Nana woke to screaming.
Not the distant screams of battle that had become the city's constant background noise over the past three days. This was closer. Immediate. Right outside her apartment building.
She was on her feet before fully conscious, guns in both hands, moving toward the window with the muscle memory of someone who had survived too many surprise attacks to ever truly sleep soundly again.
Beside her, Zayne was already up—frost spreading unconsciously from his bare feet across the floor, his ice evol responding to the spike of adrenaline before his conscious mind had fully processed the threat.
They'd been sleeping in shifts. Two hours each. Never both at the same time. Never fully resting because the city was still under siege and something could attack at any moment and they'd learned the hard way that lowering your guard meant death.
Nana reached the window and looked down at the street below.
Then stopped breathing.
The people—if they could still be called people—were skeletal. Literally skeletal. Their bodies were emaciated to the point of looking like walking corpses, skin pulled tight over prominent bones, eyes sunken deep into skull-like faces. They moved with desperate, frantic energy despite looking like they should be dead.
And they were raiding everything.
The supermarket across the street had its windows smashed. The skeletal figures poured inside like a flood, emerging moments later with armfuls of food—bread, canned goods, anything edible. They didn't wait to pay. Didn't wait to cook. Just tore into packages with their teeth and ate like animals, like people who hadn't seen food in weeks.
More of them hit the shopping center two blocks down. A café. A convenience store. Anywhere food might be found was being stripped bare by people who looked like they'd been starving for months.
"What the hell?" Nana whispered.
Zayne moved to stand beside her, his expression unreadable. "They're from Avalon."
"What?"
"Look at them." Zayne's voice was quiet but certain. "The starvation. The desperation. The way they're moving—like they don't fully trust that the food is real. That's how I felt when I first escaped. Like I'd been living in hell for so long I couldn't believe I was really out."
Nana looked at the skeletal figures more closely. Saw details she'd missed in the initial shock. The tattered clothes that looked like they'd been worn for months without washing. The scars covering exposed skin—claw marks, bite wounds, burns. The wild, almost feral quality to their movements that spoke of people who had been surviving through pure instinct for too long.
Survivors. Avalon survivors.
"But how?" Nana's mind was racing, trying to make sense of it. "The facility burned down. The portals should have—"
"The facility controlled the portals," Zayne said, still watching the street below. "Controlled when they opened and where and who got pulled through. But when the facility burned, when all that equipment was destroyed..."
Understanding crashed over Nana like ice water.
"The portals are opening on their own."
"Yes. I saw it." Zayne turned to look at her, his hazel eyes serious. "Yesterday, when we were clearing the storage areas. There was a shimmer in the air near one of the destroyed sections. Like heat distortion but colder. It was only there for a few seconds but I recognized it. That's what the portal looked like when I fell through the first time. When I was pulled into Avalon."
Nana's throat went dry. "How many did you see?"
"Just the one. But if the containment systems are completely offline, if there's nothing controlling the portal generation anymore..." Zayne trailed off. Didn't need to finish.
The portals could be opening anywhere. Everywhere. Randomly depositing Avalon's contents into the real world without any control or limitation.
Which meant the survivors were coming back.
But it also meant—
Another shriek split the air.
Not human this time. Not the desperate sounds of starving survivors finding food. This was something else entirely. Something that made every hair on Nana's body stand on end because she'd heard that exact sound echoing through Avalon's districts for nine months.
A vampire.
Nana ran to the other window—the one facing toward downtown. What she saw made her blood freeze.
The sky was shimmering. Multiple points across the city where reality seemed to ripple and distort, where something was wrong with the fabric of space itself. And from those shimmer points, things were emerging.
Not just survivors. Not just the skeletal, desperate humans who had been trapped in Avalon and were now stumbling into the real world.
Creatures.
A vampire dropped from a shimmer point two blocks away, landing on a rooftop with predatory grace. Its red eyes scanned the street below, already searching for prey.
A hybrid emerged from another portal in the middle of an intersection, causing a multi-car pileup as drivers swerved to avoid it. The creature barely seemed to notice, just started moving toward the nearest humans with single-minded hunger.
In the distance, something massive—a giant, easily six meters tall—materialized in the middle of the commercial district. It took one step and crushed a parked car beneath its crystallized foot.
"No," Nana breathed. "No, no, no—"
More shimmer points were appearing. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. All across the city, portals were opening and spilling Avalon's contents into the real world.
