Maya's POV
Nine minutes to prepare for monsters.
I'd survived terrible bosses, impossible deadlines, and raising a teenager on minimum wage. But nothing—absolutely nothing—had prepared me for this.
"Barricade the entrance!" I shouted, my Strategic Vision lighting up the garage in overlays of tactical data. "Use the heavy beams! Marcus, Tom—move that concrete slab! Derek, get everyone to the back corner!"
The screaming outside had stopped. Worse than screaming was the silence that followed.
Then came the sounds. Scraping. Clicking. Like enormous insects dragging themselves across concrete.
[CRIMSON RAVAGERS DETECTED. DISTANCE: 0.2 KILOMETERS. WARNING: THESE CREATURES HUNT IN PACKS AND CONSUME LIVING FLESH.]
"They eat people?" Sarah's voice cracked.
"They won't eat us." I grabbed a metal pipe, testing its weight. My hands shook but my voice stayed steady. "Because we're not going to let them in."
The garage entrance was our weakness—too wide, impossible to fully seal. But my Strategic Vision showed me angles, pressure points, ways to funnel attackers into kill zones.
"Lisa, James—pile debris here and here." I pointed at chokepoints. "If they get through, they have to come single file. Sarah, find anything sharp. We fight if we have to."
Derek handed me a rusted machete someone had found. "Maya, I'm scared."
"Me too." I squeezed his shoulder. "But we're Chen's. We don't quit."
The first Ravager appeared at the entrance.
It looked like someone had taken a wolf, a scorpion, and a nightmare, then mashed them together into something that shouldn't exist. Eight feet long, covered in red chitinous plates, with a tail that ended in a bone spike dripping venom.
Its eyes glowed the same crimson as the sky.
It saw us and screamed—a sound like metal tearing.
Then it charged.
"NOW!" I yelled.
Tom and Marcus shoved the concrete slab. It crashed down, partially blocking the entrance. The Ravager slammed into it, screeching fury, claws scraping for purchase.
Two more appeared behind it.
"Hold the barricade!" My mind raced through options. We couldn't fight three of these things. Couldn't outrun them. But maybe—
My Strategic Vision flared, showing me the garage's structural damage. The weakened support columns I'd noted earlier. And a crazy, desperate plan.
"Everyone get back! Way back!"
I grabbed the crowbar and ran to the nearest damaged column. Started prying at the supports.
"Maya, what are you doing?" Derek screamed.
"Bringing the house down!"
The Ravagers broke through the barricade. All three poured in, moving like liquid death.
I hit the support column with everything I had. Once. Twice. The metal shrieked.
The creatures were twenty feet away. Fifteen. Ten.
The column gave.
The entire entrance section of the upper level collapsed in a roar of concrete and twisted metal. Dust exploded through the garage. I couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't hear anything but destruction.
When the dust cleared, the entrance was completely sealed. Tons of rubble created a wall between us and the monsters outside.
We could hear them on the other side. Scratching. Probing. Furious.
But we were alive.
"You're insane," Lisa breathed.
Maybe. But we'd survived.
The Ravagers eventually left, finding easier prey. We huddled in the sealed garage, listening to screams echo through the Wastes. Other survivors. Other settlements that weren't as lucky.
[MONSTER WAVE COMPLETE. CASUALTIES PREVENTED: 7. SURVIVAL RATING: EXCEPTIONAL.]
Then the sky changed.
The red deepened to burgundy. The air pressure dropped so fast my ears popped. And on the horizon, the wall of black clouds I'd tried not to think about suddenly surged forward, moving impossibly fast.
[WARNING: TYPHOON "THE DEVOURER" ARRIVING IN 3 MINUTES. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER.]
"We're already in shelter!" Derek shouted at the system.
The typhoon didn't care.
It hit like the hand of an angry god.
Wind screamed through every crack in our walls, so loud I couldn't hear myself think. The rain didn't fall—it attacked, each drop burning like acid where it touched exposed skin. Lightning cracked with colors that shouldn't exist, purple and green and sickly yellow, exploding buildings like bombs.
Our shelter groaned. Metal shrieked. Concrete cracked.
"The west wall!" Marcus pointed at a section that was bowing inward, ready to fail.
My Strategic Vision showed me exactly how many seconds we had before collapse: forty-three.
"Brace it! Use the beams we saved!"
We threw ourselves at the weakening wall, jamming support beams against it, our combined weight the only thing stopping the typhoon from ripping us apart. My muscles screamed. My hands bled. But I didn't let go.
Sarah started sliding toward a gap in the wall, sucked by the wind.
I grabbed her jacket with one hand, holding the support beam with the other. "I've got you!"
Twelve hours. The storm raged for twelve hours.
We took turns bracing walls, plugging leaks, keeping each other awake because sleeping meant dying. Derek and I worked side by side, not speaking, just surviving like we'd always done.
Somewhere around hour eight, he looked at me with exhausted eyes. "We should be dead."
"We're not dead. We're Chen's. We survive."
When the typhoon finally passed, the silence was deafening.
[MISSION COMPLETE: SURVIVE THE DEVOURER. CASUALTIES: 0. REWARD: ADVANCED CONSTRUCTION BLUEPRINTS UNLOCKED. NEW MISSION: ESTABLISH PERMANENT KINGDOM.]
We'd done it. All seven of us, alive.
Over the next week, Haven's Edge transformed.
Word spread about the settlement where everyone survived the first typhoon. Survivors trickled in—desperate, starving, hopeful. Maya's shelter became Maya's kingdom.
I organized everything like I used to organize marketing campaigns. Resource teams scavenged in shifts. Defense rotations kept us safe. We built walls. Storage. A medical area where Lisa, who'd been a nurse before, treated injuries.
By day seven, twenty-three people called Haven's Edge home.
But I'd started hearing whispers. Stories that made my blood run cold.
About kingdoms in the Wastes. Powerful ones. Ruthless leaders who'd conquered entire territories. And one name kept appearing, spoken in fearful whispers:
Kaden Cross. The King of the North. A man who'd survived ninety days alone and built an empire on the bones of his enemies.
"Stay away from the Northern Kingdom," an old trader warned me during a supply exchange. "Kaden Cross doesn't share territory. He takes it."
"Let him try," I'd said, with more confidence than I felt.
I should have been more afraid.
That night, I stood watch on our walls, staring at the crimson sky. Derek joined me.
"We did good, didn't we?" he asked quietly.
"We did great." I meant it. Seven days ago, we were nobody. Now we had a home. A purpose.
Derek hesitated. "Maya... what if we can't hold this? What if someone stronger comes?"
"Then we fight."
"And if we lose?"
I looked at my brother—the kid I'd raised, the person I'd sacrifice everything for. "We don't lose. We can't afford to."
But even as I said it, something cold settled in my stomach. A premonition.
The Crimson Wastes had taught me one truth: safety was an illusion. And power was the only real currency.
I just didn't know how expensive that lesson was about to become.
The next morning, fifty armed raiders appeared at our gates.
And the woman leading them was smiling like she'd been waiting for this moment all week.