They emerged from the storm drain just before dawn.
Edenridge was not awake.
It was bleeding.
Black smoke curled from the industrial district to the west. Sirens screamed in the distance, too late, too thin, already breaking apart. Helicopters chopped across the sky—military. That fast.
Kieran kept low as he guided the girl through side streets.
She hadn't spoken a word since the Gate opened.
Good.
She was learning.
You didn't talk during a hunt. You didn't make noise. You didn't look back.
Looking back got people killed.
The alleys were empty, but not quiet. There was always sound in a city. But this sound had teeth. Glass crunching under claws. Metal groaning. Something wet dragging across asphalt.
And there it was—the scent.
Not smoke.
Not blood.
It was wrong. The kind of scent your brain couldn't register. Like breathing in fear itself.
He pushed her into a narrow gap between two storage sheds, then raised a hand.
Stop.
A silhouette passed in front of them.
Tall.
Thin.
It walked on two legs, but not well. Its limbs were too long. Joints too sharp. Its skin shimmered in patches like tar with veins of fire trapped inside.
The girl covered her mouth, eyes wide.
Kieran didn't move.
The creature tilted its head, sniffed the air, and then moved on.
He waited ten full seconds after it disappeared before exhaling.
That wasn't an Aberrant.
That was a Feeder.
The first of them.
Class-2.
That meant it had already devoured someone.
He felt the familiar flicker of something ancient stir in his gut—anger, maybe. No. Cold certainty. The world was tipping again. And only those ready to climb the bodies would stand on top when it stopped shaking.
He turned to her. "What's your name?"
She blinked, stunned. Then: "...Mira."
"Good. Stay here, Mira. Don't make a sound."
"What are you going to do?"
He didn't answer.
He tracked it for twenty minutes.
It moved erratically, stopping to sniff gutters, pawing at dumpsters, licking dried blood from the pavement. Its posture was hunched, spasming now and then like it was glitching inside its own skin.
Kieran followed in silence.
Every step calculated. Every breath measured.
He remembered how it went the first time.
How the Feeders had overwhelmed the city within days.
How humanity's bravado collapsed when bullets stopped working.
How the real survivors weren't the ones with the biggest guns—but the ones with the right instincts.
The ones who knew when to run.
And when to strike.
It paused in front of a deli window.
Kieran struck.
No sound. Just motion.
His knife slid between the vertebrae at the base of its neck. The thing shrieked—a horrible static wail—and flailed, but he was already behind it, blade jerking sideways through tendon and nerve.
It dropped.
He drove the knife into its back three more times for good measure.
Then he stepped away and watched.
Waited.
And there it was.
The body twitched once, then stilled. A pale, glowing symbol rose from its chest—thin and flat like a shard of glass, floating just above the skin. Letters spiraled across it in a script not meant for human eyes.
A Card.
Tier 1.
Unbound.
Kieran reached out and let it drift toward his palm.
It felt like ice at first—then flame. Then… understanding.
[Card Acquired: Predatory Instinct (Passive)]You feel them before they see you.
His vision blurred, then cleared. The city around him seemed sharper. More alive. More alert. He could feel every twitch of movement in the alley. Every tremor of motion from the buildings above. As if the world itself had opened its eyes alongside him.
His first kill in this timeline.
The beginning.
He smiled. Not because he wanted to.
But because it had started.
And he was finally ahead.
He returned to Mira an hour later.
She was right where he left her, knees pulled to her chest, staring at nothing.
He dropped a backpack in front of her. Water. Energy bars. A flashlight. A spare coat.
"You'll be safer if you stick with me."
She looked up. "Why?"
Kieran looked past her, toward the skyline, where another Gate had begun to form like a second sun.
"Because this isn't the end," he said quietly.
"It's the beginning of the end."