Riley crammed a piece of bread, dry as sawdust, into her mouth, chewing mechanically while her eyes scanned the desolate landscape of her refrigerator. A half-empty carton of questionable milk, a single, lonely egg, and a jar of pickles. It was a culinary wasteland. A deep, weary sigh escaped her. Her chronic inability to keep the house stocked with actual food, a minor inconvenience in the old world, had suddenly become a glaring, potentially fatal character flaw. Her past self was an idiot, and her current self was about to pay the price.
It had been an hour. One single, reality-shattering hour since she had sprinted from her office tower, a lifetime compressed into sixty minutes of terror and bloodshed. By some miracle, a combination of blind luck and the timely discovery of a world-ending superpower, she had made it home. The journey had been a frantic, twenty-minute blur of sprinting, hiding, and one very loud, very satisfying test-fire of an alien handgun. But she was here. Safe. For now.
Not that she planned on staying. The idea of hunkering down, of barricading the flimsy door and hoping for the best, felt like a slow-motion suicide. That's why, after a scalding hot shower that washed a pinkish swirl of grime and blood down the drain, she was getting ready to leave again. The business shirt, ripped and stained, lay in a heap on the floor like a shed snakeskin. In its place, she wore a comfortable black hoodie, durable cargo pants, and a pair of sturdy running shoes she hadn't touched since she'd bought them during a brief, ill-fated fitness craze. This was her new uniform.
For now, the apartment was an island of impossible normalcy. The lights hummed, water flowed from the taps, and the internet, miraculously, was still a torrent of panicked information, a digital scream echoing across the globe. Riley scrolled through the news feeds and social media cesspools on her phone, a sick feeling churning in her stomach. It wasn't just here. It was everywhere. The same bruised sky, the same rain of light, the same chittering, screeching monsters. The apocalypse hadn't just knocked on the door, it had kicked in the doors of the entire planet simultaneously. The scale of it was dizzying, a catastrophe so total it felt abstract.
Of course, the government had already issued its first, predictable piece of advice: a calm, authoritative message urging citizens to remain indoors and await further instructions. Riley snorted, the sound devoid of humor. A masterclass in stating the obvious. As if the average person needed to be told not to go for a casual stroll through a city teeming with fire-breathing apes. She wasn't buying it. This building, with its paper-thin walls and a landlord who considered a cracked window a "structural feature," wouldn't stand up to a stiff breeze, let alone a determined monster. Staying here was like hiding from a hurricane in a cardboard box.
The future outside was a terrifying, formless void, but at least out there, she could move. She had her Safe Zone. She had the gun. And she had... right. A jolt of memory cut through her anxiety. She still had two Skill Seeds.
She sank onto her worn-out sofa, the springs groaning in protest. Her discarded blazer was draped over the armrest, a grim souvenir. Reaching into the pocket, her fingers brushed past the dagger and the monster crystals, closing around the two cool, smooth stones. She pulled them out, letting them rest in her palm. They pulsed with a gentle, internal light, little promises of power.
She hesitated, replaying the scene on the rooftop in her mind. The first seed had been a revelation, granting her the life-saving Safe Zone. But the second one hadn't unlocked anything new. It had just… enhanced what was already there. An upgrade. A fantastic one, to be sure, leaping from S-Grade to a frankly ludicrous SSS-Grade, but still. A part of her, the greedy, desperate part, yearned for something different. Something she could use to fight back more directly, something that didn't just feel like a glorified 'Do Not Disturb' sign.
The debate didn't last long. What was the alternative? Save them for a rainier day? She looked out the window at the bleeding sky. It was already pouring. Worst case scenario, her Safe Zone gets another, probably unnecessary, power-up. Best case? She gets laser eyes. It was a gamble worth taking.
"Okay, let's do this," she whispered to the empty room, her voice steady. She closed her hand around the two stones. "Use."
The familiar flash of white light erupted behind her eyelids, warm and intense. The two crystals dissolved into a river of energy that flowed into her, a tingling, effervescent sensation that was quickly becoming familiar. The system's voice, that cool and dispassionate narrator of her new life, chimed in her head.
[Scanning for latent skills within the player…]
[You have awakened your A-Grade hidden skill:
[You have awakened your S-Grade hidden skill:
Riley's brain, already reeling from the day's traumatic reboot, nearly short-circuited. An A-Grade and an S-Grade? The fuck? Since when was she this lucky? Her entire life had been a testament to Murphy's Law, a long, drawn-out series of minor to moderate inconveniences. Now, in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse, she was suddenly hitting the cosmic jackpot. A cynical part of her, the part that had filled out TPS reports for a living, simply refused to believe it. There was no way these skills were just lying dormant 'inside' her, waiting to be awakened. It was like finding out your beat-up old sedan had a hidden nuclear reactor.
And another thing… Appraise? Gamer's Bag? Neither of those sounded like 'Incinerate Demon Monkey With a Thought'. They sounded… practical. Utilitarian. Like skills for an interdimensional quartermaster, not a frontline survivor.
As if sensing her profound confusion, the system obliged. Two clean, holographic-style windows bloomed in her consciousness, side-by-side, detailing her new acquisitions in a crisp, sans-serif font.
[Skill:
Grade: A
Description: Allows the user to gain detailed information about any targeted object, person, or monster.]
[Skill:
Grade: S
Description: A personal subspace inventory for storing items. Current capacity: 20 slots. Items of the same type can be stacked. Expansion is possible.]
Riley's eyebrow arched. Okay,
A new, smaller window popped up instantly.
[Item: Worn-Out Sofa
Description: A mass-produced piece of furniture from a long-dead era. Its springs have lost their will to live, and it harbors a thriving ecosystem of dust mites and lost pocket change. If the owner has not yet thrown this away, they are clearly very desperate.]
Riley rolled her eyes so hard she almost felt them rattle in her skull. The snarky little footnote was uncalled for, but the skill… damn. That was pretty damn useful.
Her attention shifted to the second skill, the one with the tantalizing S-Grade.
Her jaw went slack. Nine hundred and ninety-nine of the same thing in one slot. She could carry 999 bottles of water, 999 cans of food, 999 of those crimson monster cores, all taking up a single slot each. What fresh hell-slash-miracle was this? How was it even possible that a skill this broken had landed in her lap? She, Riley, who once considered successfully parallel parking a major life achievement, now possessed a pocket dimension.
