The first thing Nana registered was pain.
Every muscle ached. Her ribs throbbed with each breath. Her aether core felt depleted, barely a flicker of energy remaining. She forced her eyes open, blinking against dim light filtering through—
Broken windows.
Nana's breath caught. She was lying on a dusty floor, surrounded by overturned desks and shattered glass. A classroom. An *old* classroom, with peeling paint and walls covered in strange, faded symbols she didn't recognize. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling like funeral shrouds.
*Where... where am I?*
She pushed herself upright, wincing as her injured shoulder protested. Her hunter uniform was torn and bloodied, but she was alive. That was something.
*Zayne.*
The memory hit her like a physical blow—the ice portal, the fall, Zayne's hand in hers before they were separated.
"Zayne!" Her voice cracked, too loud in the oppressive silence. "Zayne, where are you?!"
No answer. Not even an echo.
Panic clawed at her chest. They'd fallen together. He had to be close. He had to be—
Nana stumbled to her feet and made her way to the door, each step sending fresh waves of pain through her body. The hallway outside was just as abandoned—more broken windows, more dust, more silence that felt *wrong* somehow. Too heavy. Too complete.
She found stairs and descended carefully, her hand trailing along a wall covered in what looked like claw marks.
*What happened here?*
The main entrance hung off its hinges. Nana stepped through and froze.
The city stretched before her like a nightmare made real.
Every building was broken. Shattered windows gaped like empty eye sockets. Walls had collapsed, revealing skeletal frameworks of steel and concrete. Cars lay abandoned in the streets, some overturned, others burned to husks. Streetlights hung at odd angles, their glass shattered. And over everything, a strange gray sky that wasn't quite clouds, wasn't quite smoke—just an oppressive dome of *wrongness* that made her skin crawl.
But worst of all was the silence.
No birds. No wind. No distant traffic or human voices. Just... nothing.
"What kind of place is this?" Nana whispered.
*Am I... am I dead?*
"ZAYNE!" She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted with everything she had. "ZAYNE! WHERE ARE YOU?!"
Her voice carried across the broken city and died without echo.
No response.
Nana's hands trembled as she checked her equipment. Gun—still holstered, half a clip remaining. Hunter watch—cracked screen, no signal, scanner offline. Aether core—weak but functional. She was armed, she was trained, but she had no idea where she was or how to get back.
*Think, Nana. Think.*
They'd fallen through the portal together. Maybe Zayne landed somewhere else in this city. She just needed to find him. They'd figure this out together.
She started running, checking every street, every building. Her boots crunched over broken glass and debris. She peered into abandoned cars, finding only emptiness and dust. In one car seat, she found a photograph—a family smiling at the camera, a mother and father with two children. Normal people. Human people.
The photo was dated three years ago.
*What happened to them? Where did everyone go?*
Nana's hunter instincts prickled suddenly—that familiar sensation of being watched. She spun around, hand moving to her gun.
At first, she saw nothing. Just the empty street, the broken buildings, the oppressive gray sky.
Then the shadow moved.
It stood in the middle of the main road, perhaps fifty meters away. Tall. Impossibly tall. And as it stepped into clearer view, Nana's blood ran cold.
It had the body of a massive human—eight feet tall at least, powerfully built, wearing tattered clothes that might have once been a business suit. But where its head should have been, there was instead the skull of a giant bird, its beak curved and sharp, its empty eye sockets glowing with sickly yellow light.
*What the hell is that thing?*
The creature's head tilted, bird-like and predatory. It saw her.
And it *ran*.
Not the shuffling gait of a Wanderer, but the terrifying speed of a predator that knew exactly what it was hunting. Its massive legs ate up the distance between them, and in its clawed hands, it carried what looked like a rusted machete.
"Shit!" Nana drew her gun and fired.
*BANG BANG*
Both shots hit center mass. The creature didn't even slow down.
*BANG*
Headshot. The bullet pinged off its skull like hitting metal.
"You've got to be kidding me!"
Nana turned and ran.
Her hunter training kicked in—don't engage unknown enemies without intel, create distance, find cover. She ducked under a rusted bus, rolled past a collapsed storefront, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Behind her, the bird-headed thing's footsteps thundered like drums. Its machete scraped along the ground, sending sparks flying.
Nana's lungs burned. Her injured body screamed in protest. She wasn't at full strength, wasn't prepared for this, didn't understand what she was fighting—
Her foot caught on debris. She went down hard, sliding across broken asphalt. Pain exploded through her already-injured shoulder.
The creature loomed over her, machete raised, its beak opening to release an inhuman shriek—
*This is it*, Nana thought, bracing herself. *I'm going to die in this nightmare city and Zayne will never know what happened to me—*
A figure dropped from above.
The massive sword came down with devastating force, cleaving through the bird-creature's neck in one clean strike. The thing's head separated from its body, both pieces dissolving into white mist that dispersed into the air like smoke.
Nana stared, gasping for breath, as her savior landed in a crouch beside her.
A girl. Maybe twenty years old, with dark hair tied in a messy braid and wearing what looked like a patchwork of different clothing styles—modern jeans, a Victorian-era jacket, boots that might have been military issue. She held her sword with practiced ease, scanning the area for more threats before turning to Nana.
"Hey," she said, her voice surprisingly warm despite the circumstances. "You must be new here, right?"