And it wasn't just the creatures from the facility. These were the things that had been living in Avalon itself. The population that had built up over eleven years of continuous portal deployment. Every monster that had been created and released. Every hybrid that had survived the elimination cycles. Every vampire and demon and wanderer that had been part of Avalon's ecosystem.
All of them coming through at once.
Zayne's hand found hers, gripping tight. "The Wish Bridge protocol."
"What?"
"When we escaped through the Wish Bridge—when anyone escaped through it—the portal only accepted human form. It reset everything else. Erased the modifications, erased the evidence, sent people back clean so the government could maintain their cover-up." His voice was tense, analytical. Doctor mode, trying to solve a problem even as the world fell apart. "The portal had safeguards. Filters. Only allowed through what the facility wanted to allow through."
"But now the facility is gone," Nana finished, understanding with horrible clarity. "And the safeguards are gone. The portals are opening without any filters. Without any control. Dumping everything from Avalon into our world."
"Everything," Zayne confirmed.
On the street below, a shimmer point appeared directly in front of the supermarket. The skeletal survivors who had been eating scattered, terror evident even in their emaciated faces. They recognized that shimmer. Had seen it before in Avalon. Knew what it meant.
Something was coming through.
A demon materialized. Larger than the ones Nana had fought in the facility. Its body crackling with dark energy, its presence warping the air around it with heat distortion.
It saw the survivors. Saw prey.
It lunged.
Nana moved without thinking. Was out her apartment door and down the stairs before she'd consciously decided to act, Zayne's footsteps right behind her. They burst onto the street just as the demon's claws were about to tear through the nearest survivor—a woman who looked like she weighed maybe forty kilograms, who had been clutching a loaf of bread like it was the most precious thing in the world.
Nana's fist connected with the demon's head mid-lunge. The impact sent it flying sideways, crashing through the supermarket's already-shattered window. It recovered faster than she'd hoped, already coming back at her with renewed aggression.
Zayne's ice spear caught it through the chest before it could reach her. The demon froze solid, then shattered.
The skeletal survivors stared at them. At the two enhanced specimens who had just saved them from a monster they'd probably spent months running from in Avalon.
"Get inside," Nana told them, her voice hard. "Find shelter. Stay away from the shimmer points. If you see one forming, RUN."
They didn't need to be told twice. Scattered like leaves in the wind, grabbing what food they could carry and disappearing into buildings, into alleys, anywhere that might offer protection.
Nana turned to look at the city.
More shimmer points were appearing. More creatures were emerging. And worse—much worse—she could see the creatures from the facility starting to interact with the ones from Avalon.
A vampire from the facility encountered a vampire from Avalon. They circled each other for a moment, two predators assessing threat levels. Then, seeming to recognize each other as the same species, they turned in unison toward the human prey around them.
They were coordinating. Not competing. Coordinating.
A hybrid from the facility joined a pack of hybrids from Avalon. The pack immediately moved with greater efficiency, the facility-enhanced creature's superior intelligence guiding the group's hunting strategy.
Two different populations of monsters that should have been competing for territory were instead combining forces. Creating a hybrid threat that was more dangerous than either population alone.
"It's getting worse," Zayne said quietly. He was watching the same thing, coming to the same horrible conclusions. "The facility creatures were enhanced. Stronger and faster and smarter than the Avalon variants. But they were created in isolation. Limited numbers. Controlled deployment."
"And the Avalon creatures were numerous but weaker," Nana continued. "Designed for a specific ecosystem. Not optimized for urban combat."
"But now they're combining. The facility's enhancement meeting Avalon's numbers. The worst of both populations joining together."
On a rooftop three blocks away, Nana watched a giant from Avalon meet a giant from the facility. The facility variant was slightly larger, its crystallized armor more refined. For a moment they seemed to size each other up.
Then the facility giant made a sound—something between a roar and a call—and the Avalon giant responded. They turned together toward the commercial district and began moving in tandem, their footsteps shaking the ground in synchronized rhythm.
"They're not fighting each other," Nana said, and her voice was hollow with horror. "They should be fighting for territory, for dominance, for food. But they're not."
"Because they recognize each other." Zayne's analytical mind was working through it, finding the terrible logic. "Same base material. Same Wanderer energy. Same fundamental design. The facility was creating them from Avalon's ecosystem—using Wanderer dust as the foundation. They're the same species. Different variants, but same species."
"Which means Avalon wasn't just a test environment," Nana said slowly, pieces clicking into place. "It was a breeding ground. Your parents—" she looked at Zayne, "—my parents—they weren't just testing human survival. They were cultivating a monster population. Building an ecosystem that would generate increasingly dangerous variants through survival pressure."