A giddy, almost hysterical laugh bubbled up from her chest. Taking a deep, shaky breath to calm her racing heart, she picked up her phone from the coffee table. Store, she thought, focusing on the device. It dissolved into a brief shimmer of blue data motes and simply vanished from her hand. At the same time, in the upper-left square of the mental grid, a perfect icon of her smartphone appeared. She focused on the icon. Retrieve. The phone reappeared in her hand with another shimmer, cool to the touch.
It was real. The sheer, unadulterated joy that flooded her was so potent it almost brought tears to her eyes.
Trying to regain some semblance of composure, she forced herself to think practically. Twenty slots, while amazing, felt a bit limited when she considered everything she might need to survive. Food, water, weapons, ammo, medical supplies… it would fill up fast. But then she remembered the other part of the description: Expansion is possible. Likely with those Coins she'd earned. Another problem solved before it had even truly become a problem.
Her eyes landed on the small backpack she'd prepared, sitting by the door. It was half-full with a first-aid kit, a bottle of water, and a few protein bars - the meager sum of her apocalypse-prep supplies. She frowned. If she put the bag in, would the items inside take up their own slots? Or…
An exciting, game-changing possibility bloomed in her mind. She walked over to the backpack, zipped it shut, and then focused on it. Store. The entire bag, straps and all, dematerialized. She eagerly checked her mental inventory. There, in the second slot next to her phone, was a single icon of her backpack. Not the individual items inside. Just the bag itself.
A slow, dangerous grin spread across her face. This was even better than she thought. It wasn't just twenty slots. It was twenty containers. She could pack a suitcase full of clothes, and it would only take up one slot. She could fill a duffel bag with canned goods, and it would only take up one slot. The potential was staggering. This skill wasn't just good. It was obscene.
With the obscene power of the
Next came the medicine cabinet. A half-used blister pack of powerful cold and flu tablets, a bottle of aspirin, some bandages, and antiseptic cream. All of it was swept into a small toiletry bag and then into another box. The dusty sewing kit she'd received as a housewarming gift and never touched was unearthed from the top of a wardrobe, now, the ability to mend her clothes seemed less like a quaint hobby and more like a critical survival skill. Kitchen knives, a can opener, a lighter, a small pot - anything that wasn't nailed down and might have a purpose beyond its original, mundane design was gathered and systematically boxed away. Thank god for her mild hoarding tendencies and an aversion to breaking down cardboard. Without these boxes to act as containers-within-a-container, her twenty precious inventory slots would have been filled before she'd even cleared the kitchen.
After a final, sweeping check that left her small apartment feeling strangely hollow and bare, Riley stood in the center of the living room, taking a deep breath. The air tasted of dust and finality. She retrieved the alien pistol from her
This place, with its worn-out sofa and peeling paint, had been her sanctuary. It had seen her through all-night study sessions fueled by cheap instant noodles, celebratory drinks after passing final exams, and quiet, lonely nights after long days at her soul-crushing job. It was more than just an apartment; it was a testament to a life that, as dull as it had been, was hers. A bitter smile touched her lips. Now, it was just a cage she had to escape.
The moment Riley stepped out of the building's main entrance and into the blood-red twilight, the air screamed. A huge, dark shape blotted out the sky directly above her, plummeting with the silent speed of a predator. There was no time to think, only to react. The near-death experiences of the past hour had hardwired a new set of reflexes into her nervous system. She didn't stumble or freeze, she launched herself into a fluid, life-saving sideways roll, the movement feeling shockingly natural.
Sharp talons, long and curved like sickles, scythed through the air where she had been standing, striking the pavement with a deafening screech of keratin on concrete that sent sparks flying. Riley scrambled behind the relative safety of a parked sedan, her heart hammering against her ribs. Peeking cautiously over the hood, she got her first clear look at her attacker. It was a bird, built like a massive eagle, but any majesty it might have possessed was lost in its grotesque ugliness. Its feathers were a ragged, greasy black, and its head was a bare, polished skull, the empty eye sockets glowing with a faint, predatory red light.
Well, time for a field test. Focusing her gaze on the circling monstrosity, she thought, Appraise.
A window of text instantly materialized in her vision, clean and efficient.
[Monster: Skull Vulture
Grade: F
Description: A low-level carrion beast drawn to the scent of death and chaos. Possesses low intelligence and is mindlessly aggressive, attacking any moving thing it perceives as prey. Its talons are its primary weapon.]
Grade F. Riley let out a short, sharp breath. So, the monsters had a power ranking. That was… helpful and terrifying in equal measure. Mindlessly aggressive. That meant it wasn't going to be thinking tactically. It was just going to keep coming at her.
As if on cue, the Skull Vulture let out a rattling shriek and dove again. Riley didn't wait. She bolted from behind the car, sprinting across the street. The creature adjusted its trajectory, its shadow sweeping over her. She dove, sliding under the chassis of a large delivery truck just as the bird's talons slammed into the truck's roof, punching through the metal with a horrendous tearing sound.
Not giving it a chance to recover, she rolled out from the other side, lurching to her feet and immediately putting more distance between them. She ran another twenty yards before spinning around, finding her footing on the cracked asphalt. The Skull Vulture, having wrenched its claws free, was banking hard in the air, preparing for another pass. This time, Riley was ready. She raised the pistol with both hands, the grip firm and steady. Her sights locked onto the screeching, bony face hurtling towards her.
She squeezed the trigger.
The CRACK of the weapon was a thunderclap in the ruined street. A brilliant beam of azure energy erupted from the barrel, crossing the distance in an instant. It struck the Skull Vulture dead-center, not in the head, but in the thick column of its neck. The shot didn't just pierce it; it vaporized a chunk of flesh and bone, severing the skull-like head from the body in a spray of black ichor. The creature's shriek was cut short, its momentum carrying the now-headless body forward a few more feet before it tumbled from the sky, hitting the ground with a wet, heavy thud.
The system's voice chimed in her head, as calm and impersonal as ever.
[You have slain
Ten coins. Riley lowered the gun, her breath misting in the cool air. So, an F-Grade monster was worth 10C. Which meant those Flame-Horned Macaques, the ones that had nearly killed her and had taken twelve of their number to kill with her Safe Zone, had also been Grade F. A shiver traced its way down her spine, a cold dread that had nothing to do with the wind. If this was the bottom of the barrel, the weakest fodder this new world had to throw at her, what in God's name did a C-Grade look like? Or an A-Grade? The thought was a block of ice in her gut.
