Nana flinched at every sound.
A scream from three blocks south—her whole body jerked, hands flying up to cover her ears. Fighting sounds from the east, metal scraping against concrete—she pressed herself harder against the wall, knees drawn to chest, eyes squeezed shut.
Zayne set down the can of soup he'd been opening and crossed the living room in three strides. He knelt beside her, pulling her hands gently away from her ears, replacing them with his own palms to muffle the noise.
"It's okay," he murmured. "We're safe. Seven floors up, three deadbolts, ice barriers on the windows. Nothing's getting in."
But Nana just stared at the wall with empty green eyes and cried silently.
Zayne's heart cracked a little more.
He'd been trying to make breakfast with whatever he had left in his apartment. His doctor life before this had been busy—twelve-hour hospital shifts, emergency surgeries, research papers due. He'd barely spent time here. Most of his meals had been takeout or the hospital cafeteria or quick dinners at restaurants between shifts.
Which meant his cupboards were almost empty. A few cans of soup. Half a box of crackers. Instant coffee that wouldn't help without electricity for hot water. Rice that would take too much fuel to cook with their portable camping stove.
Not enough to sustain two people with enhanced metabolisms who burned through calories like jet fuel.
He'd have to go out soon.
But first, he held Nana while she shook, while the sounds of Linkon's death echoed through broken windows and shattered walls. Held her until her breathing slowed, until the worst of the panic faded and she just looked *tired* again instead of terrified.
"I need to go outside today," he said quietly. "Find water. Food. Maybe save more survivors if I can."
Nana's fingers clenched in his shirt but she didn't speak. Hadn't spoken more than a handful of words since the hospital fell. Just nodded or shook her head when he asked direct questions, cried when the world got too loud, stared at walls when everything went quiet.
Zayne had seen combat shock before. Knew what sustained trauma did to the mind when there was no time to process, no space to grieve, no end in sight to the horror.
Nana had fought for a week straight. Had watched her parents die. Had discovered she was a weapon built from birth. Had tried to save a hospital full of people and failed.
Of course she'd broken.
He just wished he knew how to fix it.
"I won't be long," he promised, pressing a kiss to her temple. "A few hours at most. The apartment is secure. You have weapons. Your aether core is recharged. Just... try to rest while I'm gone."
She nodded mechanically. No light in her eyes. No fight left in her body.
Zayne wanted to stay. Wanted to hold her and keep watch and let the world outside burn without him. But they needed supplies. And there were survivors out there—he'd seen them yesterday, groups getting thinner by the day, hiding in rubble, desperate for help.
He'd been wondering lately if Avalon had actually been a normal city like Linkon before this. If somewhere, eleven years ago, there had been people living normal lives before the government turned their home into a death realm testing ground. If the creatures hunting in the streets now had once been human too, before the facility twisted them into monsters.
The thought made him sick.
Zayne stood and moved toward the door, checking his medical bag one more time. Bandages, antiseptic, pain medication, suture kit. Ice evol ready beneath his skin. Knife strapped to his thigh.
Nana appeared behind him as his hand reached the doorknob.
She wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, pressing her face against his back. Still not speaking. Just holding on like he was the only solid thing left in a dissolving world.
Zayne covered her hands with his. "I'll come back. I promise."
She slipped something into his coat pocket.
He pulled it out—one of her dual guns, the grip worn smooth from use, fully loaded. Just in case.
His throat tightened. Even broken, even barely functioning, Nana was still trying to protect him.
Zayne turned in her arms, cupped her face, and pressed a kiss to her lips. Soft and careful and full of promises he desperately hoped he could keep.
"I love you," he said. "No matter what. Remember that."
Nana's eyes filled with tears but she nodded.
Then Zayne unlocked the deadbolts and stepped into hell.
The stairwell was dark and smelled like death.
He moved quietly, ice forming around his hands in thin layers—ready to strike, ready to defend, ready to kill if necessary. Bodies littered the landings. Some were neighbors. Some were creatures. All of them were starting to rot in the summer heat.
