A hundred years ago, we were ready to kill each other.
Borders were bleeding. Nations cracked. Cities collapsed under flags raised too high for too long.
Then the gates opened.
Not one. Hundreds. All over the world. Fissures in the sky, in the sea, in the ground. And from them came monsters — twisted things of fang and metal and nightmare.
We stopped fighting each other overnight.
Humanity didn't surrender.
We adapted.
No one could explain why the tattoos awakened. Maybe it was the gates. Maybe it was magic. Or madness. But the ink responded. The marks on our skin began to breathe. To move. To fight.
The first tattoo to awaken belonged to a dead man.
A soldier — throat slit, chest broken. But the tiger across his back rose from his corpse, roared into the air, and tore three beasts to shreds before vanishing in smoke.
That was the beginning.
Old tattoos stirred first — born before the gates, inked without purpose, suddenly alive. New tattoos came later, built with intent. Some whispered to their bearers. Others burned their way into flesh. All of them chose.
To be Marked is to survive. To be Unmarked… is to be forgotten.
Now, we don't worship gods.
We ink them.
Present Day
Gate 56-K — Mojave Sector
The creature lunged — all claws, jaws, and bone. The ground shook.
Naelii didn't move. The ink on her arm rippled first.
It peeled from her skin with a hiss, twisting midair, taking shape — not smoke, not solid, but something in between. A dragon uncoiled, black as midnight, and launched itself at the beast.
The explosion of inkfire lit up the battlefield.
Dust and blood fell like rain.
The creature collapsed — split from shoulder to spine — and the dragon hovered, watching. Then it turned to Naelii, dipped its ink-soaked head once, and dissolved back into her skin, leaving behind only a faint shimmer across her arm.
She staggered to one knee, heart pounding.
"Status?" someone barked through her comm.
She looked down at her still-glowing forearm.
The mark pulsed once — like it wasn't finished.
"Alive," Naelii said quietly. "For now."