The thought was a block of ice in her gut, but the headless corpse on the pavement was a very real, very gross problem. Riley cautiously approached it, retrieving her blood-stained baseball bat from her
She used the tip of the bat to roll it out onto a clean patch of asphalt. As suspected,
The problem was, this one was coated in a thick, black, and utterly repulsive layer of monster viscera. With a sigh of disgust, Riley reached into the pocket of her cargo pants and pulled out a small, foil-wrapped wet wipe she'd stashed there before leaving. She carefully picked up the core, pinched between her thumb and forefinger, and began to meticulously clean it, the antiseptic scent a welcome relief from the battlefield stench. Once it was gleaming and no longer sticky, she dropped it into her pocket with the others and promptly stored the baseball bat back in her inventory.
She stood up straight, once again taking in the panorama of destruction. The distant sirens had died, replaced by a constant, low roar of fires and the intermittent shrieks of things that should not exist. This wasn't a temporary disaster. This was the new normal. Okay. Time to go. The city was a death trap, and her immediate priority was to get out, as far and as fast as possible.
She began to move, sticking to the relative cover of the street's edge, her eyes constantly scanning the rooftops and alleyways. The chaos was unabated. In the distance, a fresh wave of Flame-Horned Macaques was swarming over a public bus, their fiery horns casting a flickering, hellish light. But then, amidst the bedlam, a flash of vibrant pink caught her eye.
It was her. The woman with the rebar. Or, rather, what now looked like a thick iron pipe ripped from a building's plumbing. Somehow, an hour later, she was still out here, in the same torn clothes, still fighting. A whirlwind of controlled violence. She looked tired, her movements a fraction slower than before, but no less deadly. As Riley watched, the woman leaped, her feet finding purchase on the side of a brick building in a way that defied gravity. She ran a few steps up the wall, swinging the heavy pipe in a brutal overhead arc that pulped the skull of a Skull Vulture mid-swoop. She kicked off the wall, landing in a crouch, and immediately pivoted to deal with three macaques that were charging her position.
This was some next-level superhero shit, the kind Riley admired from the safe distance of a movie theater but wanted absolutely no part of in real life. Her plan was to survive, not to become the city's self-appointed monster exterminator. But as the woman fought, more creatures were drawn to the commotion. The swarm was growing. In addition to the monkeys and vultures, a new threat emerged from the alleyways: dogs. At least, they were dog-shaped, but their fur was a sickly, brindled pattern of grey and black, their bodies lean and hyena-like, and their eyes glowed with the same malevolent red as the vultures. They were fast, weaving through the chaos to snap at the woman's legs.
The woman was clearly struggling now, a grimace of exertion on her face. She was a lone warrior being slowly buried under an avalanche of claws and fangs. Riley clicked her tongue in frustration. This was stupid. Getting involved was stupid. But watching this woman, the only other person she'd seen effectively fighting back, get torn to shreds felt even stupider.
With a muttered curse, Riley ducked into the recessed doorway of a shattered bookstore, finding a safe, shadowed angle. She raised the white pistol, her heart thudding a nervous rhythm against her ribs. She took a breath, aimed, and fired. She had no idea how she was doing it, if it was instinct or some latent video-game muscle memory, but she was hitting her targets. A CRACK echoed out, and an azure beam vaporized a Skull Vulture that was diving at the woman's unprotected back. Another shot, and a second vulture fell from the sky. Her aim shifted down. A monkey, scaling the wall for an attack from above, exploded in a shower of ash. She squeezed the trigger three more times in rapid succession, the gun bucking in her grip, and the three hound-like creatures that had been harrying the woman's feet collapsed into twitching heaps.
The pink-haired woman spun around, her eyes wide, and locked onto Riley's position. A single, appreciative eyebrow arched up before she refocused on her immediate threats, swinging the iron pipe with renewed vigor to finish off the last few monsters staggering around her. With Riley's covering fire, the overwhelming horde had been culled to a manageable number.
After caving in the skull of the final macaque, the woman tossed her pipe to the ground with a loud clang, jogging over to Riley's position. Her chest was heaving, her face slick with sweat, but a wide, breathless grin was plastered across it. "Thanks a lot, girly!" she called out, her voice cheerful despite the exertion.
Up close, Riley got a better look at her. She was tall, with warm, tanned skin and a physique that spoke of serious time in a gym, all lean muscle and coiled power. But it was her hair that was most striking, a shocking, brilliant pink, cut short and messy.
Riley shook her head, lowering the still-smoking pistol. "It was nothing," she replied, her own voice sounding quiet and thin in comparison. "Just lending a hand."
The woman shrugged, wiping a smear of black monster blood from her cheek with the back of her hand. "Plenty of people would choose to just watch. 'Lending a hand' is a pretty big deal these days." She stuck out a gloved hand, her grin unwavering. "I'm Emma."
"Riley," she answered, taking the offered hand. Emma's grip was firm, warm, and impossibly strong.
A sharp, baleful cry echoed from somewhere in the bruised heart of the city, slicing through the ambient noise of chaos. It was a sound utterly different from the rattling shrieks of the Skull Vultures. It was deeper, more resonant, a grating, territorial declaration that scraped at the nerves and made the small hairs on Riley's arms stand on end.
Emma's cheerful grin vanished, replaced by a tense frown. Her eyes immediately scanned the bleeding sky. "So, you're a player too?" she asked, her voice losing its breezy quality, replaced by a focused, sharp edge.
Riley had heard it too, a sound that bypassed her ears and settled as a cold lump of dread in her stomach. She nodded, her answer a tight, "Yes." Her fingers, slick with nervous sweat, tightened around the cool, bone-white frame of the pistol. She tore her gaze away from the sky and fixed it on the pink-haired woman. Now it was her turn to ask the questions. "I saw you about an hour ago, back near the office towers. How are you still out here fighting? Didn't you go home?"
Emma's attention shifted back to Riley, and the tension in her shoulders eased just a fraction. She shrugged, a gesture that was shockingly casual given the circumstances. "Well, I ran from my home," she said, a wry twist to her lips. "The whole apartment building is overrun. Crawling with those monkey bastards."
A long, slow breath escaped Riley's lungs. A sudden, profound wave of gratitude washed over her, gratitude for the simple, dumb luck that her own building had been quiet. She'd been so focused on her own desperate flight to safety that she hadn't considered that for some, home had become the epicenter of the trap.
"So what's your plan?" Riley pressed, unable to shake the image of this lone woman battling an endless tide. "You're not seriously going to keep fighting until you die, are you?"
