Time lost meaning in the tunnels.
Nana didn't know if she'd been hiding for hours or days. The darkness was absolute, broken only by the faint glow of bioluminescent fungi growing on the walls—another one of Avalon's twisted impossibilities.
She should move. Should get up. Should do something.
But her body wouldn't cooperate. It sat there in the darkness, arms wrapped around knees, staring at the spot where Zayne had dissolved into mist.
The blade lay beside her. Still stained with his blood.
Her hands had stopped shaking eventually. That should have felt like progress, but instead it just felt numb. Empty. Like something essential had been carved out of her chest and all that remained was a hollow space where her heart used to be.
The sounds echoed through the tunnels—distant, but growing closer. Footsteps. Or maybe claws on concrete. Something alive and moving through the darkness.
Nana's hand moved automatically to her iron pipe. Muscle memory taking over when conscious thought failed.
The footsteps passed by overhead, never descending. Whatever it was hadn't noticed her. Or didn't care.
She sat there a moment longer, then forced herself to stand.
Her injured leg protested immediately, the makeshift bandage Zayne had wrapped already soaked through with blood. She needed to change it. Needed to clean the wound properly before infection set in.
The thought of Zayne's careful hands tending to her injury made something crack inside her chest. She gasped, one hand pressed to her sternum like she could physically hold herself together.
"together," she whispered to the darkness. "You don't get to fall apart. Not yet. Not until you find him."
Her voice sounded strange in the tunnel—too loud and too quiet at the same time. Like the darkness itself was absorbing the sound.
She forced herself to move. To explore the tunnel system, searching for supplies. The underground stations had been abandoned for who knew how long, but Avalon's twisted nature meant there might still be things left behind.
She found a vending machine in what had once been a platform waiting area. The glass was cracked but intact. Inside, rows of water bottles and packaged snacks sat untouched, preserved by the stale air and darkness.
She smashed the glass with her pipe and gathered what she could carry. The water was warm and tasted like plastic, but it was drinkable. The snacks were so stale they crumbled at her touch, but they were food.
She needed strength. Needed to survive.
Because she had to find Zayne.
In a bathroom with a miraculously still-functioning sink—the water ran rust-red for several seconds before clearing—Nana cleaned her leg wound. The gash was deep but clean, no signs of infection yet. She wrapped it with strips torn from a shirt she found abandoned in a corner, then allowed herself thirty seconds to sit and breathe through the pain.
Then she gathered her supplies, checked her weapons, and headed for the stairs.
It was time to see what was left of the world above.
The rain hit her the moment she emerged from the underground.
Not a gentle drizzle, but a downpour that felt like the sky itself was crying. Water poured from the grey clouds in sheets, washing away blood and debris and the evidence of last night's massacre.
Nana stood in the rain and tilted her face up, letting it mix with her tears until she couldn't tell which was which anymore.
The city was different now.
Where before there had been dying creatures and desperate survivors, now there was nothing.
The vampires had retreated to the Ancient Tree, wrapped themselves in their wings and settled in for another year of sleep. The demons and hybrids that hadn't been transformed were gone—killed or fled or dissolved into mist.
And the humans... the humans were just gone.
Nana walked through streets painted red with blood that the rain was slowly washing away. Her boots splashed through puddles that ran pink, leaving footprints that disappeared almost immediately in the downpour.
She walked for hours. Or maybe minutes. Time felt slippery, unreliable, like Avalon itself couldn't decide how fast or slow it should pass.
Eventually, she found herself sitting in the middle of an intersection. Rain pounding down around her, soaking through her clothes, turning her hair into a wet curtain that clung to her face and neck.
She didn't know where to go. Didn't know where to even start looking for Zayne in this nightmare.
The rebirth cycle would scatter souls randomly across districts. He could be anywhere. In any of the twenty-three districts that made up Avalon's twisted geography. And he'd wake up with no memories, no understanding of where he was or how to survive.
How was she supposed to find one person in all of this?
The impossibility of it pressed down on her like a physical weight. Too heavy. Too much.
She was just one person with limited supplies and a body that was already breaking down from stress and injury.
She should give up. Should just let Avalon take her. Die and be reborn without memories, without the crushing weight of loving someone across lifetimes and watching them die over and over.
It would be easier.
"No" The word came out rough, barely audible over the rain. "No. I don't get to give up."
Because if she gave up, Zayne would die. Would be killed by some monster or another survivor or starvation or one of a thousand other horrible things. Would die and be reborn and die again, trapped in a cycle that would continue until he went mad from the repetition even without remembering it.
She'd promised to find him. To bring him home.
And she kept her promises.
Even when they seemed impossible.
Even when every part of her wanted to just stop fighting and let the darkness win.
She pushed herself to her feet, swaying slightly as her injured leg protested. She picked up her iron pipe, checked that her remaining supplies were secure, and started walking.
