The infection never came.
Nana had spent the first three days in constant anxiety, checking Zayne's wounds obsessively every few hours. Watching for the telltale signs—redness spreading beyond the stitches, heat radiating from the skin, the sickly sweet smell that meant tissue was going necrotic.
But his body fought back with a resilience that seemed almost miraculous. The wounds remained clean, the stitches held, and slowly—agonizingly slowly—the flesh began to knit back together.
Still, they couldn't move. Not yet. Not when every deep breath made Zayne wince, when standing for more than a few minutes left him pale and shaking.
So Nana left him.
Every day, she would venture out into the dying city, her iron pipe in hand and her nearly-depleted aether core barely flickering. She'd scavenge through broken buildings, fight off the occasional desperate hybrid or newly-reborn human who had no idea where they were or why they were attacking her.
She'd return with whatever she could carry—a can of beans, half a bottle of murky water, sometimes just a handful of stale crackers that tasted like dust and disappointment.
And every time she came back, Zayne's whole body would relax. Like he'd been holding his breath the entire time she was gone, terrified she wouldn't return.
"You came back," he'd say, and it was never quite a question. More like wonder. Like he couldn't quite believe she'd choose to return to him again and again.
"Always," Nana would reply, settling beside him to share whatever meager supplies she'd found. "I always come back."
In the seventh evening since the fight when they finally made it to the rooftop.
Zayne could walk now, though each step was careful and measured. His hand stayed pressed lightly against his chest, protecting the healing wounds beneath the fresh bandages Nana had fashioned from torn cloth.
They sat side by side on the crumbling ledge, legs dangling over empty air, and watched the sun set over what was left of Avalon's District 9.
The city was dying. No—it was already dead.
They were just watching the corpse decay.
Where once there had been constant noise—fighting, shouting, the sounds of desperate survival—now there was only silence. The kind of silence that came after a massacre, heavy and oppressive and wrong.
Bodies no longer littered the streets.
They'd all dissolved into mist days ago—white for the humans, black for the creatures. But the evidence remained. Discarded weapons. Torn clothing. Dark stains on concrete that wouldn't wash away even when the rain came.
The rebirth cycle had started, just as Zayne predicted. Nana had seen them—confused souls appearing in random locations, the same age they'd died, with no memories and no understanding of where they were or how to survive.
Most lasted three days. Maybe four if they were lucky and found shelter quickly.
Then they'd die again. Starvation, mostly. Sometimes dehydration. Sometimes they'd wander into dangerous territory and get torn apart by hybrids or demons that were just as hungry as everyone else.
And the cycle would continue. Death. Rebirth. Death. Rebirth. Over and over, with no escape except the Wish Bridge that appeared once a year.
"How cruel," Nana whispered, watching a distant figure stumble through the ruins below. Even from here, she could see how thin they were, how their movements were uncoordinated and desperate.
A new rebirth, probably. Maybe two days old at most. "They don't even remember dying. Don't understand why they're here or what's happening to them."
"It's designed that way," Zayne said quietly. His voice was stronger now, though still rougher than it had been before the injury.
"No memories means no learned survival skills. No knowledge of safe zones or cycle patterns. No understanding of how to find food or water or shelter."
"Maximum suffering," Nana said bitterly. "Maximum entertainment for whatever sick bastard designed this place."
Zayne didn't disagree. His hand found hers where it rested on the ledge between them, fingers interlacing automatically.
They sat in silence for a long moment, watching the blood-red sunset paint the ruins in shades of copper and rust. The sky never looked quite right in Avalon—always too red, too heavy, like it was pressing down on the world with malicious intent.
Then Nana felt it—a wetness dripping onto their joined hands.
She looked over sharply and froze.
Zayne was crying.
Not sobbing, not making any sound at all. But tears were streaming down his face, catching the dying light as they fell. His expression was strange—smiling and devastated all at once, like he was feeling too many emotions to properly express any of them.
Panic spiked through her chest. She turned toward him fully, her free hand reaching for his chest to check the bandages.
"Are you hurting? Did something tear? I need to—"
"No," he said quickly, catching her hand before she could press on his wounds.
"No, I'm not... it's not pain. Not that kind."
"Then what?" Nana searched his face, trying to understand. "What's wrong?"
Zayne looked at her—really looked at her—and the intensity in his hazel eyes made her breath catch. Those eyes that were like forests washed in morning light, now shimmering with tears that kept falling.
"You came back," he said, and his voice cracked on the words. "To this place. This hell. You fell through that portal again knowing exactly what waited for you here, and you did it anyway. Because of me."
"Of course I did," Nana said softly. "I told you I'd bring you home. I meant it."
"You could have died." His hand tightened around hers almost painfully. "Every day you go out there looking for food, you could die. Could get bitten by a demon or torn apart by hybrids or poisoned or drowned or burned or—" He cut himself off, breathing hard. "You risk everything. For me. And I don't... I can't..."
