Kael Morrigan was tall and lean — the kind of build you got from missing too many meals and working twice as hard to make up for it. Kael's dark hair framed a face weathered beyond its years, his skin bearing the uneven tan of someone who'd spent too long under neon lights and a sun choked by smog. Poverty left its mark on him. Although his face had strong lines, his worn look concealed his handsomeness.
His right hand was a mess of jagged stitches, souvenirs from some back-alley surgery he'd rather forget. The crude threadwork caught the light sometimes, glinting like a twisted reminder of how far he'd fallen. Or maybe how far he'd climbed just to stay alive.
His clothes told their own story — a patchwork jacket of scavenged techwear hanging loose over synth-leather pants that had lost their shine years ago. Everything about him screamed poverty, desperation. But there was something in the way he carried himself, shoulders squared despite the weight pressing down on them, that said he wasn't done yet. Not by a long shot.
The stench hit him the moment he stepped into the outer district. It always did. Rotting flesh mixed with human waste and the sharp, metallic reek of monster blood — the kind that clung to everything no matter how hard the rain tried to wash it away.
Kael tightened the straps of his safety harness. Feeling the familiar bite of worn leather digging into his shoulders, he kept his eyes down and his feet moving through the muddy street.
"Move it, porter!" A hunter shoved past him, nearly knocking him into a puddle of something dark and viscous. The man didn't even look back.
'Just another day in paradise.'
Kael clenched his jaw but said nothing. That was rule number one in Settlement Seven: keep your head down, do your job, stay alive. Especially if you were weak. Especially if you had mouths to feed. It had always been the case, and there was nothing he could do to change it. Abide and survive.
The morning distribution was already underway when he reached the porter's yard—a fenced-off section of cracked concrete where the unawakened gathered like cattle. Fifty, maybe sixty people, all bearing the same hollow-eyed look of those who'd failed their Awakening Trial. The rejects. The powerless. The ones who'd live and die as pack mules for those blessed—or cursed—with power.
"Kael Morrigan!" The yard boss, a scarred woman named Vex, barely glanced at her tablet. "Gate clearance—District Four's breach. You're hauling extraction equipment."
His stomach dropped. 'District Four. That is near the eastern wall, where a C-rank gate has been festering for three days. Close to the danger zones.'
"Boss, I—"
"You got a problem, Morrigan?" Vex's eyes finally lifted, cold as the steel rebar jutting from the broken buildings around them. "Because I got fifty other porters who'd kill for a triple-ration job. Literally."
Triple-ration job. That was around thirty credits. That was three days' worth of food for Alice and Elise. Maybe four if he stretched it. The image of his sisters' gaunt faces flashed through his mind—Alice's hollow cheeks, Elise's too-thin arms.
The danger was real, but the hunger was worse. He'd face a dozen C-rank gates for them. "No problem, boss."
"Good. Good! I like your resolve, Moriggan!" Vex gave Kael a piece of paper and looked back at her tablet. "Equipment on bay three, and you'll leave in ten. Next—" She waved a dismissive hand, already calling out the next name as Kael stood there, the assignment sheet heavy in his hands.
---
The transport was a modified truck, armor-plated and covered in dents from countless monster encounters. Kael climbed into the back with five other porters, all of them avoiding eye contact. Nobody made friends in this line of work. Friends died, and mourning was a luxury.
The hunter squad rode up front—four awakened, all bearing the jade bands that marked them as C-rank or higher. Through the reinforced glass, Kael could see them laughing, passing around a flask. One of them caught his stare and sneered before deliberately turning away.
The hierarchy was absolute. Hunters risked their lives in the gates. Porters carried their shit and hoped not to get eaten doing it.
The truck lurched forward, engine growling as it navigated the broken streets. Kael pressed his back against the cold metal wall and closed his eyes, trying not to think about what waited at District Four.
Instead, he thought about last night. About tucking Alice and Elise into their shared cot in their three-square-meter housing unit. About the way Elise had asked, voice small in the darkness, "Kael? Will we ever have real food again? Like in the stories?"
Real food. Fruit that didn't come from a ration tube. Meat that wasn't synthesized protein paste. Bread that didn't taste like cardboard and despair.
"Soon," he'd lied, smoothing her hair. "I promise."
Alice, older and wiser at nine, had said nothing. But her eyes in the dim light had held the same hollow understanding that aged everyone in this world before their time. She knew promises didn't mean much anymore.
"Come closer, Alice."
He pulled her near and quickly pressed a small, heavy object into her palm.
"You know what needs to be done if I don't get back, right?"
Alice didn't cry or protest. She simply nodded, a single, sharp movement of her head. Her small hands closed over the item he had given her. The weight of the world settled briefly on her young shoulders, then she looked away, back to the wall.
