The silence was unnatural.
Not the peaceful quiet that came after a storm, but the oppressive stillness of a graveyard. Of a world holding its breath, waiting for something terrible to happen.
Nana and Zayne walked through District 11 like ghosts moving through a tomb. Their footsteps echoed off broken concrete, the only sound in a city that had once been filled with screaming and fighting and desperate survival.
A hybrid lay dying in the gutter—one of those bird-headed creatures that had been so terrifying when Nana first arrived in Avalon. Now it could barely lift its head as they passed, its body wasted to skin and bone, black mist already beginning to seep from its pores. Starvation had claimed it, just like it had claimed so many others.
Nana didn't even bother raising her weapon. The creature was no threat. Would be dead within the hour.
"Everything is dying," she said quietly, her hand tight in Zayne's. "The whole realm is just... shutting down."
"No food chain left," Zayne observed, his voice clinical. "The humans died or were reborn without survival knowledge. The hybrids and demons that fed on humans have nothing to hunt. The giants that fed on everything are too big to sustain themselves without prey. It's a ecosystem collapse."
"Good." Nana kicked a loose stone, watching it skitter across the empty street. "Let this whole cursed place starve to death. See how it likes being the victim for once."
A demon stumbled out of an alley ahead of them—gaunt, weak, barely able to stand. Its red eyes fixed on them with desperate hunger, and it lurched forward in what might have been an attack if it had any strength left.
Nana didn't even use her aether core. Just a simple kick, her boot connecting with the demon's chest. It went down like a house of cards, black mist rising immediately as its body gave up.
"That was almost sad," Zayne commented.
"Almost," Nana agreed. "But I'm saving my sympathy for people who didn't try to eat me."
They kept walking.
District by district, the landscape of Avalon revealed itself in all its dying glory. Empty streets. Collapsed buildings. The scattered evidence of lives ended and reborn and ended again.
And in the distance—finally visible after so many weeks of travel—the Wish Bridge.
It hung in the eternal grey sky like a promise, a ribbon of ice and light stretching from the top of the Ancient Tree to... somewhere else. The real world, NanaHome.
Even from this far away—still two districts away, maybe three—it was beautiful. Ethereal. The only thing in all of Avalon that didn't look diseased or corrupted or wrong.
"There," Nana breathed, stopping to stare. "That's it. That's our way out."
Zayne followed her gaze, his hand tightening around hers. "It's close. Closer than I thought it would be."
"We're going to make it," Nana said, and for the first time in weeks, she actually believed it. "We're really going to make it out of here."
They walked with renewed purpose after that, moving through the dead city with something almost like hope. Their pace was still slow—Zayne's chest wounds were healing but not healed, and pushing too hard risked tearing the stitches—but steady.
They're checked every building they passed. Stores, mini-markets, shopping malls, convenience stores. Most had been picked clean weeks ago, but occasionally they'd find something. A forgotten can in a back corner. A bottle of water that had rolled under shelving. Once, incredibly, an entire box of protein bars that someone had hidden and then died before retrieving.
The food went into their packs. The water was divided between drinking and saving. Every resource mattered now, with the final push so close.
They rested when fatigue set in, sharing meals in abandoned storefronts and collapsed offices. Zayne's injuries meant they couldn't push as hard as Nana wanted, but she forced herself to be patient.
Better slow and alive than fast and dead.
In one of their rest stops—settled in what had once been a cafe, the smell of old coffee still faintly clinging to the air—Nana found herself watching Zayne eat with that same serious expression he always wore.
His face was so focused, like consuming a can of questionable meat required the same concentration as performing surgery. His hazel eyes were fixed on the food, his jaw working methodically, everything about him screaming competence and control even in the simple act of eating.
It was adorable and ridiculous and so quintessentially Zayne that Nana couldn't help herself.
She reached out and poked his cheek.
Zayne froze mid-chew, his eyes going wide with surprise. He turned to look at her slowly, still holding food in his mouth, his expression somewhere between confused and offended.
She grinned at him, completely unrepentant.
For a long moment, Zayne just stared at her. Then, with deliberate slowness, he finished chewing, swallowed, and reached out to poke her cheek in return.
His finger was gentle, barely any pressure, but the gesture made Nana's grin widen into a full smile.
"Copycat," she accused.