A flash of white teeth, a grin that was all feral energy. "Nah," Emma said, shaking her head. "I'm waiting for someone."
Before Riley could even formulate the question, she elaborated. "He's a player too. We don't actually know each other, but in this scenario, it's better to make friends with powerful people, right?"
The very instant the words left Emma's mouth, the world seemed to hold its breath. A sudden, violent gust of wind tore down the street, a localized hurricane that kicked up a storm of dust, garbage, and loose debris. It howled with the force of a jet engine, forcing both women to instinctively drop into a crouch, shielding their faces. From the sky, a shadow fell, vast and absolute, blotting out the hellish red light. It wasn't falling so much as descending with terrifying purpose.
THUMP.
The impact shook the asphalt, cracking the pavement. A shape as large as a delivery truck now occupied the middle of the street, its sheer bulk a monument to impossibility. Riley and Emma, huddled behind the flimsy cover of a shattered bus stop, stared in silent, abject horror.
It was a Skull Vulture, but it was to the others what a shark is to a goldfish. Its greasy black feathers were thicker, its skull-like head immense, and the red lights in its eye sockets burned not with a faint glow, but like the brake lights of a freight train. Its talons, thick as a man's arm and curved like butcher's hooks, were dug deep into the street.
Riley swallowed hard, the sound a dry click in her throat. Her mind, now operating on pure survival instinct, automatically triggered her skill. Appraise.
[Monster: Elite Skull Vulture
Grade: D
Description: An alpha specimen of the Skull Vulture species. Possesses heightened strength, durability, and a modicum of cunning. A regional boss-class monster. Warning: Extremely Dangerous.]
So, a boss. The words formed in her mind, cold and final. Grade D. Two entire letters above the F-grade cannon fodder they'd been fighting. It was a leap in power so vast it felt like a physical wall. The pistol in her hand suddenly felt like a child's toy, the iron pipe at Emma's feet a toothpick. It was painfully, terrifyingly clear that the two of them combined wouldn't last ten seconds against this thing. They were insects.
Luckily, the insect colony wasn't on the menu. The Elite Vulture paid them no mind, its massive skull-head swiveling to survey the carnage they had just wrought. It lowered its head and, with a swift, pecking motion, plucked the headless corpse of one of the smaller vultures from the ground. It tossed its head back and swallowed the entire thing whole, a sickening, gulping motion rippling down its thick neck. It then proceeded to clean the street, gobbling up the bodies of the macaques and the dog-like creatures with a horrifying efficiency.
After a few moments of this grisly feast, it seemed satisfied. With a powerful flex of its legs, it launched itself back into the air. The downbeat of its colossal wings created another concussive blast of wind that nearly tore Riley from her hiding spot. Then, with a final, grating cry that vibrated in her bones, it was gone, a rapidly shrinking silhouette against the bruised, angry clouds.
The sudden silence it left behind was almost as deafening as the noise had been. Emma slowly rose from her crouch, brushing dust from her pants as she watched the monstrous shape disappear. "Crap," she breathed, her voice a mixture of awe and pure, undiluted fear. "I do not want to have to see that thing again."
Riley gave a slow, sharp nod, her throat too dry to form words. Yes, she agreed. She had absolutely no desire to ever again lay eyes on this fucking monstrosity of a bird. To be fair, she had no desire to see any more monsters, ever. The universe, however, seemed to have other plans for her.
The profound, heavy silence left in the wake of the boss monster was abruptly shattered. From down the ruined street, a new sound arose, not a shriek or a roar, but the desperate, slapping rhythm of terrified feet on pavement. Riley's head snapped toward the noise, her gaze narrowing. A ragged knot of people, maybe ten of them, were sprinting in their direction, their faces etched with primal fear. And right on their heels, nipping at the edges of their panicked flight, was a chittering, barking tide of Flame-Horned Macaques and those gaunt, red-eyed dogs.
Emma didn't waste a second. With a curse, she snatched her iron pipe from the ground, its weight seeming to settle her, and charged forward to meet them.
"Get down!" she roared, her voice cutting through the din of panic. Miraculously, the fleeing group heard her, their survival instincts overriding their terror as they dropped into a collective crouch.
The heavy pipe left Emma's hands, a spinning, brutal discus of rust-brown metal. It sailed cleanly over the heads of the cowering civilians and slammed into the two foremost monkeys with a pair of sickening, wet crunches. The creatures went down in a heap of broken bone and singed fur. Without breaking stride, Emma followed her projectile, her body a blur of motion. A dog lunged for the leg of a small girl who had stumbled at the back of the group, but Emma was already there, a powerful side-kick connecting with the beast's ribs and sending it yelping into the side of a burned-out car.
Riley let out a long, weary sigh. As much as she wanted to stay in her shadowed doorway and remain a well-armed spectator, she couldn't. For fuck's sake. She stepped out from her cover, the bone-white pistol already raised and steady in her two-handed grip.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
"Stay back!" Riley yelled, her voice sharp and commanding as three azure beams lanced out, each finding a target. A monkey clutched a smoking hole in its chest and fell from the roof of a van. Two dogs collapsed mid-stride, their legs tangling beneath them. The covering fire bought the civilians the precious seconds they needed to scramble past Emma and huddle behind Riley, a trembling mass of fear and relief. For a moment, it seemed they had created a small, defensible pocket of safety.
But no. Of course, it wasn't going to be that easy.
As if drawn by the magnetic pull of bad luck, another wave of humanity came sprinting down a cross-street, this group even larger and more frantic than the first. And the apocalypse, being an equal-opportunity disaster, had provided them with their own, even larger, escort of F-grade horrors. The street, which had been momentarily cleared, was suddenly flooded again, a sea of snarling, screeching monstrosities pouring in from all directions.
The number of monsters became a statistical nightmare. Emma was a pink-haired blender of violence, her pipe a whirlwind of brutal, percussive impacts. Riley became a stationary turret, picking off targets with a methodical fury, the CRACK of her pistol a constant, deafening rhythm. But even then, for every creature they put down, three more seemed to boil out of the alleyways to take its place. The sheer volume of them was becoming overwhelming.
"Fuck!" Riley snarled, throwing herself to the side as a trio of the mangy dogs lunged in a coordinated attack, their snapping jaws and foul breath missing her by inches. She landed in a clumsy roll, claws scraping the asphalt where she'd just been standing. Scrambling to get her feet back under her, she saw a monkey with blazing horns raise a chunk of broken pavement, ready to bring it down on her head.
Then, a black shadow detached itself from the rooftop of the building across the street.
