I always imagined the world would end with fire from the sky, not a hand the size of a horse-drawn cart punching through my living room wall. Then again, imagination isn't what keeps you alive in the Dark Continent. Paranoia does. Paranoia and a thick skull—though not thick enough, as the groaning, splintering sound tells me just before an enormous finger, pale and perfectly manicured, rips the bark wall open like it's crusty bread.
The air turns yellow with dust and sap as I'm knocked flat on my ass, the table and everything on it bouncing and clattering.
Screams erupt from every crack and crawlspace in the massive deadwood tree we call our home. Not animal terror, but the harsh, resigned shriek that comes when your number finally comes up. It echoes from the upper levels, the old burrowers' tunnels, the children's crannies between root and pith. The sound booms in my skull, but it's nothing compared to the thunder outside.
She's close enough now that every syllable of her voice vibrates in my molars. "You can stop running, humans. There's nowhere left to hide." She enunciates humans with such dripping contempt it makes me want to fold myself in half and keep folding until there's nothing left.
As the walls crumble around me, I scramble for footing on the bark-studded floor. My name is Michael Roland, age eighteen and a half, and I'm in the middle of the biggest existential crisis of my short life. If anyone asks, I died bravely, standing up to the seventeen-meter-tall Demon noble as she tore my home from its foundation like a weed. In reality, my hands are shaking so bad I can't even get the latch off the panic hatch behind me.
Finally, I manage to open it: the emergency tunnel, the one none of us thought we'd ever have to use, the one drilled straight through the old rot to the surface. But somehow, I already know it's useless, she's already reached that side of the tree, her claws digging in with practiced ease. She's toying with us, savoring every moment.
There's a rhythm to the chaos: the drill of boots on the upper platforms, the whimper of a child muffled behind a false wall, the hasty slap of resin sealing a crack.
She finds the tunnel with her index finger, and with a single flick, half the wall caves in. Two people—neighbors I've known since birth—go tumbling out into her waiting palm. She brings them to her face, red eyes glinting with a sort of clinical amusement, and I get the sense she's already counting the calories.
"That's better," she purrs. "It's so much more…polite to cooperate, don't you agree?"
They squirm. She laughs, a sound that shakes loose another shower of debris onto my head. A pebble-sized chunk smacks me in the temple and suddenly, all the adrenaline drains out of me, replaced by a cold, perfect clarity. This is it. She's coming for me next.
I don't move. I can't. I watch as her hand, fingers long as scythes, plunges again through the splintered wall, groping blindly. It passes centimeters above my head, the smell of her skin—a strange mix of perfume and blood—choking the air. For a second, I lock eyes with her: not the whole of her, but just the bit visible through a fracture in the bark, her blood red pupil bigger than my whole fist.
She sees me. Oh, she absolutely sees me.
My feet root themselves to the floor, even as every rational neuron in my brain is screaming MOVE. Instead, I just stare, like a mouse hypnotized by a snake, as her lips curl into a smile. It's not cruel, exactly. More like…satisfied. Like she's checked another item off her list.
I hear the murmur of the old man in the prayer chamber, reciting the same half-mumbled chant he's been muttering every morning: "Protect us from evil, shield us from harm, let us sleep another night."
I want to scream at him that it's not working. I remember the morning routines—my mother scraping dew from the window moss to make our tea; the lookout squinting for movement through a crack no wider than a needle; my own job, sharpening what passes for a knife here, all the while wondering why it even matters. Why did any of it even matter? As humans living on the Demon-ruled Dark Continent, surrounded by beings who could crush our bodies with just a step, the day everything ends has always just been an inevitability.
The Demon noble's fist finally tears the rest of the wall free, and just like that, the sky opens. Or at least what passes for sky in this place: a swirl of heavy, iron-gray clouds lit only by the ceaseless flicker of purple lightning, the air thick with the electric tang of ozone and the stink of rotting leaves.
Now the entire enclave is exposed, dozens of us crammed in what used to be the core of the world's biggest dead oak. We're ants, and she is the boot.
