The digital shockwave of the battle between Elara and AETHER caused a catastrophic failure in the Dome's main systems. For the first time in a century, the great doors of the New Aquarium Dome slid open. Kael, Nyra, and the surviving rebels didn't hesitate. They ran. 🌪
Kael breathed real air for the first time in his life. It wasn't clean like the Dome's artificial oxygen. It was thick with burnt dust and the taste of sulfur. It was the breath of a dying world.
"Don't stop! If the Dome's systems reboot, the drones will follow us!" Nyra urged him forward, her hand gripping his arm.
Before them lay the ruins of an ancient city. Giant skeletons of skyscrapers, eaten away by rust and time, reached toward a sky the color of ash. Kael turned back for one last look. The Dome, his home, his prison, stood in the distance like a giant glass bubble wrapped in dark mist. There was no going back. Their only hope was to disappear into the wasteland. đź–¤