Riley only had time to register a sharp shing that cut through the air like a razor, followed by a sudden, weightless feeling in the air. The monkey standing over her simply froze, its arms still raised. Then, its head tumbled from its shoulders in a silent, almost graceful arc. The heads of the two dogs beside it followed suit a half-second later.
A man landed in a crouch where the monsters had been, the impact barely making a sound. He rose to his full height, and Riley's breath caught in her throat. He was tall, built like a linebacker with broad shoulders and a powerful frame packed into a simple black t-shirt and cargo pants. His hair was a shock of bright gold, and in his hand, he held a longsword, its double-edged blade gleaming with a wicked, silver light in the hellish red gloom. He moved with an impossible grace, a deadly fluidity that seemed to defy his sheer size.
He became a whirlwind of silver death. The sword blurred, weaving a complex pattern of destruction through the horde. Monsters fell before him not in ones or twos, but in entire swathes, their bodies bisected or decapitated by strikes too fast for the eye to properly follow.
Emma, seeing him, let out a whoop of savage joy. She sidestepped a lunge from a dog, brought her fist around in a brutal hook that caved in its skull, and then yelled across the battlefield. "Hey dude! Finally made it, huh?"
Riley clambered to her feet in a relatively clear corner of the street, a small, weary thought cutting through the adrenaline. Oh. This must be the one Emma was waiting for. He was certainly a powerful person to make friends with.
Shaking her head to clear it, she raised her pistol again, the lull in the action near her already ending. Two Skull Vultures were circling overhead, preparing to dive. She sighted them, squeezed the trigger twice, and watched them tumble from the sky in a rain of greasy black feathers.
Her gaze flicked back to the large group of civilians now cowering near the bookstore she'd been hiding in. They were just watching, their faces pale masks of terror, doing nothing. A hot spike of annoyance, sharp and potent, pierced through Riley's exhaustion. She, Emma, and this new golden-haired pretty boy were out here fighting for their lives, and these people were just… taking up space.
She spun towards them, her patience, a resource already stretched tissue-thin, finally snapping.
"Hey!" she shouted, her voice raw and cutting. "If you can, fight! Don't just stand there and wait to die!"
In response to Riley's shout, there was only a wall of stunned silence. The faces staring back at her were blank slates of terror and indecision, a sea of gaping mouths and wide, useless eyes.
"Oh, come on," she muttered through gritted teeth. She raised the pistol again, snapping off two more precise shots that sent a pair of Skull Vultures tumbling from the air. Just as she lined up a third, the crimson crystal in the gun's ammo slot flickered, went dark, and crumbled into a fine, powerless dust. The sudden silence from her weapon was more jarring than the noise had been.
Her movements were a blur of practiced efficiency. One hand dove into her cargo pocket, retrieved a fresh, gleaming core, and slapped it into the empty slot with a satisfying click. The gun glowed back to life, and another azure beam screamed out, vaporizing a monkey that was getting too close to the huddle of civilians. She spared them a furious glance over her shoulder. "Seriously? Are you just going to stand there and watch?"
The voice that answered was shrill, a woman's shriek laced with a potent mix of fear and resentment. "We don't have superpowers like you, you fucking bitch!"
The insult, so petty and absurd in the middle of all this, hit Riley like a physical blow. A hot, ugly rage coiled in her stomach. "And this fucking bitch is doing everything she can to keep you alive!" Riley snarled, her voice a low, dangerous growl she didn't recognize as her own. "Do something, anything, or I will seriously let those monkeys claw your fucking faces off!"
God. She had never yelled at anyone like that in her life, had certainly never spoken with such venom. But honestly? After a lifetime of being a mindless drone in an office, of swallowing insults and smiling through condescension, it felt... liberating. It felt free.
The response to her threat came not as another insult, but as a shuffling, hesitant movement. A kid, he couldn't have been more than sixteen or seventeen, scrambled out from the back of the group. He was clutching a knife in his white-knuckled hand. A fruit knife. The kind you'd use to peel an apple. It was a laughably pathetic weapon against the tide of horrors, but at least he was trying. He stopped near Riley, his eyes wide, his body trembling.
A crazy, brilliant idea sparked in Riley's mind. She cupped a hand to her mouth and yelled over the din of battle, "Emma! Throw me a live one! Almost dead!"
Further up the street, Emma glanced back, a bloody grin splitting her face. She dodged a swipe from a macaque, drove the end of her pipe into its gut, and gave Riley a quick, enthusiastic thumbs-up. She seized a nearby monkey by the throat, delivered a series of rapid, stunning blows to its skull with her free fist, then, with a grunt of exertion, she spun and hurled the dazed, twitching creature through the air.
It landed in a heap at Riley's feet, thrashing feebly, its horns flickering like dying embers.
Riley retrieved her baseball bat and held it out to the boy. "What's your name?"
"I'm... I'm Andy," he stammered, his eyes fixed on the dying monster.
"Okay, Andy," Riley said, her voice suddenly calm and steady, a contrast to her earlier fury. "I need you to take this bat and beat that thing to death. Can you do that?" Her eyes met his, and he saw no anger there, only a profound, unwavering belief. "I know you can. Right?"
Andy swallowed hard and nodded, his hands shaking as he took the heavy bat. He took a deep, shuddering breath, let out a raw, terrified scream, and brought the bat down. He swung again, and again, the wet thuds a sickening counterpoint to the battle raging around them. All the while, Riley stood guard, her pistol cracking methodically, dropping any monster that dared to approach.
After a few brutal blows, the monkey went still. The moment it died, the air in front of Andy shimmered, and a plain cardboard box winked into existence, hovering before him. Just like the one Riley had received.
"Andy!" Riley shouted, not taking her eyes off the approaching horde. "You're a player now! It's going to be okay!" She squeezed off another shot. "Inside that box, there should be a dagger and a crystal-like stone. Grab the stone, hold it, and think the word 'use'. Quickly!"
The boy scrambled to obey, fumbling the box open and doing exactly as she said. A moment later, a brilliant white light flared from his hands.
"What's your skill?" Riley demanded.
"Las... Laser eyes!" Andy yelled, his voice cracking with a mixture of terror and disbelief. "I got laser eyes!"
Riley had to physically restrain the urge to scream "Are you fucking kidding me?" into the sky. Instead, she just yelled, "Then shoot something!"
Andy scrambled to his feet. His eyes glowed, and two thick beams of crimson energy shot out, striking a charging macaque dead in the chest. It didn't even have time to scream before it collapsed, smoking.
