Year 2000
Holly Drive, Central City
The crack of thunder split the night, but it wasn't just a storm. The air shimmered, tingling with electricity. In the living room of the Allen household, young Barry Allen shot up in bed, his small frame trembling as an unnatural wind, unlike any he'd ever felt before whipped through the room.
A sudden stillness followed, eerie and unnatural.
Then water from the fish tank began to rise, droplets suspended in mid-air as if time had lost meaning. The glow of golden lightning danced across the ceiling. Barry's breath quickened.
He slipped out of bed, his socks brushing the cold floor. He approached the door with slow, hesitant steps, heart pounding in his chest.
He twisted the knob and pulled the door open.
The hallway was bathed in a strange, pulsating glow. Down the stairs, the living room had become a scene from a dream - or a nightmare. A violent wind whipped and howled with intensity. Furniture floated inches off the ground. Picture frames twisted, hovering in mid-air. The very air shimmered with static. In the center of the chaos, two blurs danced: one red, one yellow, clashing with explosive bursts of speed.
Barry stared, frozen.
His eyes scanned the scene, panic rooting him to the spot and he saw her.
His mother, Nora Allen, stood at the center of the storm. She turned toward him, eyes wide with terror, reaching out as if to hold him back. "Barry? Stay where you are!"
But somehow he summoned a burst of courage and crept forward. As he reached the stairs, the entire house groaned. At the heart of the living room, the red blur crashed into the dining table, splinters flying. The moment slowed and Barry saw the blur. He was a man.
He wore a suit unlike anything Barry had ever seen: a deep crimson red threaded with golden lightning bolts. The chest emblem glowed faintly, a white circle with a yellow lightning bolt etched into it. The boots were reinforced with golden metal, and the gloves sparked with kinetic energy. His body crackled with raw power and every breath sent sparks fluttering around him.
The man's mask was still up, concealing his identity as he blurred away, crashing into the yellow blur but when he was struck again and thrown across the room, the mask shimmered, vanishing momentarily in a flicker of golden light for just a second.
The blur ceased.
Barry saw his face.
Older. Familiar in an odd way.
The man's face reminded him of the old black-and-white photographs his mother kept in a box under her bed. Pictures of her father, Barry's grandfather from when she was young. The resemblance was uncanny.
"Run, Barry!" the man shouted, desperation in his voice.
In the chaos, Henry Allen knelt near Nora, screaming, trying to protect her, caught between two gods of speed. The yellow blur struck again, sending the man in red skidding across the hardwood floor.
Then the yellow blur appeared behind Nora.
In the moment, the red blur surged forward, grabbing Nora and racing her out of the way in a streak of gold lightning.
The man in yellow screamed in fury, his voice sounding cruel and distorted. "No! That's not how this ends!"
With a burst of crimson lightning, he turned to the next closest target - Barry, his eyes glowing red ominously.
"Goodbye Barry Allen," he growled.
Then came a single, lethal blow. Barry's body flew across the room, limp before hitting the floor.
Silence.
The man in red froze mid-run. Tears ran from his eyes, dissolving before it hit the ground. He flickered like a faulty display. Golden energy seeped from his form, shimmering like dust in sunlight. He met the eyes of his rival in yellow'-not with anger, but with sorrow, acceptance and quiet understanding.
Then he dissolved, vanishing into radiant light as he was erased from existence.
A second red streak burst into the living room - another Flash, slightly older, eyes wide with horror. He skidded to a halt just in time to see young Barry fall and the earlier Flash disintegrate.
"No…" he whispered.
But the correction was already in motion. His body began to shimmer too, fading. "I was too late."
With a final breath, he vanished.
The man in yellow came to a stop and pulled off his mask, a wide grin on his face. The blur around him faded, and the lightning vanished. The fish tank water dropped, splashing loudly against the ground. Gravity reasserted itself.
He bolted out of the house, a golden blur in red streaks darting through the city, his speed pure and raw. He raced beyond the visible spectrum, forcing the air apart, opening a breach in time through sheer momentum.
Nothing happened.
He tried again, faster. A breach flickered open, unstable and weak. He dove in, only to be thrown back, tumbling through an alley wall.
"Gideon!" he snarled, his voice echoing inside his suit.
A soft hum responded. A glowing blue hologram materialized from his palm, projected from the embedded systems in his suit.
"Yes, Dr. Thawne?"
"Run diagnostics! Why can't I open a portal?"
Gideon's voice remained calm. "Calculating Sir…"
"Based on my data, this seems to have been a consequence of killing The Flash"
Thawne blinked. "Why, What!" He's consumed by rage. He can almost choke on it.
"Consequences, what consequences?"
"According to my calculations, The Flash dying has changed the timeline irreparably. Without him, you do not recreate the experiment, In the event where the Flash does not exist, the Reverse Flash will not exist as well…"
She said it all in a monotone voice that vexed him something terrible.
"Your connection to the Speed Force is deteriorating. Your tachyon levels are falling."
Thawne paled visibly, terror filling his veins. This was something he had overlooked, something huge. He turned his attention back to Gideon as she continued.
"…and this is why you can no longer open the breach. In this state, you cannot generate the speed required to return to your time."
"No… no, this wasn't supposed to happen!"
He struck the wall, cracking it. Lightning arced but sputtered. His speed flickered, glitching and unstable.
He was trapped.
And across the city, in a modest apartment, a boy stirred in bed. Outside his window, the storm faded. The skies cleared. And in a reflection in the window, A man in yellow flickered ominously.