🇧🇷 Rio de Janeiro — 9:26 P.M.
Rafa hadn't slept since the portals opened.
His apartment was dark, the only light coming from the dying city below. Fires burned across the skyline, painting the clouds orange. The faint hum of the System hung in the air like static—always there, just at the edge of hearing.
He'd barricaded the door, set traps, and rationed food. The rifle rested across his knees, scope aligned with the empty street through the broken blinds.
Then he saw them.
Figures moving under the glow of a flickering streetlight—small, quick, and wrong.
Their limbs were too thin, their joints bent the wrong way, and their skin shimmered a dull green that seemed to absorb light instead of reflecting it. Their eyes glowed faintly, like fireflies under the skin.
They moved in formation—three on the street, two climbing the walls. Hunting.
Rafa exhaled slowly. "You've got to be kidding me."
He turned the safety off.
When one crawled across his neighbor's balcony, he fired once—clean, silent, a suppressed shot straight through the neck.
The creature convulsed soundlessly and fell, dissolving before it hit the ground. The others scattered instantly—no panic, just precision.
> They think. They plan.
Rafa moved through the apartment like smoke—checking corners, staying below the windows. Another one dropped from the ceiling vent behind him; he spun and drove a knife up beneath its chin before it could hiss.
He didn't know what they were, but he knew what they weren't: human.
Then—gunfire.
Distant, muffled, followed by the scream of a child.
He froze, knife halfway out of the corpse. The noise came from two floors below.
He was moving before he could think.
---
The stairwell reeked of ozone and rust. He kept his rifle close, moving silently, step by step, eyes adjusting to the dark. The gunfire had stopped. Now only breathing—shallow, rapid, and terrified.
He reached the landing and peeked through the broken doorframe.
Three figures.
A boy—maybe twelve—clutching a piece of pipe.
A young woman with blood soaking her shoulder.
And a frail girl, no older than eight, trembling behind them.
They were cornered—pressed against a wall as a much larger green-skinned creature advanced. This one was broader, muscles layered like stone, its eyes burning orange instead of yellow. It carried something jagged—half-metal, half-bone.
It was toying with them.
The boy swung. The weapon shattered in his hands. The creature laughed, low and wet.
Rafa dropped to one knee and set his rifle against the frame.
Wind held its breath.
He lined up the shot.
Through the scope, he saw the creature's temple. One squeeze, one breath, and it would be over—
But the creature stopped moving.
Its head turned, slowly, unnaturally, until its burning eyes met Rafa's through the scope.
Rafa's finger froze.
The thing grinned—wide and sharp—and raised a clawed finger to its lips.
> "Shhh."
Then it moved.
Fast.
The window behind Rafa shattered inward as something hit the wall where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. He rolled sideways, rifle clattering across the floor. The air thickened; the whole building vibrated like a drum.
The hallway lights flickered out.
And in that perfect dark, he heard the thing's voice—not with ears, but inside his head.
> "You watch us from afar, little hunter. Let us see how you run."
A low snarl followed, closer this time. Too close.
Rafa grabbed his knife and backed toward the emergency stairwell, blood roaring in his ears. Every shadow seemed to move.
He kicked the door open—and froze again.
Down the stairwell, dozens of small eyes blinked up at him from the dark, glimmering green.
The hunt had already begun.
The stairwell roared to life.
Green eyes flashed in the dark—dozens of them—rushing upward with a skittering sound that echoed off concrete.
Rafa fired down the steps, each suppressed shot cracking like a heartbeat. One, two, three—heads burst in sparks of light, bodies folding into ash.
Still they came.
He dropped a flash grenade, turned his face, and pulled the pin.
White light swallowed the stairwell, followed by a single deafening bang. When his hearing returned, the only sound left was hissing—high-pitched and furious.
He leapt down three steps at a time, grabbed the railing, swung around the landing, and kept moving. His muscles burned, lungs on fire, but his mind stayed sharp, calculating every shot, every turn.
> "Control the angles. Don't let them circle you."
Two of the creatures pounced from the side corridor. He rolled beneath them, fired point blank, and kept running.
A smaller one lunged—he caught it midair, twisted, and slammed it against the wall. The creature dissolved into glowing dust that clung to his sleeves like fireflies.
Then the air went cold.
The others stopped.
Rafa froze mid-step.
From below, heavy footsteps echoed. Slow. Measured. Confident.
The Alpha was coming.
It emerged into view—a towering shape, armored in green-black chitin, its eyes burning with cunning. The smaller creatures backed away, forming a circle. The Alpha carried a spear made of fused bone and metal, faint light pulsing along its edge.
Rafa raised his rifle.
The Alpha tilted its head.
> "Human. Persistent."
The words weren't spoken—they bloomed directly in Rafa's mind.
> "You're talking now?" Rafa muttered. "Great."
The Alpha lunged.
He dodged, fired, missed. The spear grazed his side—hot pain slicing through him. He ducked, smashed the butt of his rifle into the creature's jaw, and fired again, point-blank.
The bullet hit its shoulder, tearing through. The Alpha staggered but didn't fall.
Instead, it smiled—too human, too wrong.
> "You fight to live. We fight to return."
It swung. The spear cracked the wall, sending shards flying. Rafa ducked under and drove his knife into the creature's side. It howled, grabbed him by the throat, and hurled him down the stairs.
He hit hard. Vision blurred. Blood in his mouth.
The Alpha leapt after him—but as it landed, the air split apart beneath them.
A portal bloomed—uncontrolled, wild, the same green-black shimmer Victor had seen hours before. It tore through the floor like a living wound.
Rafa tried to push away, but gravity twisted sideways. The Alpha reached for him, snarling, and the world bent around them.
The last thing Rafa saw was the city fragmenting above—lights stretching into infinity—before both of them fell into the rift.