The hall went dead.
Not quiet but dead.
Sound itself seemed to retreat from the space, as if the room no longer allowed it to exist.
Only four of them were still standing.
Shirley didn't move.
He couldn't.
It felt like time had broken around him, like the world had frozen with him trapped inside it. His body was still upright, still breathing, but none of it belonged to him anymore.
In front of him,
Micheal's head lay on the frozen floor.
Blood continued to spill slowly from what was left of his body, dark and impossibly real against the white frost.
For a long moment, Shirley simply stared.
And then, quietly, what Micheal had said finally reached him.
"This will be the last time we meet."
He knew.
He had known the entire time.
That was why he tried to leave them behind.
That was why he didn't want Shirley and Tucker to follow.
The truth settled into Shirley's chest like a weight he could no longer push away.
Shock lingered.
But it didn't stay.
Something else rose in its place.
Hot, pure, violent.
Anger flooded his heart so fast it stole the air from his lungs.
Rage.
Now, he could move.
His jaw tightened until it hurt. Tears slid down his face without a sound. His hand reached for his cleaver.
The moment his fingers closed around the handle, Presence detonated.
Not controlled.
It burst outward from his body in erratic waves, tearing through the air in twisting, unstable forms. His aura warped and snapped violently around him, flaring and collapsing like a storm that had lost its center.
Shirley screamed.
But no sound came out.
He drew his cleaver and launched forward.
Straight toward Micheal's body.
Toward the blood.
Toward what was left at least.
Tucker's eyes went wide.
"No—!" He thought.
Presence surged from him just as violently, his control shattering under panic. Tears streamed down his face as he sprinted after Shirley.
He didn't think, or aim. He only reacted, His fist tightened.
Presence gathered into it in a wild, unshaped spike.
And then,
He struck.
His punch slammed into the back of Shirley's head.
The impact was dull.
Heavy, it felt immediate.
Shirley's body jerked forward.
His legs gave out.
He dropped to his knees, vision collapsing into static and blur.
The last thing he saw,
Micheal's body.
Without its head.
Then, darkness.
Tucker froze.
For half a second, he didn't even understand what he had done.
Doug was shouting.
Yelling his name.
But Tucker couldn't hear him.
A violent ringing swallowed everything.
His ears burned.
His hands trembled.
Then his body moved again,
By instinct.
He grabbed Shirley under the arms and hauled him up.
And ran.
He sprinted for the shattered end of the hall, boots skidding across ice and blood.
The window rushed toward him.
Without slowing,
Tucker leapt.
Glass exploded outward as he crashed through it.
Shards tore across their skin, slicing arms, cutting into shoulders, biting into flesh.
But the pain barely registered.
They were too… hunted.
Too exposed.
Right now,
Only one thing mattered.
MADISON — Land of Paradise
Hundreds. No, thousands.
They poured across the white stone bridges and broken streets in an endless, shaking current of humanity.
Men and women.
Children clinging to sleeves.
Elders limping on trembling legs.
The beautiful, the scarred, the exhausted, the terrified.
Different faces. Same fear.
Same desperate need to survive.
Madison stood at the center of it all.
Her voice was hoarse.
Her throat burned.
"Left side, keep moving!"
"Don't stop, keep going!"
"Carry the injured first!"
Her Presence stretched thin through the crowd, brushing minds, nudging panic just enough to keep it from collapsing into chaos. It wasn't command. It was encouragement, healing. A fragile, flickering push of hope where terror would have drowned them otherwise.
Ahead, along the broken shoreline of the Land of Paradise, enormous transport boats waited.
Built for evacuation, built for crowds, built for desperation.
They swayed gently against fractured docks, steel frames groaning under the weight of people already climbing aboard.
"Please…"
Madison turned her gaze toward the far horizon.
Toward the distant, pale outline of the Land of Snow.
From here, it looked unreal.
She searched the skyline.
For movement, for fire, for anything.
But there was nothing.
No familiar Presence brushing against her senses.
A man stumbled up to her.
His clothes were torn. His hands shook violently as he held a little girl against his chest. Purple bruises wrapped around the child's arms and cheek. Dried blood clung to her hair.
"Ma'am—" he gasped. "My lady, please—"
His eyes flicked behind him.
To the edge.
To the end of the land.
Beyond it,
Only the void.
The vast, silent drop where their world simply stopped existing.
"How do you expect us to leave?" he whispered desperately. "We're at the edge. There's nothing beyond it. We'll fall. We'll die."
Madison looked at him.
Not as a commander.
Not as a leader.
Just as a girl who was far too tired to pretend she knew the future.
"We jump," she said softly.
Her voice cracked the moment the words left her mouth.
"We take a leap of faith… into the void."
The man stared at her.
Horrified.
Certain she had finally lost her mind.
Madison knelt.
She lowered herself until she was at the child's eye level.
The girl flinched at first.
Madison smiled anyway.
Small.
Gentle.
"You're scared," Madison said quietly.
The girl nodded.
Madison lifted her trembling hand and rested her fingers against the bruised skin on the child's cheek.
Hope Presence bloomed.
Warm.
Soft green light slipped through Madison's fingers and into the girl's body.
The bruises faded.
Swelling vanished.
Color returned to her skin.