He breathed them in one last time, a prayer against the odds.
The truck hit a pothole, jolting Kael back to the present. Through the small window, he could see they were entering District Four. The buildings here were more intact—this had been a commercial zone before the gates, back when humanity still thought they could fight back, could reclaim their world.
Three centuries later, they knew better. Survival was victory. Tomorrow was a luxury.
The truck screeched to a halt.
"Porters! Out!" Vex's voice crackled through the comm system. "Gate's been cleared, but we need full extraction in twenty minutes. Anything left behind is lost revenue, and lost revenue comes out of YOUR rations. Move!"
Kael jumped down, his boots splashing in blood-tinted water. The gate shimmered ahead—a tear in reality, pulsing with sickly purple light. It was smaller now, already beginning to collapse after the clearance, but the area around it was devastation incarnate.
Monster corpses littered the street. Most were Razorbacks—wolf-sized creatures with blade-like spines and too many teeth. A few larger forms lay scattered among them, things Kael didn't have names for. Didn't want names for.
And human bodies. Three of them, bearing the jade bands of hunters.
C-ranks. Dead.
His hands began to shake as he grabbed a collection crate and started toward the gate. If C-ranks died here, what chance did he have if something went wrong?
"Morrigan! Core extraction, third sector!" Vex pointed toward a particularly dense cluster of corpses. "Double-time!"
Core extraction meant digging through monster guts to find the crystallized mana cores. Messy, dangerous work, if any of them weren't quite dead. But cores were valuable—they powered everything from generators to weapons. Settlement Seven needed them.
Kael needed the rations.
He knelt beside the first Razorback, pulled out his extraction knife, and began the work. The blade scraped against bone and cartilage. Blood, still warm, soaked through his gloves. His stomach churned, but he forced it down. Weakness had no place here.
He was reaching for the core when he felt it—a tremor in the ground. It was subtle and eerie.
'What the hell's going on?' Kael thought—shouting was the last thing he'd do.
The gate flickered.
"Boss!" One of the hunters looked up, alarmed. "Gate's destabilizing!"
"Impossible," Vex snapped. "It was cleared!"
The gate pulsed, brighter now. The purple light intensified until Kael had to shield his eyes. The tremors grew stronger.
Then the screaming started.
From the gate's surface, something emerged. Not stepping through, but tearing its way out like a birth from hell itself. Black chitin. Too many limbs. Eyes that glowed with malevolent intelligence.
An A-rank. Maybe higher.
"FALL BACK!" The lead hunter was already running. "ABANDON EQUIPMENT! GO, GO, GO!"
Chaos erupted. Porters scattered like rats, some dropping their crates, others clinging to them with the desperate logic of those who knew dropped loads meant reduced rations. The hunters were already halfway to the truck, leaving the unawakened behind.
Kael ran.
His lungs burned. His legs pumped. Behind him, the creature screamed—a sound like metal tearing and children crying. He heard someone fall, heard the wet crunch that followed. He didn't look back—looking back was a death sentence, and he wanted none of it.
The truck was moving. Already moving.
"WAIT!" A porter ahead of him leaped, caught the edge of the truck bed, scrambled up. Two more made it. Three.
Kael pushed harder, his vision tunneling. Alice. Elise. He couldn't die. They had no one else.
His fingers grazed the metal—
The truck accelerated.
He stumbled, fell, and rolled in the bloody water. When he looked up, the truck was gone, already turning the corner toward the inner districts—toward safety.
Thus, he was alone.
The creature's shadow fell over him, massive and all-consuming. Kael looked up into those burning eyes and knew, with absolute certainty, that he was going to die.
Alice and Elise would wake up tomorrow waiting for him.
He'd promised them soon.
He'd lied.
The creature's claw descended—
—and the world fractured.
Not broke. Fractured. Like reality itself was a pane of glass struck by an invisible hammer. Cracks spider-webbed across Kael's vision, glowing with a light that was neither purple nor any color he could name. The creature froze mid-strike, its claw suspended in the air.
Then Kael was falling.
Not down. Somewhere else. Somewhere between.
Words appeared in his vision, floating like they were carved into the fabric of the universe itself:
[DIMENSIONAL BREACH DETECTED]
[COMPATIBLE HOST IDENTIFIED]
[INITIALIZING TRANSIT PROTOCOL]
[WELCOME TO THE NEXUS REALM]
The last thing Kael saw before consciousness fled was not the monster, not the ruined city, not even the terrified face he knew he was making.
"For thirty credits—I'd be damned!"
It was a sky.
A sky with two suns, burning bright over ruins that were both familiar and impossibly alien.
And then—nothing.