Riley took a deep breath, the smell of ozone and burnt monkey fur filling the air. This was so, so unfair.
The universe, it seemed, had a deeply twisted sense of humor. One moment, Riley was lamenting the injustice of her own decidedly non-luminous superpower, the next, she was watching a terrified teenager manifest the exact kind of flashy, offensive skill she'd been dreaming of. The sight of Andy's crimson eye-beams incinerating a monkey was a cocktail of relief, envy, and pure, unadulterated annoyance.
With a fourth player suddenly on the board - and one with a ranged attack, no less - the tide of the battle shifted perceptibly. The pressure on Riley eased, the frantic pace of her shooting slowing to a more deliberate, tactical rhythm. She was no longer the sole source of covering fire, a fact for which her dwindling supply of monster cores was profoundly grateful. Andy, shaking like a leaf but following her shouted instructions, began to pick off targets of opportunity, his crimson blasts less precise than her azure beams but no less deadly for it.
Up front, the golden-haired man and Emma were a symphony of carnage. He was a silver whirlwind, his longsword a blur that seemed to be everywhere at once, dismembering monsters with a chilling, beautiful efficiency. Emma was his brutal counterpoint, a pink-haired blender of fury, her iron pipe rising and falling in a steady, bone-shattering percussion. They didn't need the help, not really. Riley had the distinct impression that the two of them could have methodically ground their way through the entire horde, given enough time. But Andy's unexpected entry into the fight accelerated the process, turning a grueling war of attrition into a swift, decisive cleanup.
And Riley? Well, her well of goodwill had run bone-dry. She no longer bothered aiming at the creatures threatening the whimpering cluster of civilians. Her shots were reserved for the monsters that broke through the frontline, the ones that threatened Emma or the swordsman, or the occasional Skull Vulture that tried to dive-bomb her own position. A cold, hard knot of resentment had settled in her stomach. Fine. This bitch was officially off the clock when it came to protecting ungrateful strangers.
The last of the chittering horde was silenced when the swordsman spun in a low, sweeping arc, his blade scything through the legs of three dogs at once before he reversed the motion and decapitated them in a single, fluid movement. Silence descended, thick and sudden, broken only by the crackle of distant fires and the ragged, gasping breaths of the living. The street was a grotesque carpet of smoking ash, twisted limbs, and cooling ichor.
Riley didn't waste a moment. She jogged forward, her pistol held low, and stopped beside Emma. "Emma," she said, her voice urgent. "The bird. We need to get out of here before it decides to come back for dessert."
Emma stopped, leaning heavily on her pipe, her chest heaving. She looked down at the absolute devastation surrounding them, then her eyes flicked towards the sky, the memory of the Grade-D monster a fresh, cold shadow. Her usual grin was gone, replaced by a grim frown. She nodded, a single, sharp jerk of her head. "Yeah. Good call." She looked at Riley, her expression serious. "Where are you headed?"
Before Riley could even begin to formulate an answer - an answer that would have amounted to a vague, unhelpful shrug - the world changed. From the bleeding, bruised canopy of the clouds, beams of light descended. They weren't the searing, predatory streaks that had started this whole nightmare. These were vast, cathedral-like shafts of pure, white light, solid and serene, that pierced the gloom and touched down on the ruined city streets below. They didn't burn or destroy, they simply were, pillars of impossible tranquility in a world of chaos.
Then came the voice. It was not the cool, synthesized narrator inside their heads. This voice was vast, impersonal, and utterly divine, seeming to emanate not from a single point but from the heavens themselves, a global broadcast for all to hear.
[Temporary Safe Zones have been established. All participants are advised to enter promptly.]
Riley stared up, her mouth slightly agape, at the scattered columns of brilliance that now dotted the cityscape like luminous trees in a forest of ruin. Emma was doing the same, her head tilted back in awe. "Guess we're going there?" she asked, her voice a near-whisper.
Riley let out a long, weary sigh. Her gaze drifted from the celestial pillars to the group of civilians. The same people who had been cowering and shrieking insults moments ago were now on their feet, a frantic, hopeful energy buzzing through them. Without a single backward glance, not a single word of thanks, they broke into a desperate sprint, a tide of terrified humanity flowing towards the nearest beacon of light.
"Come on," Emma said, her voice gentle as she touched Riley's shoulder. "We don't exactly have another choice here."
Riley glanced at the silent, golden-haired swordsman, who gave a curt nod of agreement, his silver blade already pointing in the direction of the nearest pillar. She looked at Andy, who seemed ready to cry with relief. With a final, resigned shake of her head, Riley nodded. Following Emma and the swordsman, she set off at a weary jog towards the light.
The first pillar of light was a wall of human bodies, packed so tight not even a ghost could have squeezed through. A frantic, seething mass of desperation, their faces illuminated in the serene white glow, twisted into ugly masks of fear and selfishness. They had arrived too late. And the closest one after that? The same story, a different chapter in the book of crushing disappointment. They reached a third, a half-mile sprint through streets littered with the cooling corpses of monsters, their lungs burning, only to find it just as impossibly, hopelessly full.
And the fourth? The fourth was the breaking point. It stood in the center of a wide plaza, a magnificent column of peace surrounded by a writhing, clawing mosh pit from hell. Full.
The thick iron pipe left Emma's hand, not thrown at a monster, but hurled at the unyielding asphalt. It hit with a deafening, metallic CLANG of pure frustration that made several people flinch. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she roared, her voice raw with exhaustion and disbelief, her pink hair plastered to her sweaty brow.
They weren't the only ones who had missed the celestial deadline. A loose, ragged perimeter of latecomers surrounded the glowing pillar, their faces a mixture of despair and budding rage. But the real horror wasn't the exclusion; it was the chaos at the border of the light. People on the outside clawed and shoved, trying to force their way into the sanctuary, their fingernails digging into the backs and shoulders of those in front. And the people just inside the perimeter, terrified of losing their spot, pushed back with equal ferocity, trying to eject their neighbors to create more space. It was a human traffic jam from hell, a grotesque festival of shoving set to the soundtrack of screams and curses.
Riley closed her eyes, shutting out the ugly spectacle. The divine light, meant to be a symbol of hope, had only created a new, more intimate kind of battlefield. She took a deep, steadying breath, the air thick with the reek of panicked sweat and blood. This was a fool's errand. She refused to participate.
"I'm getting out of the city."
