The house was the only thing that truly mattered to Miles Halloway.
It was a sprawling, slightly creaky testament to late-90s suburban comfort. It smelled faintly of his mother's lavender potpourri and his father's old wood polish—the scent of safety. It was a Sanctum
At 2:45 PM on a Tuesday, Miles was fused into his ergonomic chair wearing an oversized grey hoodie emblazoned with the text "NO OVERTIME."
On his 55-inch Sony TV, the brutal animated series Pariah Nexus
"Don't just stand there, Danica! Move!" Miles muttered, spraying crumbs of Sour Cream & Onion potato chips onto his chest.
Suddenly, the Hum
On the screen, Sister Danica—the silver-clad warrior he'd grown strangely attached to—collapsed against a ruined wall. From the emerald shadows, the skeletal form of a Necron Deathmark emerged, raising its lethal rifle.
"No—" Miles reached out instinctively, his chip-dusted fingers brushing the cool glass of the screen.
In that microsecond, the Hum reached a crescendo—a deafening white noise.
It was a zero-sum trade. As Miles was yanked forward into the screen, a heavy, blood-slicked weight crashed through from the other side, brushing past him in the gray void.
The rift slammed shut.
Miles Halloway didn't hit his plush living room carpet. He hit dirt. Freezing, ash-choked dirt. The air was thin and bit at the exposed skin of his ankles above his
He gasped, rolling onto his back, clutching the bag of potato chips to his chest. Above him, the sky was a bruised, sickly purple, dominated by the hulking, green-lit silhouettes of Necron tomb-ships.
"What... where am I?" Miles wheezed, his heart hammering. "The TV... did it explode?"
He scrambled backward, his heart hammering. Twenty feet away, huddled in the lee of a bombed-out wall, was a group of survivors. A priest in tattered robes clutched a brass eagle emblem, his eyes bloodshot. Clinging to his legs were three children—bundles of rags and hollow-eyed trauma.
They were staring right at Miles.
"Are you..." the priest's voice was a dry rasp. "Are you His angel?"
Miles looked down at his chip bag, then at his ducky slippers. He was shaking so hard he could barely stay upright. "I... I think I'm in the wrong place. Is this... is this a film set?"
He awkwardly held out the bag toward the starving group. "Chip? They're, uh... sour cream."
The priest didn't move. He simply whispered, "The Saint is gone. The darkness has taken her. And now... it sends us this?"
"Gone?" Miles looked around frantically. "She was right there. I saw her. I reached for her and then... everything went gray."
Before he could process the nightmare, the Hum in the back of his head stopped. The silence was worse than the noise.
Fifty yards away, atop a jagged gothic arch, a green light flickered to life. A Deathmark had shifted into reality.
"Oh, no," Miles whispered. "This isn't a film set."