Kaai's eyes tore open.
The darkness wasn't gone — it had simply condensed, drawn tight around the edges of reality until the air itself shuddered beneath its weight. His breath caught as movement carved through the gloom: a streak of silver, a hiss of steel, the crack of stone.
The girl was already fighting.
She moved with impossible grace, weaving through a storm of limbs that split the shadows like whips. Her feet struck the floor with soundless precision, her sword a ribbon of argent flame cutting arcs through the air. Every motion was a defiance — sharp, deliberate, beautiful — a single point of light against the nightmare.
And the thing she fought was wrong.
It crawled from the fissure in the wall like a living wound, dragging itself forward on limbs too long, too thin. Black cloth clung to its body like skin, soaked through with ichor that shimmered where light dared touch it. Its ribs gaped open — an obscene cage of bone that pulsed like something still remembering how to breathe.
But its face…
Its face was heartbreakingly human.
Smooth, unblemished, almost angelic — eyes veiled beneath strips of wet fabric, lips pale and still. Beauty grafted onto rot, serenity masking decay. The contrast made Kaai's stomach turn.
The girl slid under a sweeping arm, vaulted from a fallen beam, and brought her sword down in a flash of blinding silver. The creature shrieked a sound like metal grinding on bone and the world shook. Ichor sprayed in ribbons, evaporating before it touched the ground.
Kaai forced himself upright, knees buckling. His chest ached — not from exertion, but from something inside, a pulse beneath his ribs that burned hotter with every heartbeat. It was steady, unnatural, like a drum calling him back from the edge of something vast.
He gritted his teeth, fumbling for his rifle. The air hummed, thick with heat and shadow. The creature's limbs retracted, then lashed out again, smashing into concrete pillars that cracked like old teeth. The girl barely rolled clear, landing low, sword poised — but he could see her trembling, her breath ragged. Even her light flickered.
"Shit," Kaai hissed, raising his weapon.
The monster turned toward him. Its covered eyes twitched beneath the cloth, as if it heard his fear. Then its lips curled.
And when it spoke, it used his voice.
"You should've died."
Kaai froze. His own words, echoed back through a mouth that wasn't his. The sound slid into his skull, raw and intimate, like guilt finding its way home.
The girl lunged again, silver hair whipping, cutting through the sound. Her blade met the creature's chest — and where it struck, the metal and flesh melted. The carapace peeled apart under the heat of her swing, steam hissing into the air.
The smell hit him: scorched bone and rotting iron.
He staggered back, horrified and awed all at once.
The creature screamed again — not in pain, but rage. Its limbs convulsed, slamming into the ground. Shards of black carapace scattered like glass.
Kaai's heart thudded once, hard, a flare of burning heat in his chest.
He lifted the rifle, sighted down the barrel and
He pulled the trigger
The rifle kicked.
The muzzle flash flared white, slicing through the dark like a wound in reality. The bullet tore through the black cloth — and the creature screamed.
The veil shredded, fluttering in tatters. Beneath it, eyes opened.
Not one. Not human.
Twin pits of onyx that gleamed wetly in the half-light, each harboring a single, burning pupil — orange, sharp, alive — like molten metal behind obsidian glass. They locked on Kaai, unblinking.
He staggered back, bile rising in his throat. Those eyes didn't just see him — they pierced him, unraveling the line between flesh and thought. For an instant, he saw himself reflected there: pale, shaking, terrified — but behind the reflection, something smiled.
The beast convulsed, its limbs jerking as the shot drove it to recoil. A spray of black ichor hissed across the concrete, smoking where it landed.
It didn't fall.
It screamed — a sound that seemed to claw at the inside of Kaai's skull. The walls vibrated with it, the fire guttering in sympathy. The monster's chest split wider, its ribs flexing outward like wings made of bone.
The girl seized the opening.
She moved before thought could form — a streak of silver and fury. Her sword came down, molten light cascading from its edge. The blade didn't cut; it melted through the creature's carapace as though metal were wax.
The beast's scream turned into a gurgling hiss. Its body split from shoulder to spine, falling apart in two collapsing halves.
Steam and blood rose together, hissing, evaporating into nothing.
Kaai stood frozen, rifle trembling in his hands. The reek of scorched ichor burned his lungs. His pulse thundered, his chest aching — not from fear alone, but from that same impossible warmth under his ribs.
He looked at the girl.
She stood over the bisected corpse, sword dripping light, chest heaving, eyes glowing faintly in the dark. The silence that followed wasn't peace — it was aftermath, the air holding its breath between heartbeats.
A moment of silence fell over the safe room.
Not peace — but the kind that followed a storm, where every sound held its breath.
But beneath that silence, faint and distant, came the muffled echoes of chaos.
The walls shuddered ever so slightly — the monsters were still out there. Roaring. Tearing. Fighting something unseen in the dark.