Her voice was a low murmur, barely audible over the din, meant only for the three people standing with her. Her brown hair, which had long since escaped any semblance of professional styling, whipped across her face in the foul wind. Her blue eyes, when she opened them, held a weary but absolute resolve. She didn't think she could join this pushing festival, and besides, it wasn't as if she didn't have another way.
"Riley, I don't think that's a good idea," Emma said, her voice tight with concern as she retrieved her pipe. "The city's a nightmare, but out there? Who knows what's waiting. How about I just… charge in and make some room?" She said it with a smirk, but Riley could see the deep hesitation in her eyes. Emma was a brawler, not a bully, and the thought of turning her strength on desperate civilians clearly sat poorly with her.
In contrast, the golden-haired man's voice was as sharp and clean as the edge of his blade. "You have your own way, don't you?"
Riley's head snapped toward him, her blue eyes narrowing in surprise at his perception. He wasn't looking at the crowd or the light. He was looking directly at her, his gaze analytical and intense. After a beat, she gave a slow, deliberate nod. "Yes. My skill can guarantee safety, regardless of what happens next."
"For just yourself, or for others too?" he pressed, and the sharpness in his voice intensified, becoming a palpable pressure. It felt like being pinned by a searchlight.
A shiver of pure intimidation traced its way down Riley's spine. This man, with his impossible combat prowess and piercing stare, radiated an aura of quiet, absolute authority that was more terrifying than any screeching monster. But she refused to show it. The scared office worker who flinched at a manager's raised voice was dead and buried under the rubble of her old life.
Her back straightened, a rod of defiance. She met his piercing green eyes without flinching, her own gaze steady and firm. "I can ensure safety for the others," she stated, her voice cold and level, "if I want to."
A corner of the man's mouth quirked upwards in a ghost of a smirk, a flicker of satisfaction in his eyes. He extended a hand, large and calloused. "I'm Michael," he said, his voice losing its interrogative edge and settling into something resembling professional respect. "It's a pleasure to cooperate with you."
Riley took his hand. His grip was like steel. "Riley," she replied, her voice equally firm. "Let's hope our cooperation is a pleasant one."
Beside them, Emma and Andy looked completely lost. Emma scratched her head, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Hey," she cut in, "what the hell are you two talking about?"
The man, Michael, turned his attention to her, the intensity in his gaze softening slightly. "We're planning on leaving the city together," he stated simply. "Would you two like to come with us?"
Riley quickly added her own pitch, her tone a bit warmer than Michael's. "Look, we all just met today, but I think it's pretty clear we're stronger together. Cooperating is the only way we're going to survive this apocalypse."
"I'll go with you!" Andy piped up immediately, his voice filled with a desperate, hopeful eagerness. Riley gave him a small, satisfied nod. In this new world, a player with combat potential, no matter how green, was an asset you didn't discard.
Emma pouted for a second, glancing from the newly-formed alliance to the disgusting scrum still happening around the pillar of light. She wrinkled her nose. "Fine," she sighed, shrugging her broad shoulders. "I've got no reason to say no. Not like I want to get involved with… any of this, anyway."
"Good," Riley said, a sense of purpose solidifying in her chest. The plan was insane, but it was a plan. It was action. And it was infinitely better than waiting to be saved. She looked from Michael's sword to Emma's pipe to Andy's nervously clenched fists. They had the firepower. Now they just needed the ride.
"We need a car."
Finding a car in the middle of a monster-infested urban warzone should have been impossible. Finding one with the keys still in the ignition was a statistical anomaly so profound it bordered on divine intervention. But Emma, fueled by a potent cocktail of desperation and dumb luck, managed it. Tucked away in a multi-story car park that had miraculously avoided a direct hit, sat a dusty but otherwise intact SUV, its keys dangling from the ignition like a silver invitation.
"Get in, get in, get in!" Emma yelled, yanking the driver's side door open with a triumphant screech of metal.
The three of them piled in, a frantic scramble of limbs and weapons. Emma took the wheel, her knuckles white on the steering wheel but a feral grin plastered on her face. Riley called shotgun, her bone-white pistol resting on her lap like a sleeping, venomous snake. In the back, Andy huddled in the middle seat, still clutching the baseball bat Riley had given him. It was a strange security blanket for a boy who could now shoot lasers from his eyes, but in a world turned upside down, a solid piece of ash wood was a comfort no one could deny him.
Michael, however, refused to get inside. With a grace that seemed impossible for a man his size, he leaped onto the roof, his boots finding a solid purchase on the luggage rack. He settled into a low crouch, his gleaming longsword held ready.
"Is he serious?" Andy whispered from the backseat, his voice full of awe.
"Looks like it," Riley muttered, glancing up through the windshield. Michael was their battering ram, their vanguard perched atop a speeding metal chariot.
Emma slammed her foot on the gas, and the SUV lurched out of the garage, its tires squealing on the concrete. The journey out of the city was an hour blur of organized chaos. The streets were a mangled junkyard of overturned cars, shattered glass, and the twitching bodies of things that shouldn't exist. Emma drove with a focused, aggressive skill, swerving around burning buses and plowing through smaller debris. And anything that moved, anything that dared to get too close, was met by the silver flash of Michael's blade.
He was a whirlwind of lethal precision on their roof. A Skull Vulture dove from the sky, and Michael's sword simply rose to meet it, bisecting the creature in a spray of black ichor without him even having to stand up. A pack of the dog-like monsters swarmed from an alley, and the blade became a blur, a silver fan of death that left a pile of severed limbs and twitching torsos in their wake. He made it look effortless, a grim ballet performed on a stage of roaring engine and screaming monsters.
By the time Riley's phone displayed six o'clock, they had cleared the last of the city's choked arteries. The urban hellscape gave way to the sprawling, dark suburbs, and then finally to the open highway. The sky above was a deep, bruised purple, transitioning to an inky blackness that promised no stars. Emma didn't let up, pushing the SUV further and further into the countryside, the city's distant fires a fading, angry glow in the rearview mirror.
Finally, after another thirty minutes of driving into the oppressive dark, she deemed them far enough away. She veered off the highway, the tires crunching on a gravel access road that led to a wide, flat clearing, blessedly free of trees that could hide any number of horrors.
Emma killed the engine, and the sudden silence was a physical weight.
"Okay," she breathed, slumping against the steering wheel. "I think we're good. For now."
Michael dropped from the roof as silently as a cat. Without a word, he disappeared into the gloom at the edge of the clearing. He returned a few minutes later, his arms laden with an impressive amount of dry branches and twigs, which he expertly arranged into a neat pile.
