If you've ever had one of those dreams where you're falling through endless darkness, then multiply that by a thousand, add lightning, a screaming banshee, and a hint of burning metal, and you'd get a vague idea of what I was experiencing.
I wasn't dreaming, though.
The ground slammed into me like a pissed-off titan. My shoulder cracked against rubble, and I tumbled through a haze of smoke and fire, every nerve in my body shrieking in protest. The last thing I remembered was the explosion, that deafening roar as the Scourge blew through the city's last defensive barrier.
Now? Now I was lying face-first in a crater, half-buried in ash, trying to figure out whether my lungs still worked and if I still had all my limbs.
Spoiler alert: barely.
I groaned and rolled onto my back, blinking against the red sky. Flames danced along the broken skyline. Buildings groaned under their own weight, collapsing like dying giants. Somewhere in the distance, someone screamed—short, sharp, then nothing. Silence.
I pushed myself up. My hands were shaking. My heart thumped against my ribs like a trapped bird. The beast inside me was silent, but not gone. I could feel it, waiting. Watching.
"Elias!" a voice called.
I turned, or at least attempted to. My neck didn't appreciate it, but the sight of Adrian sprinting toward me made the pain worth it. His uniform was torn, bloodied, and covered in soot, but he was alive. That was enough.
"You okay?" he asked, crouching beside me, eyes scanning for injuries.
I gave a half-hearted shrug. "Define okay."
"You're not dead. That's a start."
"Yay for small victories."
He helped me to my feet. We were in what used to be the central square—a place where people had once gathered for festivals and food carts. Now it looked like a scene out of the apocalypse handbook. Fires burned through shattered windows. Craters pocked the cobblestone. And lying in the middle of the road, twitching, was a Scourge brute.
"Don't move," Adrian said, drawing his sidearm.
I didn't have to be told twice.
The brute's body convulsed, a low gurgle rattling from its throat. I braced myself for it to lunge—but it didn't. Instead, its skin cracked like dry earth, its body decomposing right in front of us.
It was dying.
Or something worse.
Adrian muttered, "That's the fifth one I've seen like that."
"Self-destructing?"
"No. More like... rejecting something."
I didn't like the sound of that.
We moved cautiously through the rubble, heading toward what was left of our base. Or at least, the underground bunker where the Resistance had been operating. The surface building was obliterated, but if the lower levels were still intact, there was hope.
Hope was hard to come by lately.
"Did any of the others make it?" I asked.
Adrian's jaw clenched. "Some. Not enough."
I didn't push further.
As we reached the ruins of the base, the air changed. It got colder. Heavier. The kind of shift you feel in your bones before something really, really bad happens. I stopped, my beast instincts flaring.
"Wait," I said, raising a hand.
Adrian paused. "What is it?"
"I don't know. Something's wrong."
A crack split the ground beside us. Not a natural one. It oozed black smoke, and from its depths came a sound I'll never forget: laughter.
Not the good kind.
The kind that makes your skin crawl and your soul rethink its life choices.
"Back!" Adrian shouted, just as the ground exploded.
A figure emerged—a tall, wiry creature clad in tattered robes, its face a mask of bone and shadow. Eyes glowed red beneath its hood, and a crown of barbed metal floated just above its head.
"Elias," it said, voice like gravel sliding over glass. "We've been waiting."
Well, that's never a good sign.