The girl blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then she inhaled sharply, like she'd forgotten what breathing without pain felt like.
Madison pulled her hand back.
The light vanished.
So did the strength in her arm.
The man stared.
Mouth wide.
"Go," Madison whispered.
He didn't waste the gift.
He turned and ran.
The girl clutched his hand tightly as they disappeared into the rushing crowd toward the boats.
Madison swayed.
Her knees buckled.
She dropped to the stone.
Her hands pressed into the ground to keep herself upright.
Her breath came shallow and uneven.
"I've been using it all day…" she whispered to no one.
Her body trembled violently.
"My body's starting to give out…"
A sharp, dull ache spread through her chest and spine.
The familiar warning.
The kind she couldn't heal away.
The kind Hope didn't touch.
The pain.
She lifted her head again.
Eyes searching the distant frozen skyline.
Her voice barely carried past her lips.
"Where are you… Shirley-boy?"
Her throat tightened.
"Tucker…?"
A pause.
Longer.
"…Doug?"
Her chest rose.
Fell.
Once more, quieter than all the rest.
"Micheal…?"
TUCKER & SHIRLEY — Land of Snow
They hit the ground headfirst.
Snow exploded upward around them, swallowing the sound of impact before it could finish forming. The world lurched violently, and then everything came back at once.
Sound. Pain.
Tucker rolled hard, choking on frozen breath as the snow packed into his mouth and nose. His ears rang. His vision smeared into white.
Shirley's body slammed beside him.
He didn't move.
The cold reached them immediately.
It crawled into skin and bone like something alive.
They weren't dressed for this.
Not for the Land of Snow.
Tucker forced himself onto his elbows.
His arms shook so badly he nearly collapsed again.
White.
That was all he could see.
No landmarks.
No firelight.
No city glow.
Just endless, unbroken white stretching for miles in every direction.
Shirley lay facedown beside him.
Still.
Tucker crawled to him and turned him over with clumsy hands.
His fingers barely obeyed.
Already stiff.
Already burning.
Already numb.
He stared at Shirley's face for half a second.
Blood at the corner of his mouth.
Frost collecting in his hair.
Pale.
Too pale.
Tucker swallowed.
"One… more time."
His voice barely existed.
It scraped out of him like air leaking from a cracked lung.
He slid his arms beneath Shirley's shoulders.
Pain tore through his spine.
His knees buckled instantly.
They both fell back into the snow.
"One… more time…"
He pushed himself up again.
His legs screamed.
His balance was gone.
His depth perception was gone.
Everything felt slow and heavy, like the air had turned into syrup.
He dragged Shirley up against his chest.
Staggered forward.
Three steps.
Four?
His foot caught on nothing.
He went down hard.
Shirley slipped from his grip and landed partly on top of him.
Snow swallowed their bodies again.
"One… more… time…"
He didn't say it out loud this time.
He couldn't.
He just thought it.
Like a prayer.
Purple creeping through his fingers.
They wouldn't close properly.
They wouldn't open all the way either.
His cheeks burned, then stopped hurting altogether.
That scared him more than the pain ever had.
He looked up.
The sky was a dull, colorless sheet.
Snow drifted down slowly.
Soft.
Gentle.
He lay there, half-buried, Shirley's weight pinning his chest.
It felt like being lowered into a grave one handful at a time.
Death stood close.
Waiting.
Tucker's vision darkened at the edges.
Then he moved.
He just stood.
"One… more… time."
His knees locked.
His back screamed.
He hauled Shirley up and threw him over his shoulder.
The motion nearly tore his arms from their sockets.
He took one step.
Then another.
Then,
His foot slid.
He caught himself.
Barely.
A sound left his throat.
Not a cry.
Not a word.
Just breath.
"Quick… reset."
The phrase was almost swallowed by the wind.
Presence detonated inside his body.
Not gently.
Not safely.
Everything he had already burned through, every ounce of stamina, every torn muscle fiber, every emptied nerve, snapped back into him in a single violent surge.
Like rewinding pain and forcing it to happen all at once.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
His lungs filled.
Strength flooded his legs in one final, brutal gift.
This was it.
He felt it.
Quick Reset was never meant to save you.
It only let you feel everything you burnt. All the pain you felt, it was never meant to be used twice within a 48-hour period. But Tucker had done it, broke his own rules.
Tucker tightened his grip on Shirley.
Dug his frozen fingers into frozen fabric.
And ran.
The world blurred.
Snow vanished beneath his feet.
He pushed everything into his legs.
Everything.
He jumped.
The ground vanished.
The sky rushed up to meet him.
It was impossible.
For anyone normal.
They were not normal.
They rose.
High.
Higher.
Wind tore at Tucker's face.
His body began to shut down midair.
The strength vanished as violently as it had arrived.
His vision tunneled.
Darkness spilled inward.
But through the blur,
He saw it.
Gigantic suspension ropes.
Stretching toward the edge of the Land of Paradise.
He had almost made it.
Almost.
His fingers missed the nearest rope by inches.
His body passed through the empty space beside it.
Weight vanished.
The wind disappeared.
Tucker went limp.
Shirley slipped slightly on his shoulder.
And then,
They fell.
Not into snow.
Not into cold.
But into nothing.
The void.
A place without horizon.
Without sound.
Without light.
Darkness swallowed them whole.