The demon never saw it coming.
Zayne watched from his position twenty meters back as Nana moved like liquid lightning—her kick connecting with the demon's skull with enough force to snap its head sideways.
The creature stumbled, disoriented, and Nana used the opening ruthlessly.
She spun, building momentum, and used her entire body weight to drive the demon face-first into the asphalt.
The impact cracked the concrete. Before it could recover, her massive sword came down, severing its head in one clean strike.
Black mist. Dissolution. Gone.
Nana straightened, breathing only slightly harder, and turned to flash him a brilliant smile. "Did you see that? Perfect execution!"
Zayne shook his head, amused despite himself. "You're still kicking them with your bare legs."
"It works!" She jogged over to him, her short hair bouncing with each step.
"Besides, you sound just like you did back in Linkon. 'Miss Wang, stop kicking Wanderers, it's dangerous.'"
She mimicked his clinical tone perfectly.
"It is dangerous." But he was smiling—actually smiling, the kind of genuine expression he'd forgotten he was capable of during three years alone.
"One of these days, a demon is going to catch your leg and—"
"And I'll kick it with my other leg."
Nana grinned up at him, her face still stained with demon blood, somehow looking more alive than anyone had a right to look in Avalon. "You worry too much, Doc."
"Someone has to. You certainly don't worry enough."
It's been two weeks since they'd found each other. Two weeks of moving together through the broken city, fighting side by side, sharing supplies and stories and slowly learning each other all over again.
Nana had changed. The reckless hunter from Linkon City had become something sharper, harder, more lethal. She fought with a controlled fury that Zayne recognized because he'd developed the same thing—rage transformed into precision, grief channeled into survival.
But she was also still Nana. Still talked cheerfully about mundane things while covered in monster blood. Still kicked enemies despite how impractical it was.
Still smiled like the sun breaking through Avalon's eternal gray.
And Zayne found himself smiling back more often than he had in three years combined. They found a decent haul today—an abandoned mall that somehow still had intact supplies. Canned vegetables, bottled water, even some preserved fruit that hadn't spoiled. Luxuries in Avalon.
As evening fell (the sky darkening from light gray to darker gray), they made their way to their current temporary shelter—the fourth floor of an office building with good structural integrity and multiple escape routes.
Zayne had taught her his system: never stay in one place more than three days, always have backup exits, check for weaknesses in walls and floors.
Nana had taught him her aggressive combat style, showing him techniques Mina had developed for taking down larger opponents.
Together, they were formidable.
And now they sat on what had once been an executive's balcony, watching the gray sky shift through its subtle evening variations. Nana had scavenged cushions from somewhere, making their concrete perch almost comfortable.
She leaned against his shoulder, still chattering happily about the day.
"And did you see how I got that hybrid? The spin move Mina taught me? It totally worked! I think I'm getting better at the weight distribution thing you mentioned—"
Zayne wasn't really listening to the words.
Just the sound of her voice, alive and animated and here. After three years of silence broken only by his own breathing and the sounds of creatures hunting, Nana's constant chatter was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard.
He noticed the blood still staining her cheek and reached for the washcloth he always kept in his pack—one of his few luxuries, keeping himself and his space clean even in chaos.
"Hold still," he murmured, gently wiping the blood from her face.
Nana giggled, the sound bright and unguarded. "You're such a clean freak. Even here, you can't stand a little blood."
"It's not about the blood. It's about..."
You deserve better than to be covered in death, he wanted to say. You deserve hot showers and clean clothes and a world that isn't trying to kill you every second.
But what came out was: "Hygiene is important. Infections can be deadly in Avalon."
"Sure, Doc. Whatever you say."
But she was smiling, leaning into his touch.finished cleaning her face, then hesitated.
The cloth had caught on something—a small scar on her temple he hadn't noticed before.
"When did you get this?" His thumb traced it gently.
"Flood cycle. Debris hit me while I was helping someone climb." Nana's expression flickered, grief passing through.
"They didn't make it anyway. But I tried."
So many stories she hasn't told me yet, Zayne thought. So many horrors she survived alone.
"You tried," he repeated quietly. "That's what matters."
They sat in comfortable silence for a while, Nana's head on his shoulder, both of them watching the city. In the distance, something roared—a giant, probably, or one of the other apex predators. Neither of them reacted. Just another sound in Avalon's symphony of death.
"Four weeks until the blood moon," Nana said softly. "Four weeks until we try for the Wish Bridge."
"Four weeks to prepare." Zayne's arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her closer. "We'll make it, Nana. I promise."
"You've been there before," she said, not quite a question.
"Yes. Two years ago. I almost made it across." He could still remember the vampires, the blood moon, the bridge collapsing beneath him. "But I was alone then. Weaker. Less prepared."
"And now?"
