped, no rebuilding of walls, no crown, no Alpha could put us back together. The horizon broke, pale light seeping over the ruins. It wasn’t gold. It wasn’t warm. It was cold, washed-out, a sunrise that looked like it had been drained of color. Ruby stood apart, her blade buried in the ground, her face carved into stillness. Maxim pressed his nose to my hair, drawing me in like he was afraid I’d vanish. And I watched the dawn stretch over everything, trying so hard to look like hope. But it wasn’t hope. Not yet. It was mourning. The dawn rose, but it felt like mourning.