Late afternoon. Week seventeen.
Kiran woke up to the groan of pipes in the walls and a leaky radiator dripping in time with the neon buzz outside. The air in the flat was stale—warm with dust and oil. His back ached from the old, cheap mattress he'd slept on.
He got up. Did pullups on the doorframe. Ate one protein bar—half stale. No time to complain.
He left before sunrise. The streets were still damp from morning dew. The public train barely slowed down long enough to let him on. Packed cars.
School began with Mutation Theory. Then Rift History. By the time lunch rolled around, his head was pounding.
No one said anything to him. They hadn't for weeks. If he vanished tomorrow, only the attendance bot would notice. And maybe Velora. Maybe.
But Kiran had started to feel good about his place; he was improving steadily, keeping his scores up, and felt like he would awaken soon. For the first time in a long time, he was content.
At lunch, he sat in the back corner. Same spot as always. He watched students from the higher blocks spar across the courtyard, powers flashing. Bloodlines showing off. A gust of wind lifted one girl into the air. Another split a stone tile with a stomp. They laughed. Their instructors laughed with them.
He sat alone. Ate cold rice from a reused meal tub.
After Physical Dynamics ended, he could barely lift his arms. His legs were cramping. He'd overdone it that morning.
Then it happened...
THOOM.
The world shook.
It felt like the sky cracked sideways. A wave of air pressure slammed into the compound. Windows shook. Distant screams rang out before they were drowned by sirens.
Kiran stumbled back, caught himself on a rail. He turned.
The sky over the north block shimmered violet. Fractured. Glassy. And wrong.
His wristband buzzed.
___________________________
BREACH DETECTED
Tier: Unknown
Proximity: 0.1 km
Zone: 4C
___________________________
Students screamed. Some dropped to the ground. Others ignited, shifted, morphed—powers flaring without instruction. Mutations reacting on instinct.
Teachers bellowed. The suppression barrier kicking in late. Red lights pulsed across the outer edges of the field.
Kiran moved.
He didn't think. Just ran.
No power. No protection. No squad.
He knew the maintenance path behind the gym—narrow, rarely used. It might be clear.
He ducked past a barrier-wielding student, jumped a crate, and hit the side alley at full sprint. His chest burned. His vision blurred.
Then—
Behind him: a scream. A real one.
Not fear. Agony.
He turned. Just a glimpse.
Two demon beasts had slipped through the breach—one sleek and lizard-like, the other thick and plated, jaws like hooked blades. A student shouted and lunged forward, lightning bursting from his fingertips—crackling, wild. For a second, it looked like he might hold it back. But the plated beast was faster. It barreled through the bolt, its hide barely scorched, and smashed into the student with sickening force.
His body crumpled against the wall—shredded by the impact.
There was no scream. Just a wet, final sound.
The others froze.
But the beasts kept moving.
The plated one sniffed the air.
And locked eyes with Kiran.
Its legs tensed.
It charged.
He had no time to process what he just witnessed. If he didn't move now, he'd be next.
He ran like instinct had hijacked his body. Nearly rolling his ankle, but still going. Somewhere to the left, another explosion cracked the air like thunder.
Then: a burst of red light.
"DOWN!"
A girl slammed into the scene like a comet. Plasma arced off her fists as she collided with the beast. It screamed. She followed through with a wide blast that scorched the street.
She didn't even look at Kiran. Just shouted:
"Move!"
He did.
He found a trench. Pulled the hatch. Slipped in.
It was narrow. Wet. Stinking of mildew.
But it was safer than above.
He dropped to his knees. Tried to slow his breathing.
He couldn't.
His hands shook. Every limb trembled. His stomach twisted with nausea.
The beast's roar echoed in his skull.
He'd seen footage before—training videos, simulations. It wasn't like that. It wasn't like anything.
The image wouldn't leave him—his classmate's body crumpling like paper against the wall, bones snapping like dry branches, the sickening squelch of flesh torn apart. It looped in his mind, merciless and vivid, louder than the screams that followed.
He wasn't strong. He wasn't special. He'd been lucky to survive.
But luck doesn't last.
They were still out there.
The rift hadn't closed yet.
Somewhere above, gravel scraped. Something sniffed the air.
Kiran could hear the steady drag of clawed feet on concrete, slow and deliberate, like it was tracking a scent—his scent.
He knew that if he stayed, he'd be cornered. Trapped. Found.
His fingers clenched into dirt. His shoulders tensed.
Kiran Ren, last of a dead world, pitied by the gods—
—staring down the same end, in a different hell.
Will he rise, broken and defiant, willing to fight for another breath—or has fear sunk its fangs too deep, holding him in the dark, waiting for the nightmare to finish what the gods began?