KRRAAANG—!!
The rubble detonated.
Not burst—slammed outward, like the street had been struck from below by a wrecking ball. Concrete blocks the size of furniture were hurled into the air, spinning end over end before crashing back down with bone-shaking force.
BAAAM—!!
KRRRSH—!!
DOOOM—!!
The ground thundered. Shockwaves rippled through the asphalt, knocking people off their feet. Parked cars jumped—tires squealing, metal screaming as alarms wailed and died under the noise.
The store's remains collapsed inward all at once.
WHAAAM—!!
A load-bearing wall caved, smashing flat as if crushed by an invisible fist. Rebar shrieked—high, tearing, metallic—as it twisted and snapped like wire.
Chunks of concrete came down like artillery.
A slab clipped a streetlight halfway down the block—
KRRRAAASH—!!
The pole bent, lights bursting as it crashed onto the sidewalk.
Someone didn't move fast enough.
A man was thrown backward as debris slammed into the pavement where he'd been standing a heartbeat earlier. He hit the ground hard and didn't get back up.
Another figure vanished beneath a collapsing pile of brick and steel as the sidewalk caved with a deafening THUD.
People screamed—real screams now.
A woman was knocked off her feet as shattered glass and metal fragments tore through the air. She rolled, crawled, then froze as a concrete chunk smashed down inches from her head, cracking the street like brittle ice.
A car took a direct hit.
BOOOOM—!!
Its hood crumpled inward, frame collapsing as debris crushed it flat. The windshield exploded outward, alarms choking into static before dying completely.
Someone shouted for help.
Someone else shouted a name.
Both were swallowed by the noise.
Rian stumbled as the shockwave hit him again, feet skidding on loose gravel. Dust clogged his throat. His vision blurred as something heavy crashed down behind him with a sound that rattled his spine.
The rubble kept falling.
Not randomly.
Targetless—but relentless.
And beneath it all, beneath the chaos and the screams and the collapsing street, that other sound continued—
Deep.
Dragging.
Steady.
As if whatever was coming through didn't need to rush.
The rubble was gone.
Not scattered.
Not crushed smaller.
Gone.
Where the store had been was now a clean, circular void punched straight through the street. Asphalt ended abruptly, edges shaved smooth like they'd been erased rather than broken. Pipes hung severed in midair, still dripping. A street sign lay half-embedded at the rim, bent inward, pointing down.
Into nothing.
The sound came from there.
Not echoing—absorbed.
Dust didn't fall into the hole. It drifted near the edge, slowed, then slid sideways and vanished, pulled into a depth that refused to show how far it went. Light bent at the rim, dimming slightly, like the air had thickened into glass.
Something touched the edge.
Not gently.
The pavement groaned.
Concrete cracked outward in a spiderweb pattern as a shape pressed up from below. Then—
SCRRRRKK—
A claw hooked over the rim.
Long.
Too long.
Its surface was slick and dark, not wet but lightless, as if it absorbed what hit it. The talons dug in, carving deep furrows through asphalt like it was packed dirt. With a single pull, the claw dragged itself higher—
The street screamed.
A second claw followed, slamming down beside the first—
KRAAAM—!!
The impact shattered the rim completely. Asphalt chunks flew as the hole widened, the edge collapsing under a weight that hadn't fully arrived yet.
Then the arm emerged.
Thick. Corded. Jointed wrong—bending where it shouldn't, muscles shifting under a skin that looked stretched too tight over something not meant to fit reality's shape. Spines along its length scraped the concrete, producing a grinding shriek that made people clamp their hands over their ears.
The sound changed.
Not louder.
Closer.
Rian's stomach dropped.
The creature hauled itself upward in a single, brutal motion—
WHUUUM—
—and its upper body cleared the hole.
It was tall. Even hunched, it dwarfed the cars nearest the crater. Its back was ridged with jagged protrusions, rising and falling as it moved, each one catching the light and killing it. The torso twisted as it emerged, shoulders rotating independently, joints realigning with audible pops and wet, dragging noises.
Its tail lashed out last.
CRACK-
It whipped across the street, smashing a streetlight clean in half before coiling back around the hole, anchoring the thing in place.
For a moment—
It stayed there.
Crouched.
Balanced on claws and tail, head lowered, body rising and falling in a slow, deliberate rhythm.
The sound stopped.
And that—
That was worse.
Rian knew, with terrifying clarity, that it wasn't finished arriving.
It was listening.
The creature stayed crouched at the edge of the hole.
Listening.
Rian couldn't breathe.
Not because the air was gone—
because his body had forgotten how.
His hands were shaking. He didn't remember raising them, only noticed they were there when his fingers started to ache from how hard they were clenched. His heart hammered so violently it felt out of sync with the rest of him, like it was trying to escape his chest instead of pump blood.
