Cameraman Never Dies

Things were not going as expected — Or rather, things had taken a slight, almost laughable turn from where Alex initially thought they would go.

Like a script misread by its own protagonist, the events had begun to tilt sideways, tipping into absurdity with just enough elegance to make him question whether the absurdity had been by design all along.

In hindsight, maybe he should have seen it coming. The signs had been there. Subtle, yes — but glaring in their own twisted little way. Judge had always been difficult to predict. Unruly. Brilliant. Impulsive. A perfect cocktail for catastrophe. A storm wrapped in silk. A walking contradiction.

But disappearing into the flux zone? That hadn't been on the itinerary. That hadn't been anywhere near the edge of the itinerary. That had been something he failed to see. Buried under the pile of 'Chances of happening'.

Alex had been confident. Not hopeful or trusting, just confident. The kind of confidence born from calculations and foresight. He didn't believe in chance — he believed in control.

He had his clones ready — dozens of them, careful and prepared, each tailored for a specific task: retrieval, defense, suppression, negotiation. Even one designed to make tea, in case things got too stressful. It was always better to have tea than not.

But none of them could get in. Obviously! The flux zone rejected them. Not like a locked door — more like a ravenous maw that spat them out half-digested, their ether bodies crumbling into nothing the moment they tried to get in.

He watched the breakdowns with the detached horror of an engineer watching his blueprints catch fire. One after another, they failed. Spectacularly. He wasn't an expert, but he knew his clones could never get in, and he lost his composure when Judge went inside.

That's when the unraveling began.

Well, not panic. Not in the traditional sense. Alex didn't do traditional panic. His mind didn't scream — it calculated faster. It swept every failure into a growing pile and built strategy from the ruins.

He paced. He smiled widely in front of others, his fingers jittering in his sleeves while his voice stayed level. He had a lot of options to choose from, whether it was sending his underlings or raiding the place. Each option more irrational than the last.

There was something that stopped him from going after Judge himself, a wall that refused to let him take the step. Neither fear nor hesitation. Something more primitive. Instinctual. As if stepping in would break something that could never be repaired.

Besides, he had found the place where the Church of Umbra trained their assassins that doubled as a headquarters. It wasn't a coincidence. It never was. If he waited a bit to strike, they would escape, slipping through the net like shadow-eels. They had already begun to stir, already felt the weight of his gaze like a coming storm.

It was a decision between family and… his son. Which, of course, was still family — but not the same. If he let the assassins go, the mouse might mistake the lion's yawn for fear and fancy itself king. It wasn't about ego. It was about precedent.

If he went after Judge, he was not even sure if he could reach him. He was not good at teleporting like his father or his youngest son. And trying to inform his father would only make things worse, as there was no time. Time had already become a fraying thread.

Going after the assassins seemed like the only right choice. Cold, calculated, correct.

Because Eleyn had said, plainly and without a hint of doubt, in that terrifyingly serene voice of hers:

"He'll live. That much, I can promise."

And that was all the insurance he had. Nothing more. No lifeline. No elaboration. Just a string of syllables spun from certainty.

Neither any explanations nor comforts. Just a promise from a woman whose word was more dangerous than most people's weapons. And whose words he trusted with everything he had.

Of all the principles he embodied — the unwavering reasoning, the unshakable composure, the reputation of being the sharpest mind in any room, untouched by sentiment or impulse — it was the cruelest irony that he, of all people, would abandon that sacred distance and chase after his son with nothing but a father's heart guiding him.

And then, just as he was about to step into the flux core himself — against logic, against the norms, against every experience from people who had gone into a flux zone — Judge came out.

Not the same Judge, of course. That would've been too easy.

No, the boy who emerged wasn't quite right.

The air around him thickened, greasy and reluctant. It clung to him like an unwanted memory, like ash that refused to be washed away.

Shadows recoiled from him, curling unnaturally, like something in the world had decided he didn't belong to it anymore. Not as a punishment. As a truth.

When he finally spoke — and he did, testing his voice — his voice carried the weight of silence. Not absence. Not void. A voice shaped by endurance and loss. A silent voice. Like something that had known noise once and chosen, deliberately, to erase it.

And Alex —

His hand twitched, raising toward his son. Reflex, maybe. A paternal instinct to reach out, to stop, to ask. But he didn't raise it. He didn't question or interfere. He just watched.

Watched his son walk away, unbothered, unhurried, with a glint in his eye. One eye, at least. The other seemed too quiet.

He looked like a statue crumbling under its own shadow. Like the proud ghost of someone who used to be human. Alex felt something tighten in his chest. Was it pride? Worry? Maybe. But it had edges now. Edges he didn't trust.

"He'll live. That much, I can promise." Eleyn's voice echoed. Again. As if daring him to believe it a second time.

So Alex let him go. That is what the dragons had always done — let their children face danger. Only save them when death is imminent.

He let the silence linger. Let the ether rebuild the land corrupted by the flux core, like something dreaming with one eye open. Let the world pretend that it hadn't just flinched.

Now, sitting alone in the aftermath, fingers laced tightly in his lap, back straight as if braced for judgment, he exhaled something like a laugh.

Not joy. Not relief. Just the sound a dam makes when it starts to crack. Just enough noise to know something will give, soon.

And though the world outside resumed its indifferent hum — a breeze carrying away the scent of charred stone, the flux settling into sleep once more — Alex found himself unmoved.

He leaned forward slightly. Just slightly.

"I wonder what Dad's doing now," he murmured to no one, to himself. To a memory. "I should've gone to the assassins."

But he hadn't.

And now the boy he pulled from the wreckage of the world wasn't the boy he remembered.

A clone sat nearby, unmoving like a corpse.

Things had not gone as expected.

And maybe that, lord help him, was the only part that made perfect sense.