Prologue

Darkness

Lonely. Helpless. Hopeless. Photons absorbing everything in their path. An empty void, much like the days before creation.

Pain

Excruciating. Agonizing. Unending. Every cell torn apart, every molecule deconstructed, their matter violently transfigured in unfathomable ways in favor of their new matrix.

Consciousness

Complete awareness and yet helpless to stop it. Perceiving all sensations as the body is torn and stretched in multiple dimensions.

Velocity

Time and space at a standstill. No longer able or allowed to live between the seconds. Crushing gravity preventing forward momentum. A body frozen in motion, all the while the mind races on.

Prayer

Unanswered pleas for absolution. Desperate appeals for forgiveness for whatever actions that had caused such punishment, such brutality.

Memories

Thoughts and recollections. Happiness. Pain. Sorrow. Anger. Resentment. Fear. Love. Drifting by in a blurred vortex of confusion. Some ancient, some foreign, some yet to happen.

Congratulations it's a boy

Straight A's! oh honey I'm so proud of you.

Your son has second and third degree burns over two thirds of his body. He's very lucky to have survived the explosion.

Since the name Speedy's already taken, what do you think about Kid Flash?

My real name is Dick. Dick Grayson.

We're ready to do what you taught us, or why teach us at all?

Whatever Baywatch. I'm here to stay.

Find your own little spitfire, one who won't let you get away with nothin'

The three of us started this team because the Justice League was keeping secrets from us.

Little hero, do you really think you have what it takes to survive Vandal Savage.

Happy New Year Justice League.

I should have done this a long time ago.

The cave is-was just a place! Worth sacrificing if it helps us stop the invasion. Look I'm sorry you lost all your souvenirs!

What could go wrong?

Hera, what have you done?

Ray this is madness, shut it down now!

You'd destroy the time stream, you'd destroy us all.

Don't make me do this Bruce.

You've got one chance to save her kid. Don't blow it.

Hope

After what could be minutes, decades, or centuries, time leaps forward. Frozen images begin to blur. Light bends in a blinding spectrum of color. A body that was once frozen slowly becomes translucent. Inside, organs, skeletal structure, nervous systems all begin to glow. Becoming brighter with each heartbeat. Becoming lightning.

Escape

On June 20, 2016 Wally West raced into oblivion to save the world. On June 20, 2040 he shot out the other side at the speed of light to save it all over again.