Ash opened his eyes to warmth.
Not the oppressive humidity of the corrupted jungle, but genuine warmth the kind that seeped into bones and made everything feel safe. He sat in tall grass that swayed gently in a breeze he couldn't quite feel, and before him, the sun hung low on the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gold and amber.
"Pretty, isn't it?"
Ash turned. A boy sat beside him, maybe ten years old, with dark hair and eyes that held too much knowing for someone so young. He wore simple clothes, a t-shirt, and jeans, and his legs were crossed as he stared at the sunset.
"Jake?" Ash's voice came out uncertain.
The boy smiled, and it was Jake's smile. Warm. Real. The kind of smile that made impossible situations feel manageable.
"Yeah, it's me. Well, a version of me. The, me before everything got complicated."
They sat in silence for a moment, watching the sun. The grass whispered around them, and somewhere distant, Ash heard water flowing. A stream, maybe. The whole scene felt impossibly peaceful, like the world had forgotten how to be cruel.
"I need to tell you something," young Jake said, his voice soft but steady. "About regrets. About what I'm leaving behind."
Ash's throat tightened. "You don't have to—"
"I do." Jake turned to face him fully, and those too-knowing eyes were wet. "I have three kids, Ash. Three. And a wife who probably thinks I'm coming home today like I always do. I promised them—" his voice cracked "—I promised I'd be careful. That training missions were safe. That I'd teach these new hunters and come back every single time."
A tear rolled down the boy's cheek, and seeing it on that young face made it worse somehow. Like watching innocence break in real time.
"I lied to them," Jake continued. "Not on purpose, but I lied. Because there's no such thing as safe anymore. Not in this world. Not for hunters." He wiped at his face with small hands. "My oldest, she's thirteen. Smart as hell, wants to be a doctor. My middle kid is nine, obsessed with books, reads everything. And my youngest—" his voice broke completely "—she's only five. She won't remember me. Not really. Just stories her siblings tell her."
"Jake—"
"My wife, she's strong. Stronger than me in ways that matter. She'll raise them right, keep them safe in whatever safe zone they end up in. But I won't be there. I won't see my oldest graduate, won't read to my middle kid anymore, won't watch my baby grow up."
Tears streamed freely now. "That's my regret, Ash. Not that I died protecting people that's what hunters do. But that I'm leaving them alone in this nightmare world."
Ash felt his own eyes burning. "I'm sorry. I couldn't—I tried to summon help sooner, but I couldn't—"
"Stop." Jake's small hand found Ash's, and the grip was firm despite the boyish fingers.
"You did everything you could. More than most would've. You fought that thing with nothing but raw determination and whatever power you've been hiding." He smiled through the tears. "You and Angela, you were magnificent. Really."
"It wasn't enough."
"It never is," Jake said simply. "That's the reality of being a hunter. Sometimes you do everything right and still lose. But you know what? I don't regret my life. Not the important parts."
"How can you say that?"
"Because I got to matter." Young Jake looked back at the sunset, his profile gilded in golden light. "Before the rifts, I was nobody special.
Just another guy working a dead-end job, barely making rent, wondering if life would ever be more than bills and monotony. Then the world ended, and suddenly I could do something. Protect people. Train them. Make a difference in the worst possible timeline."
He squeezed Ash's hand. "I saved lives, Ash. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands if you count everyone I trained who went on to save others. I got to be a hero, even if it was just for a little while. How many people can say that? How many get to know their life mattered?"
"Your family—"
"Will remember me as someone who fought for them. For everyone." Jake's voice strengthened, the tears drying. "That's my achievement. Not the rank or the kills or the commendations. It's that when the world went to hell, I stood up. I didn't run. I didn't hide. And I taught others to do the same."
The sun dipped lower, and the golden light intensified, warm and perfect and fading.
"I need you to do something for me," Jake said.
"Anything."
"Don't let my death be meaningless. Keep fighting. Keep protecting people." The boy's grip tightened. "And maybe, if you can, find my family someday. Tell them I loved them. Tell them I'm sorry I couldn't come home."
"I will," Ash promised, his voice thick. "I swear it."
"I know you will." Young Jake smiled again, and this time it was peaceful. Accepting. "You're going to do great things, Ash Sinclair. Terrible, necessary, great things. Just remember, power without purpose is just destruction. Make sure yours has purpose."
The golden light grew brighter, washing everything in warmth.
"Thank you," Jake whispered. "For trying. For caring. For being there at the end."
The light became blinding—
Ash's eyes snapped open to harsh reality.
Pain crashed over him immediately. His chest burned where the Warlord's claws had torn through flesh. His jaw throbbed from the devastating punch. Every muscle screamed protest as he tried to move.
He was still in the clearing. Still lying in blood-soaked dirt.
