What once tethered people to one another—shared footsteps, leftover conversations in the concrete—had vanished. The street wasn’t broken. It had been exhumed. Above it, the skeleton of the apartment building reached into the smoke like it was begging to be remembered. It didn’t crumble with grace. It clung to its last form like a corpse still upright in defiance. Beams split out from the ruin like severed tendons. The air clung to his throat—part ash, part chemical, part grief. Fire pulsed through broken windows, too rhythmic to ignore. The sidewalks were gone. The roads were no longer flat. And everything that remained kept quiet. As if the city itself was holding its breath.

It wasn’t just his building.
His entire block had been peeled back layer by layer—brick by brick, breath by breath—until only dust and memory remained. The deli where Elise used to buy soda after school was now a collapsed shell. The crosswalk she always rushed across was split down the center, as if something divine had lost patience. And the lamppost—bent, broken—jutted from the concrete at a twisted angle, its metal warped and scorched, like a demon had raked its claws across the world and kept walking.

Smoke drifted across the ruins in slow, uneven ribbons. It clung to the broken walls, wrapped itself around street signs and shattered glass. The air was thick and metallic, and every breath carried the bitter sting of something burnt too deep to name.

Jaden moved forward, careful where he stepped. The debris shifted beneath him—pieces of sidewalk, fragments of what used to be homes. The ground made a low, grinding sound with each footfall, like the city itself was warning him not to come any closer.

Then he heard it.
Voices.
Somewhere beneath the wreckage, people were still alive. Not many. Not clearly.
A scream rose and broke into coughing.
A child sobbed, high and sharp, then went quiet.
Someone called out for help with a voice so hoarse it barely sounded human.

It came from everywhere and nowhere. Some too far to reach. Some too close to ignore.

No one was rescuing them. There were no sirens. No helicopters. Just wind, smoke, and the occasional burst of flame from a ruptured gas line.

Jaden didn’t say anything. Didn’t cry.
He just kept walking, past the voices, past the ash, toward where his apartment used to be.

The whole apartment building—his home—had folded in on itself like a lung giving out. Eleven stories flattened to maybe two. Maybe one.
Steel jutted upward like bone, brick packed into itself like something crushed in a fist. The shape of it wasn’t right. It looked like the building had caved inward from the chest, like it was trying to protect something—and failed.

Jaden staggered closer, squinting against the smoke. Ash stuck to his skin, caked in his lashes. He couldn’t see more than a few steps ahead. Couldn’t breathe without feeling like he was swallowing glass.

And then—he saw it.
A piece of cloth.
Torn. Faded. Barely hanging.
Elise’s banner. The one she’d hung for Kenneth’s graduation.
It was still there, still clinging to the edge of a broken window frame, its letters smeared with soot. It flapped in a wind that wasn’t really blowing anymore.

His knees almost gave out.
His chest burned with every breath, but it wasn’t just the smoke.
His whole body was tightening. Drawing in. Refusing to accept the shape of what was in front of him.

And then he heard it.
A voice.
Faint. Strained.
“…Jaden…?”

He dropped his backpack without thinking. The strap tore as it hit the ground, but he didn’t look back.

The voice was too faint. Too real.
Jaden sprinted toward it, lungs stinging. Ash scraped down his throat with every breath. Soot clung to his lashes, turning the world into a gray blur.

His knees slammed into splinters of wood, broken tile, something sharp—he didn’t know what.
He clawed his way forward, over wreckage that used to be the lobby.
What remained of the front door was just a twisted frame, half-swallowed by rubble. He gripped it and pulled. The metal edge sliced across his palm. His fingers tore open as they dragged across shattered brick and glass.
But he didn’t stop.

Then—
Her voice again. Closer.
“Jaden… honey—here…”

He saw her.
At first, just a hand—half-buried, fingers twitching. Then came the voice again, closer this time.
And then—
Elise.

She was pinned beneath what used to be the door. Or maybe a wall. He couldn’t tell anymore.
Her body was twisted. One leg crushed under a beam, the other curled awkwardly beneath her.
Her shirt was soaked through with blood. It clung to her ribs like a second skin.

But her face—
That was still hers.
Cracked lips. Dust streaked across her cheeks.
And eyes that didn’t look away when they found him.
Her eyes met his—and didn’t waver.
There was no fear in them. No confusion.
Just recognition.
Like she had been waiting for him to find her.