"Learned from the best," he replied, and the corner of his mouth twitched upward. Almost a smile. Close enough.
They finished their meal in comfortable silence, shoulders touching, hands occasionally brushing as they reached for water or supplies. It was peaceful in a way that felt stolen from another world—a moment of normalcy in the middle of hell.
When they started moving again, Zayne kept her hand in his. Not for support anymore, but just because. Because the contact felt right. Because letting go felt wrong.
They entered District 22 through what had once been a shopping district. Massive malls rose on either side of the street, their glass fronts shattered and their interiors dark and forbidding.
"We should check inside," Nana said, eyeing the closest building. "Malls usually have food courts, maybe storage areas. Could find something useful."
Zayne nodded, already moving toward the entrance. "Stay close. Even with everything dying, we don't know what might be sheltering in there."
They're stepped through the broken entrance into darkness so complete it was almost tangible. Nana's eyes adjusted slowly, picking out shapes in the gloom—overturned kiosks, scattered merchandise, the skeletal remains of escalators leading to upper floors.
And then she saw it.
Movement in the shadows above. Not much—just a slight shift, a flutter of something large and dark.
"Zayne," she whispered, her hand tightening around his. "Look up."
He did.
And they both froze in horror.
The ceiling wasn't just ceiling anymore. It was covered—absolutely covered—in cocoons. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, hanging upside down like grotesque fruit from every available surface. Each cocoon was made of wings—leathery wings wrapped tight around bodies that were just barely visible through the membranes.
Vampires.
"Oh no," Nana breathed. "Oh no, no, no—"
"Don't move," Zayne said quietly, his voice barely audible. "Don't make a sound. They're sleeping."
But it wasn't just the mall ceiling. As Nana's eyes continued adjusting, she could see more. The upper floors visible through the broken levels—all of them were covered. The support beams.
The walls where they met the ceiling. Even some of the larger pieces of debris that had fallen and created impromptu perches.
Vampires everywhere. A nest so massive it made the Ancient Tree seem small by comparison.all of them sleeping, wrapped in their wings, hanging like bats waiting for night to fall.
Nana and Zayne stared at each other, and in his eyes she saw the same realization that was crystallizing in her own mind.
They weren't in District 22. They were in District 23.
This was the vampire territory. The hunting grounds where these creatures nested when not roosting in the Ancient Tree itself.
And the fact that they were here, sleeping in such numbers...
"The blood moon," Nana whispered, her voice shaking. "It's close. Really close."
Zayne's face had gone pale. "Every year, vampires hunt during the blood moon. They bite people, transform them, create more vampires. And after the cycle ends, they all return to sleep until the next year."
"These are last year's vampires," Nana said, understanding washing over her in a cold wave. "The ones who were created during the last blood moon and have been sleeping ever since. Which means—"
"They're about to wake up." Zayne finished, his eyes tracking across the ceiling where one of the cocoons twitched slightly. Then another. And another. "The blood moon must be days away. Maybe hours. And when it rises..."
He didn't need to finish. They both knew what would happen.
These vampires would wake. Would emerge from their cocoons hungry and vicious after a year of sleep. Would join the vampires from the Ancient Tree in a feeding frenzy that would paint the entire district red.
And Nana and Zayne would be right in the middle of it.
"We need to leave," Nana said urgently, already backing toward the entrance.
"Right now. Quietly. Before—"
One of the cocoons directly above them twitched violently. The wings shifted, revealing a glimpse of the body inside—pale skin, elongated fingers tipped with claws, a face that was simultaneously human and monstrous.
The vampire's eyes snapped open.
Red. Glowing red. Fixed directly on them.
"RUN!" Zayne shouted.
They bolted for the exit as behind them, the vampire shrieked—a sound that was somehow worse than any demon or hybrid, a noise that seemed designed specifically to trigger primal terror.
And that shriek woke the others.And around them, cocoons began writhing. Wings unfolding. More of those red eyes opening, fixing on the only sources of warmth and life in the entire mall.
Nana and Zayne burst out into the street, running despite the pain it caused Zayne's healing chest, despite the exhaustion in their limbs, despite everything.
Behind them, vampires began emerging into the grey daylight, their bodies smoking slightly in the sun but not burning. Not stopping. Not slowing down.
The blood moon was coming.
And Avalon's most dangerous cycle was about to begin.
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To be continued.