"Now I have you." He pressed a kiss to her short hair. "Now I have something to fight for besides just surviving another day."
He shifted, sitting up to look at her properly. The gray light caught her face, highlighting the changes Avalon had carved into her—the sharper cheekbones, the harder eyes, the scar on her temple. But also the warmth in her smile, the life in her expression.
"I'm glad I found you," she whispered. "Or you found me. However it worked. I'm just glad we're together."
"Me too."
Zayne reached into his coat pocket, fingers finding the small object he'd been carrying for three years. He'd discovered it two weeks after falling into Avalon, had recognized it immediately as something from his real-world clothes. Had kept it all this time like a talisman.
He pulled it out and placed it in Nana's palm.candy. The expensive kind. Slightly crushed from three years of being carried around, but the wrapper was intact.
Nana stared at it, her eyes going wide. "Is this..."
"I didn't know it was in my pocket when I fell through," Zayne admitted, his ears already heating. "I found it about two weeks in. Recognized it as one of the candies I'd bought for..."
For you. I'd bought an entire bag specifically for you, had been carrying them everywhere hoping for an excuse to give you one.
"You kept it." Nana's voice was thick with emotion. "For three years. You kept it."
"I thought..." Zayne's carefully maintained composure was cracking. "I thought if I ever found a way back, I could give it to you. Tell you that I'd been thinking about you even here. That the memory of your smile when I gave you candy in the hospital was one of the few good things I had in this nightmare"
Tears were streaming down Nana's face now. She looked at the candy, then at him, then back at the candy.
"Zayne," she whispered. "You—"
And then she was kissing him.
Her hands cupped his face, pulling him down to meet her lips. Soft, tentative, tasting of salt from her tears and something sweet—hope, maybe, or love, or just the simple miracle of two people finding each other in hell.
Zayne froze, his brain short-circuiting.
His first kiss. His first kiss, and it was with Nana, in Avalon, after three years of surviving alone, and she tasted like everything good he'd thought he'd lost forever—hands moved automatically, one cradling the back of her head, the other wrapping around her waist, pulling her closer. He kissed her back softly, carefully, trying to pour three years of loneliness and love and desperate hope into the gesture.
When they finally pulled apart, both breathing hard, Zayne knew his ears were bright red. He could feel the heat radiating from them.
"That was..." He couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't find words.
"Your first kiss?" Nana guessed, a small smile playing at her lips despite the tears.
"How did you—"
"Your ears are so red." She touched one gently, making him shiver. "It's adorable. The ice-cold doctor, completely undone by one kiss."
"Is not just 'one kiss,'" Zayne protested, his voice rough. "It was your kiss. That's significantly different."
Nana laughed—real laughter, bright and unguarded—and kissed him again. Deeper this time, more confident. And Zayne let himself get lost in it, let himself feel everything he'd been suppressing for three years.
When they finally separated for real, the strawberry candy lay forgotten between them, a sweet promise wrapped in cellophane.
"We should eat it," Nana said eventually,
picking it up with shaking hands.
"Together. Like a promise that we're getting out of here."
"Together," Zayne agreed.
They unwrapped it carefully—a single candy, broken in half. Each of them took a piece. The strawberry flavor exploded across Zayne's tongue, artificial and perfect and sweet. He watched Nana savor hers, watched her eyes close in bliss at the taste of something that wasn't canned food or preserved rations.
"It's perfect," she whispered. "Just like I remembered."
"Better," Zayne corrected, his hand finding hers. "Because this time, we're sharing it."
They sat together on the balcony as the sky darkened fully, hands intertwined, the taste of strawberries lingering on their lips.
Four weeks until the blood moon.
Four weeks until the vampire cycle.
Four weeks until they attempted the impossible—crossing the Wish Bridge, fighting through a nest of vampires, escaping Avalon together.
It have felt impossible.
Terrifying.
But sitting there with Nana, her head on his shoulder, their fingers laced together, the ghost of strawberry sweetness on his tongue.
Zayne felt something he hadn't felt in three years:
Hope.
Real, genuine hope that they might actually make it.
"Tell me about the Wish Bridge," Nana said quietly. "Everything you know. We need to plan."
So Zayne told her. About the ancient tree in District 23. About the vampire nests in its roots and branches. About the bridge that materialized during the blood moon—made of ice and light, suspended impossibly in the air, connecting to a portal that led out.
About how they'd need to fight through hundreds of vampires while the bridge was active.
About how a single bite would transform them instantly.
About how it was suicide for anyone who tried alone.
"But we're not alone," Nana said when he finished. "We're together. And together, we're going to make it."
"Together," Zayne agreed, pressing another kiss to her forehead.
In the distance, something howled.
And two survivors held each other closer, already planning the impossible, already believing they could succeed.
Because they had to.
Because the alternative was staying in hell.
And they'd both survived too much to give up now.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.