Nana bedroom had become a prison.
Not literally—she could leave whenever she wanted. But the walls felt like they were closing in, decorated with her past life as a hunter. Photos of her team, commendations from the Hunter Association, her spare weapons mounted on the wall. Evidence of who she'd been before Avalon.
Before everything changed.
She sat on her bed, laptop open in front of her, tears streaming down her face as she refreshed the website for the hundredth time that day.
AVALON SURVIVORS - PLEASE RESPOND
The header was simple, desperate. Below it, she'd written everything she could remember:experienced the following, please contact me:
- Falling through an ice portal in a cave
- Waking in a gray city filled with monsters
- Weekly elimination cycles (fire, poison gas, floods, demons)
- The Wish Bridge during blood moon
- Time moving differently (years there = hours here)
You are not crazy. It was real. Please, if anyone has escaped, contact me.
The comment section remained empty. No messages. No emails. Nothing.
Just silence, vast and crushing.
"Please," Nana whispered to the screen, her vision blurring with fresh tears. "Please, somebody. Anybody. Just tell me I'm not alone in this."
But there was no response. There never was.
A knock on her door made her jump.
"Nana?"
Her mother's voice, gentle and worried. "Sweetheart, you haven't eaten anything today. I made your favorite—"
"I'm not hungry." Nana's voice came out harsher than she intended.
A pause. Then: "The therapist called. Dr. Chen has an opening tomorrow afternoon. I think you should—"
"I don't need therapy!" Nana slammed her laptop shut, immediately regretting it when she heard her mother's sharp intake of breath. "I'm sorry. I just—I don't need therapy. I need people to believe me."
"Nana..." Her mother's voice was so full of pity it made Nana want to scream. "What you experienced was traumatic. Killing Wanderers, being in dangerous situations—it's affected you. There's no shame in getting help."
They think I'm having a breakdown, Nana thought, hugging her knees to her chest. They think the stress of being a hunter finally broke me.
"Mom," Nana tried one more time, even though she knew it was useless.
"What if I told you that I spent months in another dimension? That I watched people die, that I had to kill my best friend to save her from turning into a demon, that the man I love sacrificed himself so I could escape?"
Silence.
Then, carefully: "I think... I think that sounds like a very vivid nightmare, sweetheart. The mind can create incredibly detailed scenarios when we're under stress—"
"It wasn't a nightmare!" Nana's hands clenched into fists. "My hair was short! I cut it myself! And when I woke up, it was long again! How do you explain that?"
"You're always had long hair, Nana."
"No, I—" But what could she say? There was no proof. No evidence. Just her memories and the terrible certainty that she was telling the truth. "Never mind. Just... never mind."
Her mother lingered at the door for a moment longer, then quietly retreated.
Nana reopened her laptop and stared at the empty website. She'd created it three days after waking up in the hospital, after everyone had made it clear they thought she was having a mental breakdown. It was her last hope—that maybe, somewhere, someone else had escaped Avalon and would see her message.
But day after day, there was nothing.
What if nobody ever escapes, a dark voice whispered in her mind. Maybe you're the first. Maybe everyone else is still trapped there, dying and being reborn over and over, with no memory and no hope.
The thought sent ice through her veins.
"No," Nana whispered fiercely. "No, that can't be true. Zayne escaped once. Three years ago. He must have. That's how he knew about the Wish Bridge."
But if Zayne had escaped before... why wasn't there any record of it? Why didn't anyone remember Dr. Zayne Li going missing three years ago?.
Unless time was even more complicated than she'd thought.
Unless his first fall had happened in a completely different timeline.
Unless—
Nana's phone buzzed. A message from Tara:
Hey,are you okay? You haven't responded to any of our messages. We're worried about you. Captain Jenna approved your leave—two weeks minimum, longer if you need it. Please take care of yourself. We love you.
Two weeks of mandatory leave. Because everyone thought she was having a breakdown. Because no one believed her.
Nana threw her phone across the room. It hit the wall and clattered to the floor, screen cracking.
She didn't care.
She was so tired of being careful. So tired of trying to convince people. So tired of the pitying looks and the gentle suggestions to "rest" and "talk to someone."
She knew what she'd experienced. She knew who she'd lost.
And she was going to prove it.
.
.
.
.
.
The next morning, Nana rode her motorcycle through Linkon City, stopping at every location where hunters might gather. The main Hunter Association building.
The equipment shops. The training facilities.
She approached every hunter she recognized, every team she'd worked with.
"Have you heard of Avalon?" she asked desperately. "A realm between life and death? Ice portals that appear in caves?"
They looked at her with concern. With confusion. With pity.
"Nana, are you feeling alright?"
"Maybe you should take some time off."
"Have you been sleeping enough?"
She wanted to scream at all of them.
By afternoon, she was standing in the middle of the Hunter Association's main lobby, voice raised, trying to get anyone toportal in the forest!" she shouted. "In an ice cave! It leads to a place called Avalon where people are trapped and dying! We need to investigate it! We need to—"
"Nana." Captain Jenna appeared, her expression a mix of worry and frustration. "Come with me. Please."
She was led to a private office. Given water. Asked to sit down.