She didn't have a destination. Not really. But movement was better than sitting still. Action was better than despair.
She'd cover the districts systematically. Start close and work her way out. Look for signs of recent rebirth—confused people who didn't understand where they were or what was happening.
And when she found Zayne—because she would find him, she had to believe that—she'd protect him. Keep him alive. Help him survive until next year's blood moon when they could try the Wish Bridge again.
Together. Both of them walking through that portal or neither of them would.
A sound cut through the rain—distant but unmistakable. Screaming.
Nana's head snapped up, eyes scanning the ruins. There—two blocks east, maybe three. Multiple voices, high and panicked.
Rebirth.
New souls dropping into Avalon with no memories and no understanding of the danger they were in.
Nana started running, ignoring the pain in her leg, ignoring the exhaustion dragging at her limbs. Because those screams could be anyone. Could be survivors from previous cycles. Could be newly reborn souls who'd died during last night's massacre.
Could be Zayne.
There,rounded a corner and nearly collided with a group of people—five of them, all young, all soaking wet from the rain and looking completely lost. Their clothes were generic, the kind that appeared on people when they were reborn in Avalon. Their faces showed nothing but confusion and terror.
"Please!" One of them—a woman with short dark hair—grabbed Nana's arm. "Please, where are we? What is this place? We were just—we don't remember—"
"Avalon," Nana said shortly, scanning their faces. None of them were Zayne. "You're in Avalon. A realm between life and death. And if you want to survive, you need to find shelter immediately."
"But we don't understand—"
"Then you die" Nana's voice was flat, clinical. "However you died before, it happened. And now you're here. Trapped until you can escape or until you die again and get reborn to repeat the cycle."
Their faces went white. One of them—a young man who couldn't have been more than twenty—started crying.
"I can't help you," Nana continued, already moving past them. "Find a building with multiple exits. Stay quiet. Don't attract attention. If you survive the first week, you might have a chance."
"Wait!" The woman called after her. "You can't just leave us! We don't know what to do!"
Nana stopped but didn't turn around.
"I have to find someone. Someone who needs me more than you do. I'm sorry."
It's cruel. She knew it was cruel. These people were terrified and lost and deserved help.
But she couldn't help everyone. Couldn't save them all.
She could only save Zayne. That was all she had left.
Nana kept walking, leaving the group behind. Their voices faded into the rain, pleas turning to arguments about what to do, where to go.
Most of them would be dead within days. That was just the reality of Avalon.
She found more groups as she moved through the districts. Rebirth was happening everywhere—souls dropping into the realm like rain, scattered randomly across the landscape. Some landed well, near shelter or supplies. Others appeared in the middle of dangerous areas, their screams cut short by whatever predator found them first.
Nanan checked every face. Every group. Every solitary figure she spotted in the distance.
None of them were Zayne.
By the time the rain finally stopped, leaving everything wet and steaming in Avalon's strange heat, Nana had covered three districts. Her leg was screaming, fresh blood seeping through the bandage. Her supplies were running low. Her body was demanding rest that she couldn't afford to give it.
But she kept moving.
Kept searching.
Kept hoping that the next face she saw would be his.
She found shelter as night began to fall—a partially collapsed office building with a corner office on the third floor that had walls intact enough to provide protection.
The window had shattered long ago, leaving an opening she could watch the street through.
Nana settled in, her back to the wall, her weapons within easy reach. She allowed herself one can of food and half a bottle of water. Rationing. Making what little she had last as long as possible.
As darkness fell completely, Nana stared out at the ruins of Avalon and thought about Zayne.
He was out there somewhere. Confused. Scared. Possibly injured. Definitely alone.
And she would find him.
Even if it took weeks. Even if it took months. Even if she had to search every single district, check every building, question every survivor.
She would find him.
Because the alternative—giving up, letting him face this alone, breaking her promise—was unthinkable.
Nana pulled out the hunter badge she'd kept through everything. The metal was tarnished now, scratched and dented from all it had been through. But the words were still visible:
CLASS S HUNTER—HUNTER ASSOCIATION—LINKON CITY.
She traced the letters with one finger, drawing strength from the reminder of who she'd been. Who she still was, underneath the trauma and grief.
She was a hunter. She protected people. Especially the people she loved.
And she loved Zayne. Across lifetimes and rebirths and six deaths that had carved themselves into his chest like tally marks in some cosmic ledger.
She loved him.
And she would find him.
"I'm coming," she whispered to the darkness. "Wherever you are, Zayne. I'm coming. Just hold on a little longer."
Outside, Avalon's twisted moon rose—not red anymore, but back to its usual sickly grey. The blood moon cycle had ended. The vampires slept. The realm had gone quiet again.
And somewhere in all that silence, a man with hazel eyes was waking up for the sixth time with no memory of the woman who refused to stop searching for him.
.
.
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To be continued.