Outside was worse.
The supermarket six blocks east had been abandoned for days—windows smashed, shelves mostly empty, blood streaked across the floors. But "mostly empty" wasn't "completely empty," and Zayne had learned to scavenge like a professional over the past week.
He filled his backpack methodically. Canned vegetables. Protein bars. Bottled water from the storage room in back. Batteries. Matches. Anything that would keep them alive another few days.
A hybrid lunged at him from the frozen food section—humanoid but wrong, too many joints, skin mottled grey-green. Zayne didn't hesitate. Ice spear through its chest, precise as surgery, and it collapsed into a heap of twitching limbs.
He stepped over the body and kept searching.
Demons prowled the next aisle, fighting over a corpse. Zayne went around them. No point engaging unless necessary.
Vampires slept in the dark corners—daylight still affected them even through the permanent smoke cloud covering the city. He avoided those areas entirely. Vampires were harder to kill, and he needed to conserve energy.
Bodies were everywhere his eyes could see.
People who'd tried to flee in those first chaotic hours. People who'd been caught by creatures. People who'd given up and just... stopped. Their faces frozen in expressions of terror or resignation or blank nothing.
Zayne tried not to look at them directly. Tried not to imagine their final moments. Tried not to see his hospital patients in their features.
Failed completely.
Outside the supermarket, two demons were fighting over territory—snarling and clawing and biting in the middle of the street. A giant lumbered past them, scooping up everything it could reach and shoving debris into its enormous mouth. Metal, concrete, bodies—didn't matter. It was just *eating*.
Zayne watched from behind an overturned car.
It was almost... strategic. The creatures fighting each other now that humans were scarce. Establishing hierarchies. Claiming districts. Killing their own kind over resources.
Which meant *he* didn't have to kill as many to stay alive.
A grim silver lining in an apocalypse made of nightmares.
Movement caught his eye—people emerging from a collapsed building three blocks south. Survivors from Avalon, he realized with a jolt. Fresh through the portals that were still opening randomly across the city.
There were more of them every day.
They looked like walking skeletons, skin stretched tight over bones, eyes sunken and wild with confusion and terror. All of them were running—scrambling toward the fountain in the plaza, fighting each other for access to the stagnant water, drinking desperately even though it was probably contaminated.
Zayne's medical instincts screamed at him to help. To purify the water with his ice evol, to hand out the protein bars in his backpack, to do something.
But he had Nana waiting at home. Nana who was broken and barely eating and needed him more than strangers did.
The guilt tasted like ash.
Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow I'll find more survivors. Save who I can. Make up for today.
But today, he just turned away from the plaza and made his way back home.
The journey back was quieter.
Creatures were settling into routines now—hunting at certain times, sleeping at others, avoiding each other's claimed territories. Zayne had started to learn the patterns. Which streets were safest at which hours. Where the giants roamed. Where the vampire dens were.
Survival horror had become survival strategy.
His apartment building was still standing when he returned. Still secure. Still silent except for the distant sounds of the dying city.
He climbed seven flights of stairs, unlocked three deadbolts, and found Nana exactly where he'd left her—sitting against the wall, knees to chest, staring at nothing.
But she looked up when he entered. And something flickered in her eyes—relief, maybe, or just recognition that he'd kept his promise.
Zayne locked the door behind him, set down his backpack, and crossed to her in three strides.
"I'm back," he said simply.
Nana didn't speak. Just reached for him with shaking hands.
He pulled her into his arms and held her while she cried silently into his shoulder. Held her while the city burned outside. Held her because it was the only thing he knew how to do anymore.
And somewhere deep in Linkon's ruins, more portals opened.
More Avalon survivors stumbled through, skeletal and desperate and lost.
More creatures claimed territory, fought each other, hunted anything that moved.
More bodies piled in the streets that used to be home.
Day 9 of the apocalypse.
And they were still alive.
Still fighting.
Still holding on.
No matter how long it takes.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.