Five days.
That's how long it's been since the first portal opened downtown. Since I first saw those things crawl out of the earth like nightmares pulled straight from Hell.
Since the fire answered me.
The world hasn't been the same since.
I've been watching it all unravel from rooftops, abandoned chapels, and cheap motel rooms with broken TVs. Aria keeps us moving. We never stay anywhere more than a night. I get it.
The longer we stay still, the easier it is for them to find us. And by "them," I mean everything. Demons. Undead. Hell's scouts. Heaven's spies. Maybe even regular humans who are beginning to realize there's something wrong with me.
The news is chaos. At first, they tried to cover it up. Gas explosions. Mass hysteria. But that didn't last long. You can't explain away glowing red skies and cities overrun by creatures that melt bullets.
Now? They're calling it an invasion.
They didn't have any idea of what the occurrence is, so they are just calling the portals from hell as Rifts.
The world governments have formed a new thing—GRDI. Global Rift Defense Initiative. Sounds like a comic book agency. But it's real. They've launched task forces with cool names:
Riftwalkers – combat teams that run into danger headfirst.
The Ash Guard – volunteers wearing holy armor, probably just a baptized battle suite and wielding magic weapons like something out of a JRPG.
Sentinel Circle – scholars, mages, priests. The ones who apparently always knew magic was real.
Silence Unit – the creepiest of them. They clean up scenes, erase evidence, and people too, if they talk too much.
I hear whispers about people across the globe—people who awakened powers. Could be good, as now I won't feel as the weird one in this place.
I guess, One plays a violin that emits light in Paris. Another punches through demons with crimson energy in Brazil. I wonder if they feel as lost as I do.
Me? I'm not on any list.
There's no footage of me.
We were camped out in an old train station that night. Roof leaking, power gone. Aria was perched on a rusted bench across from me, sharpening her blade.
I watched the sparks of her whetstone for a while before I spoke. "How long are we going to keep running?"
She didn't look up. "Until we find him. Or he finds us."
"Cerberus?"
She nodded.
I sighed. "Are you even sure he's alive?"
Her hand paused. She looked up then, her eyes reflecting what little moonlight made it through the broken window.
"I'm sure he's angry. That's enough."
I let that sit for a while.
The silence outside was eerie. Even the wind didn't whistle here. And yet… I felt it. A presence in the dark. Watching.
I pulled my knees up to my chest. The golden fire that lived in me was quiet for now, but I knew it was there. Like a second heartbeat.
I'd seen what I could do. I'd burned demons to ash. I'd melted steel. But every time I used it, it felt like something inside me woke up—and it wasn't always me.
Sometimes, in the silence after the flame faded, I heard whispers.
A voice. Low. Familiar.
Like it belonged to someone I used to know… or someone waiting to meet me.
Aria stood suddenly. Her head tilted.
"Did you hear that?"
I did. A siren in the distance. And then—
A growl.
Deep. Massive. Echoing off the crumbled walls.
I stood too, eyes wide. "That wasn't a demon, was it?"
Aria slowly unsheathed her blade. Her voice was calm, but something in her eyes had shifted. "No. That was something older. Something smarter."
The growl came again. Closer this time.
She looked at me.
"Stay behind me."
But somehow, I knew—
Whoever it was…
Wasn't here to kill me.
Not yet.
Not tonight.