"I—what—how—" Nana couldn't form coherent sentences. "What *was* that thing?!"
"Hybrid. Human-animal hybrid, specifically. They're everywhere in this district." The girl extended a hand, helping Nana to her feet. "Come on, we need to move. Where there's one, there's usually more."
"Wait, wait!" Nana pulled back. "Where am I? What is this place? I need to find someone—a man, dark hair, ice evol powers—"
"Questions later, survival now." The girl gripped Nana's arm, surprisingly strong. "Trust me, you do NOT want to be out here when the sun sets. If you can even call that thing a sun."
"But—"
"Move."
Something in the girl's tone made Nana listen. They ran through the broken streets, the girl leading with confident familiarity. They ducked through collapsed buildings, climbed over abandoned vehicles, always moving, always watching the shadows.
Finally, they reached what looked like an old apartment complex. The girl led Nana inside, through a maze of hallways, down into what must have been a basement level. She knocked on a reinforced door in a specific pattern.
The door opened, revealing a burly man with a crossbow. His eyes widened when he saw Nana.
"Another one?"
"Found her being chased by a hybrid in District 7," the girl explained, guiding Nana inside.
Nana stepped through the door and froze.
The basement had been converted into a survival base. Makeshift beds lined the walls. A small cooking area occupied one corner. Supplies were stacked in organized piles. And everywhere she looked, there were *people*.
Twenty, maybe thirty of them. Different ages, different ethnicities, all wearing mismatched clothing from what looked like different time periods. A woman in 1950s dress. A man in futuristic athletic wear. Teenagers in clothes Nana didn't recognize at all.
They all stared at her with expressions that mixed hope and despair.
"Welcome to Avalon Realms," the girl said, closing and bolting the door behind them. "The world between life and death. I'm Mina, by the way. And you are?"
"Nana," she answered automatically, her mind reeling. "Nana Wang. I'm a hunter from Linkon City. I fell through a portal with—" Her voice cracked. "With someone. I need to find him. His name is Zayne, he's—"
"You fell with someone?" Mina's expression turned sympathetic. "I'm sorry, but that doesn't mean you'll find him. People arrive in different locations. Different districts. Sometimes different times." She gestured to the gathered survivors. "We've all fallen through different portals. I was climbing a mountain a month ago, reached the summit, and then... I was here. Woke up in a burned-out theater with those hybrid things chasing me."
"A month ago?" Nana's legs felt weak. "You've been here for a *month*?"
"Some people here have been in Avalon for six months. A year. Longer." Mina guided her to sit on an empty crate. "There's no pattern to who arrives when or where. But once you're here..." She paused. "It's hard to leave."
"What do you mean, hard to leave? There has to be a way out!" Nana grabbed Mina's arm. "The portal brought us here, so there must be a portal to take us back!"
The basement fell silent. People exchanged glances—sad, knowing glances.
An elderly woman spoke up, her voice heavily accented. "Child, we all thought that when we first arrived. But this place..." She shook her head. "Avalon doesn't want to let us go."
"Every district is different," a young man added. "Different creatures, different dangers. We've explored what we can, but it's not safe. And we haven't found any portals. Just... more city. More monsters. More death."
"No." Nana stood abruptly. "No, I'm not accepting that. There's *always* a way. I'm a hunter. I've fought Wanderers my entire life. These hybrid things can't be that different—"
"They're worse," Mina said quietly. "Much worse. The hybrids are just the beginning, Nana. There are vampires here. Demons. Giants. Evil spirits. Things that don't have names. And once a week, the city itself comes alive and tries to kill us all."
Nana stared at her. "You're joking."
"I wish I was." Mina's eyes held the haunted look of someone who'd seen too much. "In Avalon, everything is trying to survive. That includes the monsters. They hunt us. We hide. And every cycle—every week—something catastrophic happens. Fire spirits that burn entire districts. Flying creatures that poison the air. Floods. Storms. And the worst..." She lowered her voice. "The demon cycles. When the demons bite you, you become one of them."
The room felt too small suddenly. The walls too close.
"This can't be real," Nana whispered. "This is a nightmare. I'm going to wake up in the hospital and Zayne will be there and—"
"It's real," the elderly woman said gently. "We all had that same hope. But the sooner you accept where you are, the better your chances of survival."
"Survival?" Nana laughed, but it came out broken. "I don't want to *survive*. I want to go home. I want to find Zayne. I want—"
Her voice cracked, and suddenly she was crying—great heaving sobs that she couldn't control. The fear, the pain, the exhaustion, the sheer impossibility of everything that had happened in the last few hours crashed over her all at once.
Mina pulled her into a hug. "I know. I know. We all felt that way. But you're not alone, okay? We help each other here. We protect each other. And maybe..." She pulled back, meeting Nana's eyes. "Maybe you'll find your friend. People do reunite sometimes. It's rare, but it happens."
Nana wiped her eyes roughly. "How? How do I find him?"
"You survive," Mina said simply. "You learn the rules of Avalon. You get stronger. And you never, ever give up hope." She smiled sadly. "That's all any of us can do."
Outside the reinforced door, something howled—a sound that was neither human nor animal, but something caught eternally between.
The survivors tensed, hands moving to weapons.
And Nana realized, with creeping horror, that her nightmare wasn't ending.
It was just beginning.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.