This isn't—
His thoughts slid off themselves.
His eyes refused to look away.
Every part of him screamed that what he was seeing did not belong anywhere near a street he walked every day. Near the bus stop. Near the store. Near people.
Someone behind him screamed.
Rian flinched so hard his vision blurred.
The sound snapped the world back into motion—people running, tripping, shouting words that overlapped and collapsed into noise. Shoes slapped against pavement. Someone fell. Someone else didn't get back up.
Rian didn't move.
Not frozen.
Focused.
That pressure in his skull had sharpened, condensing into a single, unbearable point. His instincts weren't yelling anymore.
They were pleading.
The creature lifted its head.
Rian's breath caught painfully in his throat.
He couldn't describe its face—only that looking at it made his eyes sting, like staring at something too bright and too dark at the same time. Whatever passed for its gaze slid across the street, slow and deliberate.
When it crossed him—
His knees nearly buckled.
It wasn't looking at him.
It was looking through him.
Like he was a thin sheet of glass between it and something deeper.
Rian stumbled back a step.
Another.
His heel caught on loose debris and he windmilled, barely keeping his balance. His back hit the side of a parked car with a hollow THUD, pain blooming across his shoulder—but the pain grounded him.
Move.
Not a thought.
A command.
His body finally listened.
Rian turned—
And ran.
Behind him, the silence broke.
Not with a roar.
But with a low, dragging sound that crawled up his spine and into his bones—
SHRRRKK—
Something heavy shifted its weight.
The sound wasn't loud.
That was worse.
It carried through the street like a vibration instead of noise, a deep scrape followed by a wet, deliberate THUMP as something touched solid ground for the first time.
Rian didn't look back.
He didn't need to.
The pressure in his head spiked, sharp enough to blur his vision. Streetlights warped as he passed beneath them, their glow stretching, dimming, flickering out entirely one by one. His ears rang—not from volume, but from absence, like the world was holding its breath.
Another step behind him.
THUD.
The street dipped.
Not cracked—bowed, like the asphalt had gone soft for a heartbeat under the weight of it.
Something moved.
Not fast.
Not slow.
Certain.
A long limb unfolded from the edge of the hole, claws biting into the pavement with a dry, tearing scrape. The concrete peeled where they touched, grooves carved effortlessly as the arm pulled the rest of the mass forward.
Then another limb followed.
The creature hauled itself out in a single, powerful motion—its body rising fully into the street. Tall. Broad. Its silhouette swallowed what little light remained, jagged edges breaking the glow of distant windows. A long tail dragged behind it, carving a shallow line into the road with a
Steady SHRRRKK.
It straightened.
The ground answered with a low, protesting GROAN.
Its head tilted—not searching wildly, not confused. Just… orienting. As if it already knew where everything was.
Including him.
Rian slid behind the overturned delivery truck just as another scream cut off mid-breath.
He pressed himself into the shadow beneath the chassis, oil and grit soaking through his clothes, chest heaving as he forced his breathing down. The metal above him trembled—once, twice—then settled.
He didn't look at it.
Not yet.
Across the street, people were already running.
Not panicked confusion—recognition.
They fled in broken lines, tripping over each other, abandoning bags, shoes, sense. Someone screamed its shape rather than its name. Another slammed into a parked car and didn't get back up.
They were running from it.
The creature stood where the store had been, its silhouette unmistakable even through dust and distortion. Too tall. Too wrong. Claws resting against the ground like it owned the weight of the world.
Then—
SKRRRAAAAA—!!
The sound tore through the street.
Rian flinched.
His head snapped up before he could stop it.
The scream hadn't come from the creature.
He saw it clearly now—the creature's head angled slightly downward, body still, mouth closed. No tension in its jaw. No movement in its throat.
Yet the sound lingered, echoing off buildings, vibrating through metal and bone.
SKRRAAA—KRRRSH—
It came again.
Lower.
Closer.
From the hole.
Rian's breath caught as the darkness beneath the street shifted.
Something moved inside it—scraping, dragging, forcing space where space shouldn't exist. The air above the opening rippled, thickening as if pushed aside by an unseen mass.
Whatever had made that sound—
Was still coming through.
The creature didn't react to the sound.
It remained where it was, weight settled, claws planted, as if the scream belonged to something beneath its concern.
Then its head shifted.
Slow.
Measured.
Not toward the hole.
Not toward the people still fleeing at the edges of the street.
It turned just enough for the light to catch along the uneven planes of its face, dust sliding from its ridges as it adjusted—once, then again—like it was refining a signal.
Rian's breath stalled in his chest.
The pressure behind his eyes spiked, sharp and sudden, as if something had locked onto him.
The creature's gaze finished its turn.
Past the wrecked cars.
Past the shattered storefronts.
Stopping on the overturned delivery truck.
On the darkness beneath it.
On him.