In the devastated silence of the plaza, something impossible began to happen.
The gaping, cauterized crater where Rex's heart had been ceased to be a wound and became a wound in motion. The edges of the flesh didn't just heal; they writhed.
The torn muscle fibers, charred by divine lightning, began to crawl toward one another like living worms. A wet, sickening sound—SLOP, SQUELCH, RIPPLERIPPLE—echoed off the broken walls as layers of tissue knotted together in a grotesque display of biological reconstruction.
Then came the sound of the spine.
CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK.
It was the sound of wet timber breaking under immense pressure as each vertebrae fused back into alignment, knitting itself together with unnatural speed.
The crowd of watchers gasped in unison, some in horror, some in disbelief, as they watched the corpse reassemble itself.
Then came the heartbeat.
THUMP.
