It’s not even dawn before the worst-case scenario rears its ugly head. A high, loud screech—like metal tearing—screams through the night and echoes across the land.

I shoot up in my sleeping bag and narrowly avoid tipping out of my hammock. The kid’s not so lucky. I hear him hit the ground hard with a grunt.

“What the hell,” he gasps out, working to catch his breath.

I untangle myself from my hammock and move to the center of our small campsite on top of the hill, hoping to catch sight of the source of the noise.

A few miles off, floating above the city, is a glowing blue fracture—as if the sky itself has split open. The kid comes to stand next to me, squinting as he tries to make sense of what he’s seeing.

“What… is that?”

“That,” I say, sighing in disappointment, “is the second way this could have gone.”

He turns to look at me, though in the dark of early morning it’s nearly impossible to see his face. “You mean the fantasy route?”

“Yep. That’s almost certainly a dungeon.”

“A… dungeon…” I can tell from his voice that he hardly believes it. I don’t blame him. “Aren’t dungeons supposed to be underground or whatever?”

I grimace. “Kid, did you never play any video games growing up? Have you never heard of a fantasy dungeon?”

“Fantasy dungeon? What the fuck does that even mean?”

“Like dragons. And treasure. And quests.”

“Quests? Is some old guy with a long white beard gonna jump out from somewhere and give us a quest? You cannot be fucking serious right now.”

I sigh and rub my hands down my face, then check the time on my wristwatch. 3:06 a.m. The sun should start rising soon. We didn’t get much sleep, but we’ll have to make do for now.

“Pack your stuff. We’re leaving.”

“Wha—now? But it’s the middle of the night.”

“There’s no time. We need to get as far away from that thing as possible.” I turn to start back toward my hammock, but a firm hand on my arm stops me in my tracks.

“Why!? Hey—” His grip is tight. Punk probably doesn’t even know his own strength now. “Seriously. What the fuck. What is going on? First it’s these powers. Then your weird healing voodoo shit. Now these weird… dungeon crack things. You obviously know something. Please, just tell me what the fuck is going on?”

I can hear the panic in his voice. But more than that, I can feel it—like a tight wire vibrating in the air between us, making his anxiety feel as if it were my own.

The first rays of morning have begun to stain the horizon with a dirty, blood-red color that sets my teeth on edge. I can’t help but recall the old fishing proverb.

“Sailors warning…” I mumble. His grip tightens on my arm. I wince.

“You’re not making any sense! Please. Just slow down and explain things in a way I can understand. I know you think I’m just a kid or whatever, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Please.”

I level my gaze up at him. There’s just enough light now that I can see his eyes—pleading and desperate—as his fingers dig deeper into my arm.

“Well… seeing as how the worst case seems to be our new reality, I suppose it doesn’t hurt to tell you my theory. But pack first. We can talk while we walk. I promise you, we want to be as far away as possible before—”

A deafening CRACK splits the sky, as if a glass thunderbolt has just exploded into a thousand tiny pieces. The earth rumbles and shakes and then… silence.

The kid wraps me in his arms, using his larger, sturdier frame to protect me against this possible unknown threat—an instinctual move that he himself isn’t even aware of. I push out of his arms and scramble to my feet as the tremors subside, only to stare in horror at the crack in the sky.

Previously a bright blue, it now sits red and ugly, dark shapes pouring from its gaping mouth like a festering wound. Their screeches and cries echo off the broken remains of buildings and rubble as they seep into the city. Within a few seconds, chaos ensues—explosions thunder from ground level, and buildings crumble further into debris.

If we were just a bit closer, I imagine we’d be able to hear the screams.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groan.

Next to me, sitting on his ass in the dirt, the kid stares up in complete and utter shock at the scene transpiring before him.

“This isn’t fucking fantasy.” He’s terrified now—shaken, his eyes fighting with his brain as it desperately tries to deny that this new reality could possibly be true. “This is straight out of a goddamn horror film.”

I flick my gaze back to the dungeon in the sky. Well. Given what was pouring out of it, wreaking havoc even as we stood there debating, the kid wasn’t wrong.

“Yeah… suppose I should have said dark fantasy.”

My comment is met only with silence as we both stare out at the impossible disaster unfolding just a few miles from us.