"And then they deployed the most successful variants back into Avalon as new challenges," Zayne finished. "Creating a feedback loop. A evolutionary pressure system designed to produce the strongest possible creatures."
Another shimmer point opened. This time in the middle of a residential street. And what emerged made Nana's blood run cold.
People. Human-shaped, at least. But wrong. Their bodies showed signs of transformation—vampire fangs visible in mouths that were still fundamentally human. Hybrid claws extending from fingers that could almost pass for normal. Skin mottled with the grey-white discoloration of partial vampire change.
Humans who had been in Avalon long enough to start transforming. Who had been bitten or infected but not fully converted. Who existed in that terrible in-between state.
And the portal had let them through.
"The filtering is completely gone," Zayne said, his voice tight. "Anything and everything from Avalon is coming through. Fully transformed creatures. Partially transformed humans. Survivors. The entire population of that realm is bleeding into ours."
A partially-transformed woman stumbled through a shimmer point. She looked around with wild, confused eyes—still conscious enough to recognize she was back in the real world, but too far gone to fully understand what that meant. Her vampire fangs were prominent, her skin pale, but she wasn't attacking. Not yet. Just standing there, lost and terrified and transforming.
Nana's heart broke watching her.
That could have been her. Could have been Zayne. If they'd been bitten and hadn't found the Wish Bridge in time. If they'd started changing before they could escape.
The woman's eyes found Nana. Locked on her. Recognition flickered—hunter gear, weapons, someone who might help.
"Please," the woman rasped. Her voice was barely human anymore. "Please, I don't want to—I'm still me, I'm still—"
Her eyes flashed red. The transformation accelerated, triggered by something—stress, proximity to prey, the change in environment. Her body convulsed. The last vestiges of humanity drained from her face.
Then she lunged.
Zayne's ice arrow ended it. Merciful. Quick. The woman—the vampire—the thing she'd become—dissolved before ever reaching them.
Nana closed her eyes. "We can't save them all."
"No," Zayne agreed quietly. "We can't."
More shimmer points. More creatures. More partially-transformed humans who were beyond saving. More skeletal survivors who might still have a chance if someone protected them long enough.
And in the distance, sirens. Military response. Hunter teams deploying. The government scrambling to respond to a threat they'd created and could no longer control.
Nana opened her eyes and looked at the chaos spreading across Linkon City.
Avalon wasn't a separate realm anymore. Wasn't a contained environment hidden beneath the forest. It was here. Bleeding through into the real world through dozens—maybe hundreds—of uncontrolled portals.
The city was becoming Avalon. District by district. Block by block. The same nightmare that had consumed her for nine months was now consuming the place she'd called home.
"What do we do?" she asked.
Zayne looked at her. At the woman he loved, who had survived hell and come back stronger, who had been turned into a weapon and chosen to use that power to protect instead of destroy.
"We fight," he said. "We find the survivors and we protect them. We hunt the creatures that can't be saved. We do what we were built to do."
"We can't stop all of this," Nana gestured at the chaos. "The portals. The creatures. It's too much."
"Then we don't stop all of it. We stop what we can. Save who we can. Fight until we can't fight anymore." Zayne's ice spread across the ground around them, unconscious and powerful. "That's all anyone can do."
A shimmer point opened right in front of them.
Nana and Zayne raised their weapons, ready for whatever emerged.
A child stumbled through. Human. Fully human. Maybe eight years old, covered in dirt and scars, eyes wide with terror and disbelief.
"Is this real?" the child whispered, looking at the street, the buildings, the sky that was actually blue instead of grey. "Is this really real? Am I out?"
Nana lowered her weapons. Knelt down to the child's eye level. "Yes. You're out. You're safe now."
The child burst into tears.
Behind them, more shimmer points were forming. More creatures were emerging. More partially-transformed humans were appearing, some still saveable, most already too far gone.
But at least one child was safe. At least one survivor had made it back.
That had to be enough. Because it was all they could give.
Nana stood, helping the child up. "Come on. Let's find you shelter. Then we keep fighting."
The child nodded, gripping her hand tight.
And in the background, Linkon City continued its transformation into the second Avalon. Into a place where monsters and humans coexisted. Where survival meant fighting every day. Where death came from portals in the sky and reality itself couldn't be trusted.
The nightmare wasn't contained anymore.
It was home.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.