He trailed off, struggling with words that wouldn't quite form. His other hand came up to cup her face, thumb brushing over her cheekbone with a gentleness that made her heart ache.
"I don't understand why," he finally managed.
"Why you'd do this. Why you'd risk so much for someone who doesn't even remember you properly. But I'm so grateful. So incredibly, impossibly grateful that you're here. That you found me. That you refuse to give up on me even when giving up would be the smart thing to do."
More tears spilled over, running down his face and across his fingers where they touched her skin.
"I don't know how to tell you what that means to me," Zayne said, his voice breaking completely. "How to express something this big with just words. So instead I'm going to..."
He leaned forward, slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wanted.
Nana didn't pull away.
Their lips met softly at first—tentative, questioning. Then Zayne's hand slid from her cheek to the back of her neck, pulling her closer, and the kiss deepened into something that felt like coming home.
Nana's eyes slid closed, her free hand coming up to rest on his chest just below the bandages. She could feel his heartbeat beneath her palm, rapid and strong and alive.
He was kissing her. Really kissing her. Not the brief, chaste kiss he'd given her before dying in their first timeline. Not a desperate goodbye or a moment stolen between horrors.
This was deliberate. Certain. A choice he was making fully conscious and aware, even without his memories to guide him.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Nana found she was crying too. Happy tears mixing with grief and relief and love so vast it felt like it might crack her open.
"You kissed me," she said, and she was smiling so wide it hurt.
"You finally kissed me."
"I've wanted to for weeks," Zayne admitted, his forehead resting against hers. "Since I first saw you in that alley. Something in my chest just... knew. Knew you were important. Knew I needed to protect you. Knew that losing you would be worse than death this place could give me."
"Do you love me?" The question slipped out before Nana could stop it. "Even without remembering? Do you—"
"Yes." No hesitation. "I don't understand it. Can't explain it. But yes. Whatever this feeling is—this need to be near you, to keep you safe, to make you smile even when everything is horrible—if that's love, then yes. I love you."
Nana let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob, and kissed him again. Harder this time, pouring months of grief and longing and desperate hope into the contact.
They broke apart only when breathing became necessary, both of them gasping slightly in the thin air.
"The blood moon," Zayne said eventually, his thumb tracing patterns on her neck. "When does it come?"
Nana smile faltered slightly. She pulled back enough to look at him properly.
"End of December. Maybe six weeks from now. Could be eight."
"Can I travel by then?" He glanced down at his chest, at the bandages covering wounds that were healing but still fresh. "Will I be ready?"
"I don't know," Nana admitted. "The stitches need to hold for at least another two weeks before I can even think about removing them. And even then, climbing the Ancient Tree with recently healed injuries..." She shook her head. "It's risky. Too risky."
"But if we don't try—"
"Then we wait," Nana said firmly. "We wait for next year's blood moon. I'm not risking you tearing those wounds open halfway up that tree and bleeding out while vampires wake up all around us. We get one shot at this, Zayne. We need to do it right."
She expected him to argue. Expected frustration or desperation or the same reckless determination that had made him sacrifice himself the first time.
Instead, Zayne smiled—soft and genuine and so full of emotion it took her breath away.
"Next year then," he said. "We have time. Time to heal, to prepare, to survive together. And when the blood moon comes again, we'll both be ready. Both strong enough to make it."
"Together," Nana agreed, squeezing his hand. "No sacrifices this time. No one gets left behind. We both walk through that portal or neither of us does."
"Deal."
They're sat like that as full darkness fell, holding each other on a rooftop overlooking a city of death and rebirth and cruelty beyond measure. Below them, the newest rebirth had finally collapsed, white mist already beginning to rise from their body.
Another soul lost to Avalon's cycle. Another number that would be carved into their chest when they woke up again.
But up here, Nana and Zayne had found something that Avalon couldn't touch.
Something that transcended memory and death and the malicious design of this nightmare realm.
They had each other.
And for now, in this moment stolen from horror, that was enough.
Zayne hand tightened around hers, his other arm carefully wrapping around her shoulders to pull her against his uninjured side. Nana settled into the embrace, her head resting on his shoulder, and let herself feel safe.
"Hey," Zayne said softly, his lips brushing her temple. "Thank you. For everything. For coming back, for saving me, for refusing to give up. Thank you."
"Always," Nana whispered back. "I'll always come back for you. In this life and every other one."
They stayed like that until the stars came out—those strange, too-bright stars that didn't quite move right in Avalon's sky—and the temperature dropped enough that even their combined warmth wasn't quite enough to fight off the cold.
Only then did they make their way back down to their shelter, moving slowly to accommodate Zayne's healing injuries, hands never quite separating.
And when they finally settled in for the night, Zayne pulled Nana close—careful of his chest—and held her like she was something precious and irreplaceable.
Because she was.
She was his hunter. His protector. His reason to keep fighting through death and rebirth and endless suffering.
And he loved her.
Memory or no memory, that truth had carved itself into his soul deeper than any Roman numeral Avalon could brand on his chest.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.