"Everyone's worried about you," Captain Jenna said gently. "Nero told me you were found unconscious in the forest. That's dangerous, Nana. You could have been seriously hurt. And now you're talking about portals and other dimensions—"
"Because it's true!" Nana's voice cracked. "Captain, please. Just come with me to the cave. Just look at it. I can show you—
"you need to rest." Captain Jenna's tone was final. "Your mandatory leave has been extended to a month. And I'm strongly recommending you see Dr. Chen. This isn't a punishment, Nana. We're trying to help you."
You can't help me, Nana thought bitterly. Because you don't believe me.
She left the Association building before she could say something she'd regret.
The evening, Nana stood in front of her bathroom mirror, staring at her reflection.
The girl looking back was a stranger. Clean, unmarked, with long hair and soft hands. Not the survivor who'd spent months fighting for her life.
"Where's the proof?" she whispered to her reflection. "Where's any evidence that I'm not crazy?"
But there was none. Avalon had taken everything from her—her scars, Mina's necklace, even her short hair. It had returned her to the real world as if nothing had happened.
As if months of trauma and loss and love meant nothing.
Nana's hands gripped the sink so hard her knuckles turned white."zayne?"
she said to the empty bathroom. "Where are you? Are you trapped there? Are you being reborn over and over with no memory? Or are you just... gone?"
The thought that he might be truly gone—not reborn, not trapped, just erased—was unbearable.
"I promised I'd live," Nana told her reflection, tears streaming down her face again.
"Mina made me promise. And you made sure I escaped. But how am I supposed to live when everyone I met in Avalon is nowhere to be found? When no one believes me? When I can't even prove it was real?"
Her reflection had no answers.
Only more questions.
And the terrible, growing fear that maybe she really was the only person who'd ever escaped Avalon alive.
The next day, Nana rode her motorcycle out to the forest.
The ice cave was exactly where she remembered it—hidden among the trees, its entrance dark and forbidding. And there, just barely visible in the shadows, was the portal.
The swirling ice and light that had swallowed her whole. That had taken her to hell and back.
It was still there. Still waiting.
At least I'm not hallucinating this, Nana thought grimly. I can see it. It's real.
But even as she thought it, she heard voices approaching. A group of young joggers, laughing and chatting as they ran down the forest path.
They were going to pass right by the cave entrance.Nana called out, waving to get their attention.
"Hey, wait! Don't go near that cave!"
The joggers slowed, looking at her curiously. There were four of them—two men, two women, all in their early twenties.
"There's a portal in there," Nana said urgently, pointing at the cave. "An ice portal. It's dangerous. You need to stay away from it."
The joggers exchanged glances.
"A portal?" one of the women said, confused. "What do you mean?"
"Right there!" Nana pointed more emphatically. "In the cave! Can't you see it? The swirling ice and light?"
They looked where she was pointing.
"I see nothing " one of the men said slowly.
"No! look closer!" Nana was getting desperate now. She moved toward the cave entrance, gesturing at the portal that was right there, impossible to miss. "The portal! It's swirling! It's—"
"Miss, are you okay?" The second woman looked genuinely concerned. "Maybe you should sit down. You seem really agitated."
"I'm not agitated! I'm trying to save your lives!" Nana's voice was rising. "That portal leads to Avalon! If you fall through, you'll be trapped in a nightmare realm where you'll die over and over—"
"Okay, this is getting weird," one of the men muttered. "Let's just go."
"No, wait! Please!" Nana tried to block their path. "Just look at the cave! Just look at it!"
But they were already backing away, their expressions shifting from concern to alarm.
"She might be on something," someone whispered.
"Or having an episode."
"Should we call someone?"
They jogged away quickly, glancing back at her nervously.
Nana stood alone at the cave entrance, her chest heaving.
They hadn't seen it. They'd looked directly at the portal and seen nothing.
"Why?" Nana asked the empty forest. "Why can I see it and they can't?"
She stepped closer to the portal, close enough to feel the cold radiating from it. Close enough that she could jump through if she wanted.
And god, she wanted to. If I jumped back in... would I find Zayne? Would he be there, reborn without memories, needing my help to escape?
Or would she end up in a completely different version of Avalon? Would he be in the real world, waking from a coma, wondering where she was?
What if we keep missing each other? .
The thought was agonizing. What if we're trapped in some cosmic joke where we can never be in the same place at the same time?
Nana fell to her knees in front of the portal, sobs tearing from her throat.
"I don't know what to do," she admitted to the swirling ice. "Everyone thinks I'm crazy. No one believes me. I can't find you. I can't prove any of it was real. And I'm so tired, Zayne. I'm so tired of fighting alone."
The portal swirled silently, offering no answers.the promise of another hell if she chose to enter.
Nana sat there for a long time, crying in front of the portal that only she could see, in a forest full of people who thought she'd lost her mind.
And slowly, desperately, a plan began to form.
If no one believed her... if there was no proof... if Zayne was trapped in Avalon, being reborn without memories...
Then she had only one choice.
She would have to go back.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.
Author notes: The portal doesn't appear randomly. It chooses. Only those it deems worthy—or perhaps those it wants to torment—can see it. Everyone else walks past, oblivious to the nightmare waiting in the darkness..