Maya POV
The building groaned like a dying animal.
I should have run. Every survival instinct I'd honed through twelve years of emergency medicine screamed at me to get out, get to safety, save myself. The earthquake had stopped thirty seconds ago, but aftershocks were coming—they always came—and this condemned apartment complex was one good tremor away from becoming a tomb.
But then I heard it. A child's scream, thin and terrified, coming from the third floor.
"Somebody help! Please! My sister's trapped!"
My feet moved before my brain caught up. Stupid, Maya. So incredibly stupid.
I was already on the second-floor landing when the first aftershock hit. The stairwell lurched sideways. Chunks of concrete rained down, and I pressed myself against the wall, covering my head. Dust filled my lungs. The screaming continued, higher now, more desperate.
A boy, maybe ten years old, stood in the doorway of apartment 3C, tears cutting clean lines through the dirt on his face. He grabbed my arm the moment I reached him.
"She's under the bookshelf! I can't lift it! Please, please help her!"
The apartment was a disaster zone. Furniture overturned, glass everywhere, ceiling tiles hanging by threads. And there, pinned beneath a massive wooden bookshelf, was a little girl. Six, maybe seven. Dark hair in pigtails. Eyes wide with shock.
She wasn't screaming anymore. That was worse.
I dropped to my knees beside her, my emergency training kicking in like muscle memory. Quick assessment: bookshelf across her chest and abdomen, breathing shallow but present, no visible blood. Possible internal injuries. Possible spinal damage. Moving her wrong could kill her.
But leaving her here would definitely kill her.
"Hey, sweetie," I said, keeping my voice calm even though my heart was trying to punch through my ribs. "My name's Maya. I'm a doctor. I'm going to get you out, okay?"
She blinked at me. Her lips were turning blue.
The building groaned again, louder this time. More ceiling tiles fell. The boy grabbed my shoulder.
"We have to go! It's going to collapse!"
"Not without her," I said. I looked at him, really looked at him. Skinny arms, terror in his eyes, but he was standing here when he could have run. Brave kid. "What's your name?"
"Marcus."
"Okay, Marcus. On three, we're going to lift this bookshelf together. Just enough for her to slide out. Can you do that?"
He nodded, jaw set with determination that belonged on someone much older.
"One," I said, positioning my hands under the shelf's edge. The wood bit into my palms. "Two." The little girl's eyes found mine, trusting me completely, and something in my chest cracked. "Three!"
We lifted. God, it was heavy. My arms shook. My back screamed. Marcus grunted with effort beside me, face red, giving everything he had. The shelf rose six inches. Eight. Ten.
"Crawl out, baby," I gasped. "Now!"
She didn't move. Shock had her frozen.
The building shook again. Not an aftershock—something worse. The sound of structural failure, deep and grinding. The floor tilted three degrees to the left.
"Marcus, hold it!" I shoved my shoulder under the shelf, taking the full weight, and reached for the girl with my free hand. "Come on, sweetheart, take my hand!"
She grabbed it. Her fingers were so small.
I pulled her toward me, ignoring the way the shelf's edge dug into my shoulder blade, ignoring the screaming in my muscles. She was almost clear. Almost—
The ceiling above us cracked with a sound like a gunshot.
"GO!" I shoved the girl toward Marcus with everything I had left. She tumbled free. Marcus caught her, stumbled backward.
And then the world fell down.
I saw it in slow motion—the way you see your whole life in a car accident. The ceiling beam breaking. The concrete slab dropping like God's hammer. Marcus running with his sister in his arms, disappearing through the doorway. Good. They'd make it. They'd survive.
I tried to move. My legs wouldn't listen.
The first chunk of rubble hit my back, driving me to the floor. Then another. Another. Weight piled on top of me, crushing, suffocating. Something in my spine went pop, and the pain was white-hot, blinding, everywhere and nowhere all at once.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Couldn't scream.
Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision. My last thought wasn't about the pain or the fear. It was about my apartment—empty except for medical journals and cold takeout containers. My life—dedicated to saving others while forgetting to build anything for myself. My chart notes, still unfinished on my laptop, patients I'd never see again.
I was going to die alone under a building, and nobody would even notice I was gone until I missed my shift next Tuesday.
The darkness swallowed me whole.
And then—
Light. Blinding, impossible light that didn't come from any sun I knew. My lungs filled with air that tasted wrong, too clean, too wild. The crushing weight was gone. Pain was gone. Everything was gone except that light and a sound like thunder mixed with the roar of animals I couldn't name.
My eyes opened.
Four massive beasts surrounded me, circling like predators around prey. A wolf the size of a horse, silver fur bristling. A black panther with muscles that rippled like water. An enormous tiger, orange and black, lips pulled back to show teeth longer than my fingers. A red fox, smaller but no less terrifying, eyes gleaming with intelligence that made my skin crawl.
They growled, deep and hungry, debating something in a language of snarls and rumbles.
I tried to scream but my voice was frozen in my throat.
The wolf stepped closer. Its eyes glowed ice-blue in the strange light.
And then, impossible as everything else, it began to change.