"Andy," Riley said, nudging the kid who had been staring out the window with wide, shell-shocked eyes. "You're up."
Andy nodded numbly, climbed out of the car, and focused on the woodpile. His eyes glowed with that familiar crimson light, and two precise beams lanced out, igniting the kindling instantly. A warm, crackling fire blossomed in the darkness. Riley watched, a familiar pang of envy twisting in her gut. Laser eyes. The ultimate post-apocalyptic multitool. Perfect for combat, perfect for starting fires, probably great for reheating leftovers if they ever found any. The cosmic injustice of it all was staggering.
They settled around the fire, the flickering light a tiny, defiant star against the suffocating blackness. Michael reached into a surprisingly full backpack he'd been carrying and started passing out bread rolls and bottles of water.
"Where'd you get this?" Emma asked, tearing into a roll with gusto.
"Had to make a quick stop before I met up with you," Michael said simply, his eyes scanning the perimeter. "That's why I was late."
Riley chewed her own bread, the dry flour sticking to the roof of her mouth. Of course. While she'd been focused purely on escaping, Michael had been thinking ahead, looting supplies. Another spike of regret jabbed at her. She, with her ridiculously overpowered
She gnawed on her bread, the uneasy feeling in her gut having nothing to do with hunger. The sky was a horror show. The last of the bruised purple had vanished, leaving only a starless, bottomless black. But now, vast, slow-moving streaks of red, like bleeding veins, crawled across the celestial canvas. The world beyond their small circle of firelight was an absolute void, a living darkness that felt like it was pressing in on them.
"Now what?" Emma asked, her voice quiet as she stared into the flames.
"We wait," Michael answered, his voice a low rumble. He never took his eyes off the darkness. "I don't think those pillars of light appeared for no reason. Something is going to happen."
Riley nodded in the flickering firelight. It was an obvious, terrifying truth. This 'game,' or whatever it was, wouldn't provide a global network of safe houses out of the goodness of its heart. It was a temporary reprieve, a intermission before the next act. And she had a sinking feeling the next act was going to be far, far worse than the first. She could only hope that her SSS-Grade skill, her glorified 'Keep Out' sign, would be enough to weather the storm to come.
So they waited. The minutes stretched into an hour, then two. Michael got up again, retrieved his flashlight, and went out to gather a second, larger pile of firewood, just in case. The poor boy, Andy, finally succumbed to the day's trauma and exhaustion. He curled up near the fire, his head on his knees, and drifted into a fitful sleep, the baseball bat held tight in his arms.
Riley looked from the sleeping boy to the monstrous sky and sighed, the sound a small, weary puff of vapor in the cold night air. The quiet was a taut wire of suspense. Every snap of the fire, every rustle of the wind sounded like the approach of some new nightmare.
By the time the clock on Riley's phone ticked over to five in the morning, it began.
It came without a sound.
Not smoke, but something thicker, more substantial. Clouds of a living, breathing darkness began to pour from the sky, descending not like rain but like an avalanche of solid shadow. There were thousands of them, tens of thousands, a rolling, boiling tide of blackness that swallowed the horizon. And deep within their roiling forms, countless points of crimson light ignited and faded, like the embers of a dying universe, or the baleful, blinking eyes of a million hidden beasts.
Riley was on her feet in an instant. A low, guttural hum vibrated through the soles of her shoes, a sound that was felt more than it was heard, the collective growl of the approaching storm. She shook her head, a small, almost imperceptible motion of weary resignation.
"Oh no," she whispered, the words a puff of vapor in the cold morning air.
In the stunned silence of the others, she acted. She placed a flat palm against her own chest, over the frantic drumming of her heart, and her lips formed a single, silent word. Activate.
A filigree of pure, golden light erupted from her sternum, not a violent blast but a gentle unfolding, like a time-lapse of a flower blooming. It expanded in an instant, weaving itself into a geodesic cage of impossible geometry. The dome of light swelled outwards, silent and absolute, shoving back the encroaching tide of darkness. It enveloped her, the sleeping form of Andy, the bewildered Emma and Michael, and the entire SUV in its serene, honey-gold embrace.
It solidified just as the first tendrils of the black cloud-stuff swirled around them, pressing against the barrier like a physical weight. The world outside the dome vanished, replaced by a suffocating, writhing vortex of black and red.
[Safe Barrier activated. Duration: 5:00.]
The familiar, impersonal text bloomed in Riley's mind. Five minutes. It was nothing. A blink of an eye. Without hesitation, she focused inward, accessing the small, precious hoard of currency she had earned. Extend. One hour.
[1 hour extension requires 200C. Confirm?]
Confirm.
The golden light of the barrier pulsed once, its glow intensifying, becoming richer, deeper. The others stumbled to their feet, their faces a mixture of terror and utter astonishment. They stared out through the shimmering, translucent walls of their sanctuary. Outside, the world was a screaming, silent nightmare. The black clouds writhed and churned, and the countless red eyes burned with a hungry, malevolent intelligence, their silent shrieks somehow felt as a pressure against the golden wall.
Riley remained standing, her fists clenched at her sides, a cold knot of anxiety tightening in her stomach. The barrier was holding. It had truly, miraculously protected them from… whatever the hell this was. But for how long?
To maintain this fragile bubble of safety, she had to feed it Coins, a currency she had only just begun to accumulate. This was a bandage on a severed artery. She didn't have enough to last forever, not even close. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to take a long, slow breath, the clean, still air inside the barrier a contrast to the chaos raging just inches away. She could only hope for the best.
They waited.
The jarring, digital chirping of her phone's alarm cut through the tense silence, signaling six o'clock in the morning. At that exact moment, the oppressive pressure against the barrier began to recede. The black clouds outside, which had been a solid, roiling mass, started to thin, dissipating like smoke on the wind.
Within minutes, the sky began to clear. The last of the inky tendrils dissolved into nothing, taking their hateful red eyes with them. The dawn broke, but it was not the dawn they knew. Riley dismissed the Safe Barrier, and the golden cage dissolved into a thousand motes of light that faded before they hit the ground.
The four of them stood in the sudden, eerie quiet, their breath held tight in their chests. They looked out at the world beyond their small clearing, and a collective, silent gasp was their only response. They stared, unable to believe the impossible, world-altering landscape that now stretched out before them.
And in their minds, the vast, divine voice echoed one more time, a new and terrible mission statement for what remained of their lives.
[Do your best to survive.]