Silence gripped the air, broken only by the faint rustle of wind sweeping through the ruined streets, carrying with it dry leaves and scattered debris.
The runners lay sprawled across the ground like corpses, their grey uniforms dusted over with a thin layer of grit.
Alexei stirred first.
His body shifted weakly as he tried to rise, though his movements were sluggish, his mind still clouded. The events of the night before had not yet returned to him. A sudden gust swept dust into his face, and his eyes fluttered open.
"What? Why am I on the ground? How did this happen? Wasn't I just…? Did I sleepwalk?"
The thought barely formed before his body tensed. His chest heaved as memories surged back in a rush. Panic followed. His head pounded, pain tearing through his skull like a blade.
"Ahh—my head, it hurts… it hurts so bad," he groaned, clutching his temple.
For a moment, the world spun into fractured shapes, a blur of shadow and light. He forced his eyes open, and slowly his vision cleared.
The smoke—the same smoke that had swallowed them whole—was gone. The walls of the building had vanished. They were somewhere else entirely.
"No… not again," he muttered. "Where am I now?"
Turning his head, he saw the others scattered nearby, still unconscious.
"Get up. Get up, guys!" he shouted, his voice breaking through the silence as he tried to rouse them.
They stirred sluggishly, their bodies slow to respond. Alexei reached for Theo, who was closest, patting him roughly on the side.
"Come on! Wake up! We don't have time for this." His voice rose to a yell. "Have you completely forgotten about last night? The aliens!"
His words struck like a whip.
The others jerked awake, groaning and clutching their heads as memories slammed into them with the same sharp pain Alexei had endured.
"So, now you decide to get up," Alexei said with a grim smile that held no humor. "Get your wits together. We're in serious trouble."
They recovered quickly, though questions and complaints tumbled out of them all at once. Their voices overlapped in frantic tones, each demanding answers that did not exist.
Then silence returned as their eyes turned outward, taking in the terrain.
They were in a city.
Buildings crowded tightly together, perfectly aligned in grid-like order, though every one of them stood shattered. Debris littered the streets—broken concrete, rusted metal, corroded cars with doors torn open, shattered street lamps, many half-buried beneath the earth. Trees had forced their way through cracks in the asphalt, and bushes had overgrown sidewalks and courtyards.
It was a capital, perhaps. Or at least it had been. Now it was nothing but ruins.
Elira stood still, her eyes wide with disbelief, her thoughts sinking to her daughter. Her voice shook. "I thought we had only been abducted… but it looks like the invasion is over. Everyone is gone." She turned toward Xavier, desperation in her gaze. "How much time has passed?"
Xavier's expression hardened. He hesitated only a moment before answering. "About a hundred years. Closer to two hundred. I wasn't sure before… but I am now."
The truth was worse. Two hundred and seventy-six years had passed since the invasion. Time was nothing to the Vexari, who lived for millennia. They had waited patiently, as they always did, for the perfect time to begin their hunts.
The hunts had started fifteen years ago. Two years earlier, runners from this same ranch had attempted escape. All had died—except for one, who had somehow slipped through the defenses and vanished into the wild.
Elira broke down. Tears streamed as her voice cracked, her daughter's name spilling from her lips in despair. She couldn't hold it in any longer. It was the worst possible time to unravel, but grief devoured her.
Others who had once clung to family broke as well, voices choking with sobs, hearts buckling under the weight of loss. Some tried to console them, though their own despair was just as raw.
The sound of their cries carried through the ruins.
And it drew them.
Two Trophy Hunters.
From the top of a tall building, they arrived—figures of nightmare. One crouched, tentacles flaring in excitement, a spear in hand. The other gripped a long pole tipped with a massive axe.
The first leaped.
In less than a heartbeat, he dropped from the height, crashing into the center of the runners. The force of his landing was a gust of wind that knocked several off balance.
His spear arced through the air and found Elira.
She had been on the ground, still weeping, too lost in despair to react.
The strike pierced her cleanly. Blood gushed from her wound as the spear was pulled free, spilling across her chest and from her mouth. She gasped, choking, trying to speak through the flood.
"Ruh… Ruh… rh…"
She collapsed before she could finish the word. But everyone knew what she had meant.
Run.
The group scattered in different directions, panic seizing their limbs.
