Timeline: TC1853.02.01 (Night) - Beginning of Phoenix Awakening
Location: North Shrine Containment Facility - Spiritual Timespace
The gateway tore reality wider.
What had been a crack became a chasm. The pure black void expanded with hunger that transcended normal consumption—this was annihilation, existence itself being devoured by something that operated on principles reality wasn't designed to accommodate.
And through the widening gap—
Creatures.
Not animals. Not monsters in the traditional sense. Nightmare given flesh. Forms that shifted when directly observed, refusing to maintain consistent shape as if physical laws were suggestions they found amusing to violate.
Some resembled wolves—if wolves had been sculpted from living shadow and given too many legs, too many eyes, mouths that opened in directions mouths shouldn't open. Their howls carried harmonics that made human ears bleed, frequencies designed to shatter sanity rather than just frighten.
