Darkness pressed on all sides.
Heavy.
Crushing.
Cold.
Clara gasped, and pain lanced up her ribs like a knife. Something warm slid down her side — blood. She tried to move her left leg but felt nothing except numb weight.
Trapped.
The hotel had collapsed in seconds, folding like paper as the nuclear shockwave slammed through the city. The roar had been deafening. Now there was nothing but silence… and her ragged breathing.
Dust filled her throat. A slab of concrete pinned her torso, another pressed against her thigh. Wooden beams and shattered glass dug into her arms.
Every breath was agony.
"…help…" she whispered.
The sound came out cracked, barely a breath.
No response.
She coughed, blood rising into her mouth. The copper taste made her grimace.
Her vision was blurred — not from dust, but from how close she was to unconsciousness. She forced a hand upward, fingers trembling as they scraped against rock.
Nothing budged.
She closed her eyes.
Is this it?
Her muscles trembled violently as the cold seeped into her bones. The world was fading around the edges. She had survived portals, monsters, chaos… only to die buried and alone.
She swallowed the rising panic.
No. Not like this…
She lifted her hand again, pushing the debris a millimeter.
Pain exploded up her arm.
She screamed — but the sound was swallowed by the rubble.
Her breath came in shallow gasps. Tears mixed with dirt on her cheeks.
Then, in the heavy silence — something moved.
A scrape.
A soft thump.
Something shifting above her.
Clara froze.
Not human… something crawling?
Her heart pounded painfully. She strained to listen. The sound came again — closer. Something sniffed the air. Something heavy dragging its claws across the debris.
Not rescue.
Not salvation.
Something hungry.
A shadow shifted over the cracks of light.
Clara held her breath, trembling.
Her vision dimmed as consciousness slipped away — but the last thing she saw was a long, thin limb reaching through the rubble toward her, fingers too many and too jointed.
Her mind screamed.
Her body couldn't move.
And darkness swallowed her whole.
Jackson & Rachael — The Rescue
Dust swirled in the fractured hole Jackson had blasted open. Lightning still crawled faintly across his forearms, flickering like veins of living electricity. Clara hung limp in his arms, her clothes shredded, skin pale beneath layers of dust and blood.
Rachael dropped to her knees beside them, placing two fingers on Clara's neck.
A faint pulse.
Rachael exhaled shakily. "She's alive… barely."
Her pupils shifted, dilating unnaturally as her sensing ability activated. Faint gold rings pulsed outward from her irises like sonar waves.
She jerked violently.
"Jackson—" her voice cracked, "we need to go. They're almost here."
Jackson didn't look back. He'd already felt the static build in the rubble behind them — the tremors of movement, the subtle rise of the air.
More mutated rats.
Bigger ones.
And not just rats.
He adjusted Clara in his arms. "Lead the way."
Rachael sprinted forward, boots slamming against cracked pavement. Jackson followed, lightning sparking with each step, Clara's limp hand dangling at his side.
They burst out of the ruined tower into the open city—
—and hell unfolded before them.
Buildings lay broken like snapped bones. Cars were overturned, smoking. Fires burned unchecked. Bodies — human and monster alike — lay scattered. The air was thick with ash, heat, and the copper smell of blood.
Screams echoed from somewhere distant.
Gunshots.
Something roaring.
Then silence.
"This isn't a city anymore," Rachael whispered, trembling. "It's a graveyard."
A distant shriek shattered the moment. Something massive screeched on metal legs, dragging itself across the ruins. Rachael's eyes widened as she scanned behind them—
"They're coming! Jackson, MOVE!"
They sprinted toward a half-crushed bus hidden beneath a collapsed overpass. Its windows were broken, metal dented, but the engine still ran with a low, coughing rumble.
Inside were terrified faces:
Children huddled together.
An elderly man clutching a bleeding arm.
A pregnant woman gasping in pain.
Two teens holding makeshift weapons.
A small, terrified voice gasped, "Ms. Rachael!"
Rachael forced a smile she didn't feel. "Everyone stay down! Jackson's got someone injured!"
Jackson hoisted Clara up the steps. A young boy helped pull her inside, tears streaking his dusty face.
As soon as Jackson stepped in, Rachael slammed the bus door shut and shouted to the driver:
"GO! NOW!"
The bus lurched forward just as a monstrous figure lunged out from the smoke behind them — a twisted rat-man hybrid with four arms and a jaw unhinged wide enough to swallow a torso.
It slammed into the bus's back panel with a deafening CRASH.
Children screamed.
Jackson turned, electricity flashing in his eyes.
But the creature didn't chase them.
It stopped.
Its head lifted.
Sniffing.
Watching.
Waiting.
The bus sped out of the ruined street as Rachael collapsed into a seat, trembling.
"We have to reach the safe zone," she whispered. "Before nightfall."
Jackson looked out the shattered window at the burning city behind them.
"Let's pray there is a safe zone left."
The camera pulls up—
Above the ruined city.
Above the smoke and flame.
Above the broken world.
Screams echo.
Sirens die.
Monsters swarm the streets.
And all of it…
…is only the beginning.
---meanwhile
Felicia — Dar es Salaam, Kinondoni (Makonde)
The world had gone quiet.
Where Makonde once throbbed with life — fishermen shouting at dawn, daladala horns, children laughing by the shore — there was only silence and the crackling of fire feeding on what remained.
The floods had swallowed the lower side near the ocean, swallowing boats, cars, and entire streets. The upper side burned like a funeral pyre. From the distance, waves slammed against blackened concrete, hissing like dying beasts.
And in the middle of all that ruin… she stood.
Felicia's hair, now streaked with shimmering embers, drifted behind her like a blazing veil. Her body still glowed faintly — molten gold beneath charred skin — the aftermath of her resurrection. Her clothes were nothing but ash, yet her form radiated a soft, supernatural heat. The Phoenix in her had fully awakened.
Her eyes lifted toward the smoky sky.
The blast was still ringing in her bones…
The screams… the fire… her own death…
And then the burning world pulling her back to life again.
Her breaths came in slow, deliberate waves — each exhale releasing sparks into the air.
Then the silence broke.
A low hum. A vibration in the air. The smell of ozone.
A portal ripped open in the burning horizon — not even a hundred meters away.
Its edges twisted like molten glass.
Its center pulsed like a heartbeat.
Felicia narrowed her eyes, wings of heat flickering briefly behind her back before vanishing.
"…Who sent you?" she whispered.
Shapes moved inside the portal — silhouettes shifting, crawling, dragging themselves through.
The flames around Felicia bent toward her, drawn to her rising power.
Her fingers clenched.
The air trembled.
Her anger boiled, mixing with the Phoenix fire coursing through her veins.
She stepped forward, barefoot on smoldering debris, and the ground glowed beneath her.
The first creature stepped out — its skin like tar, its ribs exposed, its eyes glowing sickly green. It screeched and charged.
Felicia exhaled once.
And the street ignited.
A plume of fire roared from her palm, engulfing the creature instantly, turning it to cinder before it hit the ground.
More shadows pressed against the portal's edge.
Felicia's expression hardened.
> "Let them come."
She spread her hands as swirling rings of fire rose around her, spiraling upward like a newborn sun.
> "I'm not dying twice."