Despite the mounting chaos beyond the hospital's walls, Rawiya Rashed remained unnervingly calm, her heartbeat controlled even as distant explosions thudded like war drums. At just twenty-six, the young nurse had already faced death in many forms, disease, trauma, grief, but nothing had prepared her for the shrieking void that tore open above Riyadh's skyline. The dimensional rift shimmered like torn glass in the heavens, a sickly purple gash that poured twisted creatures into the world below. The goblins had come first.
Small, fast, and vicious, they weren't just nuisances, they were predators. Child-sized in body but ancient in cruelty, they scurried through vents, ceilings, and broken walls, giggling in high-pitched chattering tones that echoed in Rawiya's bones.
She had been in the middle of administering a sedative to a six-year-old girl when the sirens howled, their wailing overlapping with the rising screams from the emergency wing. Most of the hospital staff had fled, but Rawiya stayed. Not because she was brave, but because she knew if she didn't, no one would protect the eighteen terminally and critically ill children who could barely lift their heads, let alone run. Drawing from her medical training and years growing up under the protective eye of a diplomat father, she moved with clinical precision. Within twenty minutes, she had sealed the pediatric ward.
Curtains closed, lights dimmed, the children sedated, monitored, and hidden. Every entrance was blocked with overturned furniture, gurneys, and anything heavy they could find. The remaining nurses and aides, twenty-four in total, were terrified, but Rawiya led them like a commander in warwhispers sharp, orders clear, no time for panic.
Then came the scratching.
It started as light taps in the ceiling, a skittering like rats—but far too deliberate. The goblins didn't barge through the door. They dripped through cracks in the tiles, claws and eyes first, their foul breath curling like ammonia in the air. Rawiya had never used a firearm until that night. But her father Caleb, always suspicious of foreign soil and hidden threats, had taken no chances with his daughter's safety. Every weapon he had smuggled into their estate Glock 19s, MP7s, even a compact Uzi had suppressors. It wasn't paranoia anymore; it was salvation.
When the first goblin dropped into the hallway outside the pediatric ward, Rawiya didn't flinch. She raised her suppressed Glock and pulled the trigger. The goblin's head jerked back with a wet hiss, and it collapsed. But more came, dozens, hunting in packs. Rawiya tossed a glance at one of the nurses cowering behind the reception desk. "Stay quiet. If they smell fear, they'll come faster."
She moved like a shadow through the hall, bullets hissing softly with every shot, her aim clean and deadly. When one of the goblins lunged from a vent and sank its jagged teeth into a medical aide's leg, Rawiya didn't hesitate she shot it off and carried the injured man herself, one arm firing, the other dragging him to safety.
Outside, the sky had turned black-red. A low rumble told her that a Gehenna wolf a dimensional predator the size of a lion with glowing red eyes was near. Ramiel's strike force had deployed in the city, but their presence was erratic. Inside the hospital, no military backup had come. She was the highest authority, the first and last line of defense.
By midnight, the entire west wing had been overrun. Goblins climbed on walls like insects, leaping across operating rooms and ripping IV bags apart for fun. Rawiya, along with three other aides she taught to reload, took turns guarding the hallway outside the pediatric ward. Every few minutes, they'd switch to prevent exhaustion. They had one hour of oxygen left for the sedated children if the power failed.
A heavy bang shook the hallway as something large slammed into the barricaded door.
Rawiya's grip tightened. "Not goblins," she muttered.
It wasn't. A goblin-chimera hybrid—a fusion creature that looked like three of them melted into one mass slammed its deformed body against the doors, screeching with hunger. The other aides panicked, but Rawiya threw her satchel to the floor, dug out a flash grenade Caleb had trained her to use, and waited. When the chimera breached the final lock, she yanked the pin and threw it with surgical precision into its open maw. The light exploded in a white-hot burst, and she followed it up with three suppressed rounds to its swollen head.
Boom. Collapse. Silence.
By 4 a.m., only five of the medical staff remained uninjured. Rawiya had lost two aides to surprise attacks and a third who tried to make a run for the emergency stairwell. She mourned each one silently while tending to the children. Blood stained her uniform, but her hands never shook.
At dawn, the rift above Riyadh began to close. Government drones broadcasted messages of relief containment achieved, reinforcements en route. But Rawiya didn't relax until the armored doors of the ward opened and Ramiel's soldiers stepped inside, sweeping their rifles through the corridor.
"Is everyone alive?" asked the squad leader.
Rawiya stood tall, her hair matted with sweat, one arm still wrapped in gauze from a goblin's scratch. "Eighteen children. Five staff. No one's touching them."
The soldier stared at her. "You're just a nurse?"
"I'm Rawiya Rashed," she said, finally allowing herself to breathe. "And this is my hospital."