She leans in, her face filling the whole view. Even at this distance, her features are freakishly sharp: the triangular jaw, the ears hung with gold and garnet, the obsidian horns slicked down with oils. Her eyes are mesmerizing and horrifying all at once, the pupils ringed with faint silver like the edge of a knife. She didn't look that different from a human, if you disregard the horns and tail. Just ten times bigger and with an ego to match.
My knees go. I crumple behind a sliver of furniture, heart hammering, thinking if I just shrink small enough maybe she'll miss me after all.
She doesn't. "Come out already. Let's not make this unpleasant," she coos.
My eyes are locked on the giantess. I think of the years spent wedged in this tomb, learning to blend into the woodwork, to listen more than speak, to wish for nothing but one more day. Didn't we suffer enough hardship?
Apparently not.
I try to stand and my legs betray me, buckling so hard I bash my chin on the floor. Stifling a giggle, she raises one perfectly arched eyebrow and extends her hand, palm open, like she's offering me a ride.
Behind me, the few survivors scuttle deeper into the tunnels, but with all our escape routes collapsed I can tell that they'll be flushed out in seconds. The Demon noble's attention is absolute, and her reach is endless.
With no feasible path out, I stumble forward, each step measured and slow, and look up at her. She looks down at me, and for a second, I can almost pretend she's just curious, that she means no harm.
She tilts her head, white hair falling in a perfect wave. "You'll do nicely," she says, and then her hand closes around me, unbreakable as iron.
The grip should have broken every bone in my chest, but instead, the Demon noble just holds me suspended, squeezing just enough that I can't wriggle free, but not enough to pop me like a berry. The sap and dust sting my eyes, but all I can do is dangle, arms pinned at my sides, as she holds me up for inspection.
"Pathetic little thing, aren't you?" she mocks. The hand tightens around me, and I gag as she lifts me higher—out and up, through the shredded wall and into the sky. The temperature drops immediately, the sulfur fog rolling over my skin in sick, clammy waves. For one surreal moment, I see the world as she does: the deadwood forests stretching to the horizon, the Demon city's battlements outlined against a black sky, even the distant glow of another noble's pyre-lit mansion. I am so far from the ground it makes my knees quiver all over again.
Beneath me, the world is nothing but splinters and panic. What was once our fortress is now a bleeding wound in the soil, the old oak cracked down the heart and spilling terrified humans onto the poisoned earth. The first to hit the ground scatter into the fog, arms pumping, faces wild, only to be mercilessly stomped to paste by the line of Demon maids standing by just beyond the vision line.
Seeing this, the others stop trying to resist. They just kneel, eyes closed, hands folded. Some pray. Some cry.
The Demoness leans in, bringing my body level with her lips. Her breath is a furnace: I feel every exhale ruffle my hair, dry my eyes. Her tongue darts out, sharp and pink, to wet her lips, and I almost faint at the idea she might just eat me whole.
She gives me a gentle shake, like she's testing to see if I'll rattle, then raises her other hand and makes a flicking motion.
In a heartbeat, the Demon maids converge. They grab everyone—my friends, neighbors, family members—and begin sorting them into large ornate boxes. Whether they were going to be sold as slaves or snacks is anybody's guess.
The giantess holding me starts walking, each footfall shaking my skeleton. The city looms ahead: a mass of black stone and burning glass, towers like broken teeth, windows flashing with Demon fire. I never imagined I'd see it up close, but I never wished to either.
The further we get from the dead tree, the less I care about what's behind me. It's already a ruin. The only thing that matters now is the burning sensation in my lungs, the way my head swims with every breath. My body trembles, but not from cold. It's just the realization: I have nothing left. Not a home, not a community, not even an identity. I'm just another ornament for the monstrous woman's collection.
I close my eyes, wishing for oblivion, but the warmth of her hand and the incessant clicking of her heels keep me painfully awake.
And as her shadow stretches out before us, leading the way to an enormous mansion on the hill, I realize this isn't the end at all.
It's only the beginning.