They noticed me.
Of course they did. I wasn't hiding anymore. I wasn't quiet, or crouching, or backing away into shadow like the survivors told each other to do.
I was still, kneeling, holding Mira's corpse.
And that was the moment the creatures turned their heads, those massive black dog-like things with slick, rotting fur and mouths filled with mismatched teeth and hissing breath. They moved like shadows with bones, eyes glowing with the same red static I'd seen crackling across the sky.
Three of them at first. Then five. Then nine.
I didn't move. I didn't even flinch.
What was there to be afraid of anymore?
The one person who ever gave a shit about me, who believed in me, who smiled at me like I mattered, was gone. My last tether to sanity, to hope, to meaning… rotted in my arms, cooling by the second. The stench of blood was overpowering, and not just hers. I smelled it everywhere.
I laid her down gently and then stood up like something unholy was waking in my chest.
My eyes locked on a thick, jagged steel pipe jutting out of the rubble, covered in soot, bent at one end. And I grabbed it without thinking, fingers wrapping around it like it was always meant to be there.
I stepped forward.
I didn't think. I didn't plan. There was no Flux technique in my head, no strategy, no preparation.
I let go of logic and let the screaming inside me take the wheel.
"Come on, then. Come and see what a worthless tour guide looks like when she breaks."
And I charged.
The first one lunged at me, jaws open wide enough to fit my whole torso. I ducked under it with a speed that shocked even me, then slammed the pipe upwards into its jaw with all the strength I could pour into that one movement. Its skull crunched and I screamed as I kept hitting over and over until the thing's head was nothing but pulp and bone shards.
The others snarled. I turned and charged again.
The second didn't even get a full growl out before I drove the pipe through its eye socket. It let out a garbled screech but I didn't stop. I twisted the pipe, ripped it out, and then used it like a bat, swinging at the next one that came too close.
There was no finesse, no elegance, just pure, unfiltered rage exploding out of me with every blow. My arms burned, my legs slipped in the gore and debris, but I didn't stop. I was too fast for some of them. They lunged and I had already moved. They barked, and I had already shattered their teeth down their throats. I moved like I wasn't human anymore.
And then the fifth one bit me.
Its jaws clamped down on my right arm and I felt something rip before I even knew what happened. The pain was white-hot but I didn't scream. I just roared, smashing the pipe into its face over and over until it stopped moving.
My arm hung useless at my side. I swapped hands still going.
Six. Seven. Eight.
My body was covered in slashes now. My back burned. My side was bleeding. My lip was torn. My eyes were nearly swollen shut from where claws caught my face.
I didn't care.
The ninth monster rammed me before I even saw it. My body hit the ground hard enough to rattle my spine, and my vision danced with black stars. Before I could crawl up, I saw it slash through my leg.
I screamed this time.
I tried to stand, but I couldn't. My leg buckled beneath me and I collapsed, gasping and shaking. Blood poured from too many places. My pipe slipped from my fingers.
Three of them still stood.
One was missing an ear. One had a gouged-out eye. One was nearly untouched. They circled me like wolves around a dying deer.
I couldn't move.I couldn't even crawl.
The adrenaline was gone. My body was failing. My arm was gone. The stump still twitched like it hadn't realized the limb was missing. I was shaking from blood loss, and the world started pulsing in and out of dark.
This was it. This was the end.
I stared up at them, defiant, and even managed a crooked smile as blood ran down my chin.
"I guess this is it huh..."
I could barely breathe.
Everything in my body was screaming. Hot, searing pain mingled with cold, numbing shock. Blood clung to my skin like armor, caking with ash and rain. My leg was useless. My arm was gone. I didn't even know if I could scream anymore. Maybe I already had. Maybe I never stopped.
And that's when I saw them.
Boots.
Sleek, black boots so clean, they didn't belong in this ruined world, standing just beside me, facing the monsters.
The dog wolves snarled at him. Their red, boiling eyes glowed with the hunger of predators. They were about to leap.
The man—if I could call him that—slowly knelt beside me.
A faceless, featureless mask stared back at me. It was smooth, like obsidian, reflecting the sickly blue rain that never stopped falling from the sky.
His voice came out like velvet wrapped in steel.
"You want to live?"
I didn't even try to speak. My mouth wouldn't move. My lungs were drowning in agony. All I could do was give a shallow, broken nod.
He stood up as the wolves launched forward. He didn't even flinch. He raised a single hand.
I didn't even see it.
One moment, the monsters were mid-lunge and the next, their heads were embedded in the rubble, bodies twitching where they dropped, like puppets whose strings had been cut with razorwire.
The silence afterward was unbearable. Not even their death cries echoed. Just the sound of blue rain hissing against shattered stone and broken glass.
He turned back to me, approaching slowly. The rain danced off his cloak like oil on water.
"I'm a Rogue Flux Elite," he said, crouching beside me again. "I don't work for the Capitals. Or the Branches. Or the damned corporations."
His voice was calm. Almost cold. But there was something… old in it. His fingers hovered above my forehead.
"You have a 9.3 Flux Rating. That's... rare. And powerful. Would be a waste if you died here."
His gloved hand touched my brow.
Warmth like fire spread through my skull, through my shattered spine and bleeding veins. It was not healing. No, just... numbness and relief.
"Rest, Permonelle," he said, whispering my name like it was something sacred. "You deserve that much."
Dizziness struck me so hard I almost threw up. My stomach flipped. My eyes blurred into colorless shapes. But right before the darkness took me, I turned my head.
Through the dust and debris, Mira's body still lay where I left her.
I raised a shaking, trembling hand.
"…Mira…"
And the world finally disappeared.