Jaden dropped to his knees beside her.
“Elise,” he said. His voice barely made it past his throat.

She smiled.
It was small. Tight. The kind of smile you give when pain is louder than words.
“You’re okay…” she whispered.

He shook his head. “No. You’re not. You’re—”

“I said you’re okay,” she cut in.

The tears came before he even felt them.
Hot streaks carving through the soot on his face.

“I’m gonna get help,” he said, voice catching. “We can get this off you. Kenneth might—he’s smart, he’ll know what to—”

“No.”
Her voice had no strength left, but it still stopped him.
She blinked, slow.
“Please. I just want to see you a little longer.”

His chest shook. He held her hand.
It was cold.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I wish I could’ve been here. I should’ve—”

Her eyes found his.
They flicked up with effort—just enough to meet his gaze.
Her lips moved.
A whisper too quiet to catch.
Not even a full word.
He leaned closer, but it was already fading.

Whatever she said...
he would never know.

Then—
nothing.
No warning.
No final breath.
She just... stopped.

And Elise Hayes was gone.

Jaden screamed.
It tore out of him—loud, broken, and useless.
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that.
He didn’t care.

At some point, the sobbing turned silent.
His body still shook, but the sound had emptied out.
He stayed kneeling beside her.
Holding a hand that would never squeeze back.

Then, slowly, he reached up—fingers brushing through her hair.
He found the small silver brooch Elise always used to keep it tied.
The one she wore on job interviews. At Kenneth’s graduation.
He unclipped it.
Turned it over in his palm.
And slipped it into his pocket without a word.

Somewhere in the distance, the city groaned.
A far-off siren tried to cry out, then died mid-howl.
But here—
Only stillness.
Only weight.

And then—
Footsteps.
Measured.
Familiar.

Jaden didn’t turn.
He knew who those footsteps belonged to.

Kenneth stepped through the wall of smoke.
His fingers curled into a fist, pressing to his lips.
The tears came slow at first—then all at once.
He tried to breathe through it. Failed.

For a while, he just stood there, shoulders tight, like moving might shatter him.
Then his eyes focused on Jaden.

“We have to go,” he said.

Jaden didn’t move.
He wasn’t crying anymore.
Just staring—vacant, frozen—like his mind had stepped out of his body and left it behind.

Kenneth reached toward him, then stopped.
His hand hovered, uncertain, before falling to his side.
His voice cracked as he said,
“She’s gone.”

He looked around.
The street. The sky—the broken buildings, the smoke, the silence that was too full.
“And if we stay here…”
He swallowed hard.
“We’re going to be next.”

From the center of the street—now nothing more than a pit where the earth had caved in—the air began to vibrate.
At first, it was subtle. A low hum in the bones.
Then came the light.

Amber. Beautiful in the way wildfires are beautiful.
Glowing particles floated upward like embers caught in reverse, drawn toward something unseen.

Then—cracks.
Thin, jagged veins of light began tearing through the air above the pit.
They moved like lightning, but too slow. Too deliberate.
Space wasn’t just cracking.
It was peeling—like the skin of the world was being pulled back.

The sky above it had gone a deep, bruised violet.
But around the edges of the fracture, the light burned amber-gold, pulsing like a heartbeat.

A portal.
Not a doorway—
A wound in space.

And through that wound, something stepped forward.

At first, it was only shape. A silhouette, distorted by the light pouring around it.
But even in shadow, the shape was ominous.

Tall. Towering.
Not human.

The boys didn’t speak.
Didn’t blink.
They had never seen anything like it.

And whatever it was—
It was looking straight at them.

The portal pulsed—once, then again—
The amber glow deepened, thickening like blood in water.

And then it began to move.
Not the portal.
The thing inside it.

One clawed foot slammed onto the broken asphalt with a weight that cracked the earth. Then another.

And Kael’Dros emerged.

First came the outline—broad, hunched, too tall for anything natural. Then the rest followed.
His body was carved from something older than flesh. Obsidian scales, jagged and layered like armor melted into form. Veins of glowing red split across his chest and limbs, pulsing like magma just beneath the surface.

His spine arched with serrated ridges that moved like a blade learning to breathe. Each step landed with the certainty of something that had burned other skies before this one.

His arms hung long and heavy, ending in claws that scraped the concrete with a sound like bone dragged across stone.