Each crash sent dust raining from the ceiling, soft as falling ash.
The corpse twitched once, then went still, a puddle of black ichor pooling beneath it. Steam rose, ghostlike, curling toward the ceiling before fading into the cold air.
The girl stood before it, chest heaving softly. Her sword lowered, its molten glow dimming to a dull silver sheen. For the first time since the nightmare began, there was no sound of pursuit — no claws scraping at the walls, no breath in the dark.
Just stillness.
She turned slowly toward Kaai.
Her eyes, still bright from battle, softened — and she lifted her right hand.
Fingers spread, palm open to her chest. Then, with a slow, fluid motion, she unfurled them outward — a graceful outward curl that shimmered faintly with pale light.
He hesitated, then awkwardly raised his own hand and gave a shaky thumbs-up.
The girl froze for a moment, studying the gesture. Then, with a puzzled curiosity, she looked down at her palm, flexed her fingers once and mimicked him.
Her thumb rose stiffly, imperfect but earnest.
Kaai didn't laugh. But for the first time in hours, his face softened. A quiet smile ghosted across his lips, fleeting and fragile.
The girl lowered her hand, scanning the room again. Her hair dimmed to a calmer hue as she checked the corners, the walls, every shadow that could hide another horror. Kaai mirrored her, rifle raised but steady now, eyes sweeping the room with practiced rhythm.
It wasn't until she shifted her stance that he noticed it — a dark smear beneath her ribs, small but spreading.
"Wait…" he muttered, stepping closer.
The girl followed his eyes, pressing her hand to her abdomen. Blood slicked her fingers, dark against her pale skin. It wasn't fresh — an old wound, torn open again during the fight.
Her jaw tightened. No sound escaped her, but her breathing hitched slightly, controlled, disciplined.
Kaai's faint smile faded. He recognized that kind of endurance — the kind that came from someone who didn't have the luxury to show pain.
Outside, something massive crashed against the mall's structure. The floor trembled beneath them, and the firelight rippled like a heartbeat.
The monsters were still out there.
Kaai exhaled slowly, lowering his rifle just a little. The flicker of light danced across their faces two survivors caught between exhaustion and dread.
And in that flicker, something unspoken passed between them.
Not safety. Not trust.
Just the silent agreement to keep breathing until the next nightmare came.
But as they were in agreement, both of them released something was wrong.
It was silent.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
The monsters' rampage, the scraping claws, the guttural shrieks. It all stopped at once.
No footsteps. No breath.
Only stillness.
Kaai and the girl froze.
The quiet was so complete it rang in his ears. Even the flickering flame seemed to dim, afraid to exist. Tiny fragments of dust spiraled downward from the ceiling, landing in silence.
Then came a sound faint, distant.
A breath.
Not wind. Not human.
It came from above.
A deep, cavernous inhale that dragged the air itself out of the room, followed by a low exhale that made the steel walls groan and the concrete tremble under their feet.
Kaai's stomach dropped. The girl's hair flared pale silver, standing on end like static.
Then the world convulsed.
The first impact hit like thunder — the floor cracked, shelves toppled, the fire went out in a single gasp of smoke. The second impact followed, heavier, making the ceiling buckle and dust pour like rain.
Kaai barely had time to grab his rifle before the walls split. "Move!" he shouted, but the word was drowned by the sound of the earth breaking.
They stumbled through the shuddering corridor, the metal door twisting behind them. The ground lurched again — not just shaking, rising.
They burst into the main hall — or what remained of it.
Where the far corridor should have been, there was no hallway anymore. No mall.
Just… the sky.
A jagged hole yawned through the wall, opening into an impossible vista — an endless expanse of toppled ruins. Crumbled towers jutted from the earth like the bones of a dead city, half-swallowed by fog. The horizon twisted with black lightning, and in its light, something moved.
Kaai's pulse stuttered.
The ground itself was shifting — slabs of stone sliding aside as if something beneath were waking up.
And then he saw them.
Two silhouettes rising from the ruin — vast, monstrous, ancient.
Their forms were half-buried in debris, their bodies wrapped in layers of decayed armor and rotted flesh fused with stone. One exhaled — a cloud of dust and smoke spilling from its gaping chest — while the other lifted a colossal arm that blotted out what little light remained.
Their eyes opened, twin abysses glowing faintly through the storm.
Monsters of impossible size.
Not constructs. Not creatures. Something far older.
Kaai took an involuntary step back, every instinct in his body screaming that this was not something he should see.
The girl stood beside him, frozen, her face pale beneath the silver shimmer of her hair. Even her light seemed smaller now — swallowed by the scale of what loomed beyond.
The tremor deepened. Somewhere far below, the ruins cracked wider, and molten light began to seep through.
Kaai could feel his heartbeat in his throat. His mind could only form one thought
To run.