But before they could find escape, the second hunter dropped in front of Alexei. His axe sliced upward in a blur, cutting through Alexei's lower body, cleaving him in half.
Blood sprayed across the ground as his upper torso fell, eyes wide with rage even in death.
The hunter had chosen him deliberately. Alexei was the strongest among them, and so he was the first to fall.
The others bolted in new directions, sprinting in raw terror.
The hunters followed, tentacles flaring wildly, their screams cutting through the ruins. The sound was not only pain. It was a victory. It was nourishment. Their cries echoed through the streets, into the hearts of those still alive.
Only ten seconds had passed since the first hunter's leap.
And already, two were dead.
The rest ran harder than they had ever run in their lives. Each breath burned their lungs. Each step was fueled by instinct, adrenaline, and something more—something unnatural that drove them forward, the very same force that made survival possible.
And then, in silence, every runner realized the truth.
The messages were right. We are being hunted. This is a hunting ground.
Sera's breath hitched as she darted through debris, Xavier close at her side. Her whisper trembled.
"How many are out there? Am I going to die? What am I supposed to do… die fighting?"
The thought of suicide never crossed her mind. Or rather, it tried to—but vanished almost immediately. As though something chemical, something unnatural, had forced it out of her head. The Vexari had ensured it.
Runners were never tagged with tracking devices. The Vexari didn't want an easy hunt. They wanted spectacle. They wanted prey that believed they still had a chance.
Elsewhere, a Starter Hunter crept silently.
A lone runner had taken refuge behind a tree, crouched low in the bushes, chest rising in shallow bursts. The hunter's gauntlet glimmered faintly with Zark energy as his tentacles writhed in anticipation.
He struck.
With pure instinct, the runner twisted aside just as the gauntlet's blade pierced the air.
Tavi Ferrari—with slicked black hair, slightly waved, and olive-toned skin marked by tattoos on both arms and across his neck—stood at about 5'11". In his mid-twenties, lean and muscular, he carried the hardened edge of a man forged in violence. Once an Italian mobster, he had fought his way out of a collapsing prison in Sardinia during the invasion, bolting from his hiding place with eyes burning in fear. Yet his body moved with feral desperation, driven not by panic, but by the instinct to survive.
He vaulted over fallen logs, twisted through trees, dodging plasma bolts that screamed past him. His movements were a display of acrobatics, raw instinct born of a life running from both the law and death.
But it wasn't enough.
The hunter blurred, moving with impossible speed. In an instant, he appeared at Tavi's blind spot.
The kill was clean.
Tavi's head rolled across the dirt, his body collapsing a second later.
Fifteen minutes into the hunt. Three runners were already dead.
The ruins seemed alive, shadows stretching and twisting with purpose. Dust swirled in the air, debris shifting as though the city itself was in sync with the hunt.
The survivors scattered, hiding where they could, running when they had to. The hunters did not pursue relentlessly. They paced themselves, savoring the spectacle, dragging the fear out of every second.
Kaito darted between collapsed walls, his body moving with precision. Every muscle memory from his time swimming through the submerged ruins of Tokyo came alive here. His strides were swift, his motions sharp, his balance perfect even across broken ground.
Amara, not far behind, vaulted corroded buses and leapt lightly from rusted frames. Her mind raced as fast as her body.
"If we split too far, we're finished. I need to find someone. Anyone. If I stay alone, I'm dead."
She pushed forward, breath ragged, eyes sharp, weaving between rubble and shadow. Minutes later, she spotted Kaito in the distance. Relief flickered in her chest, but she didn't call out. To make a sound would be to summon death.
She followed quietly, dashing between cover, always scanning, always wary.
Nyah stayed close to Jalen.
Her body trembled, fear etched into her every movement. She was no fighter. She had been captured because of her knowledge as a medic, not because she could withstand terror like this.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow bursts.
Jalen slid down beside her, one hand pressing firmly against her shoulder. His voice was sharp, low. "Quiet. They're closing in."
"Oh my God… oh my God…" she whispered, trying—and failing—to steady herself.
Jalen didn't waste time. He yanked her toward the ruins of a building and dragged her down into its basement. Dust fell in light streams from the ceiling as they ducked into an empty room.
"Stay here. Don't make a sound," he hissed.
But the hunters were already moving.
They weren't heading toward Jalen and Nyah. Not because they had seen them—but because they had sensed and emotional burst.