Jason never expected the world to end on a Tuesday.
It wasn't fire from the heavens, or nukes, or some zombie virus like movies promised. No—what came was worse. It was silent, at first. A vibration in the air, a low hum that rattled through his bones. He had been walking home with his backpack slung over one shoulder, earbuds blasting music, when the sky split open.
Not like clouds parting. Like glass shattering.
A crack of impossible light tore across the horizon, widening into a jagged wound. The blue of the sky bled into black, streaked with shifting colors like an oil slick. Jason froze, earbuds falling from his ears, his first thought—holy shit, this is actually happening.
"Fuck…" he whispered, heart pounding.
The ground trembled. Windows shattered. People screamed. Cars swerved off the road as if the laws of physics had just started bending. Then came the pull.
An unseen force ripped through the air, dragging everything toward the rift in the sky. Jason staggered, clutching a lamp post, but the grip of gravity wasn't his anymore. The world tilted, twisted, and tore. His skin prickled as something wrapped around him—his own shadow come alive.
No. Not shadow. Tentacles. Black, slick tendrils shot from his back, wrapping around the lamp post, anchoring him against the pull.
Jason's eyes went wide. "What the fuck—what the fuck is this?!"
His arms shook as he clung to the post, the tendrils flexing like they'd always been there, responding to his panic. They coiled tighter, acting like extra limbs, bracing him as the wind howled.
Then, just as suddenly as they came, the world went silent.
Jason's vision blurred. His ears rang. The tentacles released their grip. He was weightless, falling—not down, but sideways.
Into the wound in the sky.
When he hit the ground, it wasn't asphalt. It wasn't home.
It was soil. Damp, rich, alive with scents of earth and foliage. The air was heavier, thicker. The sky above was no longer cracked, but whole—a deep violet streaked with twin moons.
Jason groaned, pushing himself up. His backpack lay a few feet away, miraculously intact. He grabbed it, his breath ragged. His tentacles—whatever the hell they were—receded into his back, leaving nothing but a faint ache in his spine.
"Okay," he muttered, laughing shakily. "Either I'm dead… or I just got fucking isekai'd."
A rustle behind him made his stomach twist. He turned sharply—only to see two figures stumbling through the brush.
"Jason?" one of them called, voice raw with disbelief.
His chest tightened. He knew that voice.
"Damian? Lily?!"
His best friend and his younger sister, both looking just as wrecked and confused as him.
"What the hell is going on?!" Lily shouted, clutching her arms. "Where the fuck are we?!"
Jason didn't have an answer. He barely had words.
All he knew was that they weren't on Earth anymore. And the strange new world they had landed in… was already watching them.
From the tree line, eyes gleamed.
Predators.
Jason's tentacles twitched beneath his skin, aching to be released again.
He swallowed hard. "Stay behind me."
The first day in this new world wasn't about answers. It was about surviving.
And the world wasn't going to make it easy.