2023 A.D. — UCLA, Westwood

Something foul stirred in the air above Los Angeles.

News cycles buzzed with reports of violent riots, cannibal attacks, government blackouts. 

The night before Gussa Habteselassie, physics major and connoisseur of cheap tequila—got blackout drunk celebrating graduation with his crew at The Big Horser.

He remembered flashing his fake ID one last time. He remembered laughing about his paper on theoretical wormholes. He remembered taking a leak in the gas station restroom across from the dorms.

Then?

Nothing.

He woke up to a screeching alarm.

His phone was vibrating off the cracked tile floor.

“EMERGENCY ALERT: NATIONAL LOCKDOWN. EXTREME BIOHAZARD. STAY INDOORS.”

“NATIONAL EMERGENCY: DO NOT GO OUTSIDE. SHELTER IN PLACE."

Naturally, Gussa ignored it.

“What the fuck...?” Gussa groaned. His head throbbed. His throat felt like sandpaper. He stumbled out into the main store aisle, only to find it eerily empty.

He scavenged. Grabbed canned food, energy drinks, and—on a whim—condoms. "You never know," he’d mumbled. "Magnum dong..."

But Gussa, brilliant dumbass that he was, decided he needed snacks. And condoms. “Y’know,” he muttered to himself, “just in case I’m stuck in a bunker with a baddie. Gotta be prepared.”

That's when the noises started up.

He checked looked around and saw absolutely nothing and no one.

Footsteps echoed behind him at least he thought so. He froze, hand half‑unpacking a can. The neon buzz seemed to stutter, then the lights flickered once, twice. The store fell into a sickly half‑light that leached the color from everything.

Then came the low, guttural moan.

Not the kind you heard in horror movies for cheap scares. This was real wet, ragged, a predator on the prowl. Gussa’s pulse jumped. The chill at the back of his neck told him he was alone, and yet not.

He spun around. Empty aisles. No register clerk. No other students sleeping off last night’s revelry. Just the echo of that dreadful sound, bouncing off linoleum and tin cans.

His lips went dry. He swallowed, eyes darting. A second, louder moan came from the frozen‑foods section.

He crept forward, breath shallow, fingertips grazing a shelf of boxed mac & cheese.

Then, out of the shadows, a figure burst into the aisle an older man, wild-eyed, wearing a torn flannel and clutching a pistol like it was a lifeline.

 “Give me your shit!” the man snarled, voice raw as gravel.

Gussa froze. A laugh bubbled up but tasted bitter.

“Bro,” he said, half-chuckling, half-panicked, “I’m a broke-ass college student. You sure you wanna rob me?”

The man’s finger twitched on the trigger. His eyes darted past Gussa, listening to something Gussa couldn’t hear.

 “W‑we could share, maybe?” Gussa added, voice cracking. He tried to step back, but his brain felt like porridge.

A sudden scream ripped through the building, high-pitched and desperate. The gunman flinched, swivelled his head. Gussa’s heart stuttered.

He saw his chance.

“Now!” he yelled, dropping the groceries and bolting past the stunned robber.

His legs pumped like pistons. One step, two—freedom within reach. He barreled toward the exit, the store’s bells jingling like alarm bells in his skull.

And then

A thunderous crack.

The world exploded into fire and stars behind his right eye. A hot rush, then cold blackness flooding his vision. The same gut‑wrenching scream followed him into oblivion—dozens of them, echoing through empty streets like the overture to a hellish opera.

Darkness claimed him.

He woke again, but this time in silence.

The tang of rubbing alcohol and antiseptic stung his nostrils. A single white light hummed overhead. He pushed himself up on the cold steel slab and turned slowly toward the mirror. The reflection that stared back was both his and not—taller, broader, hair now a wild halo of silver. His skin glowed richer, warmer, as if it had been painted anew. His eyes burned with an intensity that wasn’t his own.

Fragments of memory brushed the edges of his mind, like torn scraps of a dream he couldn’t quite grasp:

The distant echo of chanting in a stone hall.

A fleeting flash of petals swirling in smoke.

The feel of metal against his back, cold and final.

The beautiful, doll‑like man with eyes like molten silver, cradling him in arms that burned colder than ice, whispering in a soft voice calling his name in a language he almost recognized.

That final explosion of pain in Westwood, synthetic chili and condoms scattering across linoleum, the gunshot echoing in his skull, and the world going black.

Each image dissolved before he could pin it down. He shook his head, throat tight, trying to force clarity. Instead, his gaze fell on a manila folder laying on a stainless steel tray beside him.

He rifled through it. Inside were photographs of a body exhumed from an ancient tomb high in the Ethiopian mountains—skin preserved unnaturally smooth, hair still silver, eyes closed as if sleeping. Scientific notes described the corpse’s organs as “perfectly intact,” despite being centuries old. Scrawled at the top of the page was a question: “Is this the legendary Thorn Saint of Abyssinia?”

More pages followed. Folklore excerpts, They spoke of a Templar of Abyssinia, a warrior saint said to rise from death to defend the innocent, and of the Son of Abyssinia, destined to break the cycle of blood and fire. Each title felt like a key turning in a lock inside him, but the lock itself remained hidden.

His pulse hammered. He glanced back at the mirror—at the stranger who wore his face now—and wondered if the legends had come alive in him. Was he the echo of that ancient hero? Or merely a shadow, drawn into a story older than any memory he owned?

Footsteps approached outside the lab door. Gussa swallowed hard, folding the folder closed. Whatever truths it held, they were his to uncover now.

Gussa staggered back, one hand pressed over his heart, sweat beading at his brow. He choked on his own breath, mind reeling.

Was any of that real?

The lab door hissed. A TV in the corner crackled to life, static blooming before a grim voice emerged:

> “…reports confirm the dead are walking. Please remain indoors. National guard are en route…”

He turned toward the window. Beyond the reinforced glass, UCLA’s campus was a hellscape: halls of ivy‑clad buildings aflame, silhouettes of panicked students running through smoke and ash, emergency lights pulsing red against the night sky.

Something old and terrible had come through. And now, Gussa Habteselassie was awake—finally, at the brink of the world’s undoing.

He inhaled, tasting the sterile antiseptic and the brimstone of fate. Whatever this new chapter held.