His face—if it could be called that—was a monstrous fusion of dragon and nightmare.
Horns curved back from a plated skull. His snout split into a gaping maw packed with serrated teeth, too many for anything resembling a clean kill.

His eyes burned—a focused crimson, glowing from within like coals just before they fade.
Not the glow of curiosity.
The glow of something that knew fire by name.

His tail dragged behind him like a blade left to rust in the dirt.

Around him, the air warped—heat and pressure rippling outward in silent waves.
He wasn’t just tall.
He towered taller than a city bus.
Tall enough to blot out the wrecked cars beneath him.
Broad enough to block the street on his own.

And when he opened his mouth—
The sound that came out wasn’t a roar.
But it wasn’t speech either.
It was something between—a low, grinding resonance that curled through the air like it was tasting it.

The sound moved like hunger wrapped in vibration.

And his head—
It wasn’t shaped for speech.
But somehow, it formed the words anyway.

“Mmmmmm…”
The voice was deep. Too deep. Like it came from under the floor of the world.
“...what a ripe little world you’ve brought me.”

Kenneth grabbed Jaden’s sleeve.
They were both too stunned to speak.
Not because the creature was terrifying—
But because they could understand it clearly

Jaden didn’t move.
He couldn’t. Kael’Dros tilted its head, the joints of its neck grinding with the sound of shifting stone.

“You humans…” it whispered.
“...smell so young.”

The next word didn’t need to be spoken.
But it was.

“...and delicious.”

Sirens wavered in the distance.
It wasn’t the sound of rescue.
Just the echo of a system too stubborn to admit it had failed.

Two officers stepped into the street, weapons raised.
They didn’t understand what they were seeing.
But protocol demanded posture.

“Step away from the civilians!” one of them called out.
His voice cracked at the end.

Kael’Dros turned.
Slowly.
Not as a reaction, but as a courtesy—like he was indulging the voice out of old habit.
He looked at them the way a butcher looks at an animal that hasn’t realized it’s already dead.

A smile tugged at the edge of his jaw.
No fangs bared. No dramatic flourish.
Just the curve of inevitability.

He didn’t wait.

He squeezed the trigger and didn’t stop.
The clip emptied in a single desperate burst—round after round hammering into Kael’Dros’s chest.

Sparks bloomed. Smoke curled off the impact points.
But he didn’t flinch.
The bullets clattered to the ground, flattened and useless.

“Don’t m—”
He didn’t finish the word.

Kael’Dros moved.
All fours. Fast.
Not like a beast—like a verdict.
His limbs struck the ground with a syncopated rhythm, smooth and controlled—more reptile than man.
Like a crocodile in water. But faster.
Too fast.

The officer didn’t even raise his weapon a second time.
One clawed arm swept through the air with perfect, mechanical precision.
Flesh split.
Uniform peeled.
The scream died halfway through the lungs.
His body collapsed in layers—like the cut had outrun the realization of it.
Blood sprayed across the debris in wide, uneven strokes.

Kael’Dros knelt.
Not out of respect.
He bit.
And he chewed.
Slowly.
As if the body wasn’t just a kill—but a meal worth savoring.

The second officer soiled his pants out of raw fear.
His breath hitched, screamed, and ran.
Bolted for the squad car.
Door slammed, keys shook in his hand as he jammed them into the ignition.

Kael’Dros moved before the engine could even ignite.

He stepped forward through the smoke and flickering light.
One arm slammed against the frame of the car.
Metal shrieked.
The door ripped away like packaging.
He reached inside.
Fingers locked around the torso.
He pulled the man free like luggage.

The scream was short.
Then the chewing began.

His jaw opened past the limits of bone.
The first bite collapsed the ribcage.
The second split the spine.
Bone snapped with the weight of thunder.

Kael’Dros didn’t rush.
He chewed slow. Intentional.
The body was a succulent meal. The moment was indulgence.

When he finished, he let what remained drop.

Jaden was paralyzed with fear and disbelief.
Kenneth’s hand clutched his sleeve, knuckles white—but there was no pull.
He was frozen too.

Across the rubble, Kael’Dros watched them.
Without anger. Without malice.
Just curiosity.

Wondering if they would taste different.

The kind of curiosity reserved for something still young.
Still tender.

Like a child staring down his first plate of chicken nuggets—

only this time, they were the nuggets.