And ten feet away, Jake's body lay where it had fallen.
The morning sun had broken through the corrupted canopy somehow, piercing the darkness that had ruled this place. Golden light streamed down in shafts that illuminated the carnage the shattered trees, the purple blood stains, the bodies.
Jake's head lay separate from his body, eyes closed, expression almost peaceful as if he'd just fallen asleep. As if any moment he might wake up and flash that grin and say something to make the horror bearable.
But he wouldn't. He never would again.
Ash tried to speak, tried to say something goodbye, an apology, a promise, but no words came. His throat was too tight, his chest too heavy with grief.
The world tilted. Everything blurred at the edges.
Voices filtered through the haze, muffled and distant like he was underwater. Figures moved around him, hunters, paramedics in Hunter Association gear. They were evacuating the survivors.
He saw Angela being carried past on a stretcher, unconscious but alive. Her white hair was matted with blood, her shoulder heavily bandaged. Two medics supported the stretcher, moving quickly toward where the gate shimmered.
Marcus stumbled past, supported by another hunter, his leg badly injured but mobile. Sarah was on another stretcher, Helen walking beside it with her tablet clutched to her chest like a lifeline.
The bodies of the fallen were being covered with tarps. The unnamed C-rank from the first night. The D-rank who'd been speared. Others Ash couldn't focus on through the blur.
And Jake.
Two hunters approached Jake's body with reverence, carefully gathering the separated parts, wrapping them with dignity. One of them Ash thought it might be Marcus paused to place a hand on Jake's chest, head bowed.
A prayer. A farewell.
Hands gripped Ash's shoulders, trying to lift him. A medic's face swam into view, mouth moving, but Ash couldn't hear the words. Everything was distant. Detached. Like watching through frosted glass.
They lifted him. His body moved without his input, being carried toward evacuation. The clearing spun slowly, golden sunlight and purple corruption and blood all mixing into incomprehensible chaos.
The last thing he saw before darkness took him again was the sun breaking fully through the canopy, flooding the cursed place with light that felt like absolution.
Director Sarah Kim stood in the clearing three hours after the evacuation, her investigation team spread out around her.
"Casualties confirmed," one investigator reported, tablet in hand. "Jake Torres, deceased. Two C-rank hunters, deceased. One D-rank hunter, deceased. Multiple injured, currently stabilized at Safe Zone Seven medical."
Kim didn't respond immediately. Her attention was fixed on the purple runes carved into every surface, still pulsing faintly with residual corruption.
"What about the Warlord?" she asked.
"Over here, Director."
She followed her team lead to where the creature's remains lay scattered. Even dead, even reduced to chunks of meat and bone, the corruption was evident. Purple energy still leaked from the corpse, refusing to fully dissipate.
"This level of mutation..." Kim knelt beside a particularly large piece, her enhanced sight analyzing the cellular structure. "This isn't natural gate evolution. Something accelerated this. Forced it."
"The runes?" another investigator suggested.
Kim stood, surveying the clearing with growing unease. The runes formed patterns not random carvings but deliberate symbols. A language. A ritual.
"Get me samples of everything," she ordered. "The runes, the corruption, tissue from the Warlord. I want full analysis back at headquarters."
"Director," her team lead approached with a portable scanner. "The mana readings in this area are... wrong. There's residual energy from multiple sources. The corruption, yes, but also something else. Something that doesn't match any known gate signatures."
Kim took the scanner, studying the readings. Multiple energy signatures. One was clearly the purple corruption. But the others...
Red energy. Powerful. Nothing in the database matched it.
"Something interfered here," Kim said quietly. "This wasn't just a gate going haywire. Someone or something deliberately corrupted this place. Created that Warlord. Set a trap."
"But why?" the team lead asked. "And for who?"
Kim stared at the purple runes, at the patterns that seemed to writhe even in death, and felt cold certainty settle in her gut.
"I don't know yet," she admitted. "But whatever did this, it's still out there. And if it can corrupt a C-rank gate this thoroughly..."
She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.
Her team understood. If something could turn a training ground into a death trap, could mutate creatures into monsters beyond their classification, could interfere with gates themselves—
Then nowhere was safe. Not even the places they'd declared secure.
Kim pulled out her communicator. "Get me a direct line to headquarters. Priority Alpha. We have a situation that requires immediate attention."
As her team scrambled to comply, Kim took one last look at the clearing. At the blood-soaked ground where Jake Torres had made his last stand. At the purple corruption that refused to fade.
And somewhere in the darkness beyond the light, she felt certain something was watching. Waiting. Planning whatever nightmare came next.
The sun continued to shine through the broken canopy, but it felt cold now.
Symbolic light after darkness, perhaps.
But darkness always returned.