CHAPTER 52: SURVIVAL

The Bridge of Cinders died screaming.

Steel groaned as the last girders tore free, plunging into the river below.

The current boiled black where molten shards hit the water, sending up geysers of steam and fire. The Rift-Tyrant Behemoth bellowed in fury, thrashing against the collapsing structure, its furnace-maw spitting embers as though it could hold the bridge together by hate alone.

On the far shore, Ethan and his companions lay sprawled on the cracked asphalt, gasping, lungs burning, hearts still pounding from the sprint that had carried them across.

They’d made it.

Though barely, they survived.

’We did it,’ was the only thought ringing in Ethan’s head as he looked across towards the city that almost became the end of them.

But on the city side of the river, under the veil of fire and ruin, a shadow still clung to life.

Pike hauled himself from the rubble, his hands raw, his knuckles bleeding as he clawed across scorched stone.

His Predator’s Instinct had proven clutch, pushing him across the boundary of life and death just a second before the bridge collapsed, enough to throw him into a half-shattered support beam instead of the river’s abyss.

He rolled onto his back, chest heaving, armor scorched black.

A jagged burn now carved across his jawline, twisting his mouth into a permanent snarl. It was a scar that would forever remind him of today.

Around him, only four soldiers staggered upright.

One had lost an arm. Another limped, ribs broken. All of them were singed, their eyes hollow with terror. The rest, the proud cohort that had once numbered seventeen were now ash and echoes, swallowed by the Behemoth’s wrath.

Pike forced himself to his knees. His knife was gone, his rifle bent, but his gaze still burned like coals under ice.

"They’ll pay," he rasped, voice cracked but steady. "Every single one of them. Even if it takes my last breath, I’ll make sure they pay!" He snarled.

His men looked to him, shattered but tethered by his resolve. They would follow; they had nothing else left.

...

On the far shore, Ethan led his companions away from the riverbank.

The city was now gone behind them. Its broken skyline, its haunted streets, and even its bridge was now just a ruin swallowed by boiling water.

For the first time in what felt like forever, there was space and there was no cohort of Awakened right on their heels.

It felt liberating... it smelled like freedom.

DING!

~----~

[You have entered a new territory: The Hollow Plains]

~----~

Ahead stretched the Hollow Plains.

According to Reid who knew these regions before, it was once a farmland, but now a blasted wasteland under the Rift’s scar.

Fields lay in cracked furrows, barren soil pocked with shallow sinkholes that whispered when the wind crossed them.

Dead and skeletal barns leaned like broken teeth, their wooden frames long since blackened by Rift fire. The horizon stretched vast and empty beneath a blood-red sky, oppressive in its silence.

But in the apocalypse, there was no safe place.

Danger still lived here.

Shapes moved in the distance, hunched and wrong, but the openness gave them air to breathe. After the suffocating city, it felt almost like relief.

Almost.

They found a farmhouse on the plains’ edge, half-collapsed, its roof burned out but its cellar miraculously intact.

Ethan shoved the door open, his gauntlet clearing the debris. The air smelled of mold and old grain, but the stone walls held. It would do.

Inside, Jonas collapsed first, leaning against the wall with a grunt, blood soaking through his bandages even though his eyes remained stubbornly alive.

Reid stumbled in after him, his fever making his skin clammy, his rifle still clenched in his hands even as Kara guided him down. Travis slumped against a barrel, his healing spent, his breaths shallow but steady.

The others moved on instinct.

Kara checked Jonas’s bandages while Holt set snares at the cellar entrance. Mira used her wind to stir the air, chasing out the damp. Ethan paced the space, the Wheel pulsing faintly behind his eyes.

For the first time since the ambush, they weren’t running.

It wasn’t safety, not really. But it was the first breath they’d had in days that wasn’t filled with fire and fear.

Jonas leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed, muttering something that sounded like a prayer or a curse.

Reid’s hands trembled, but when Kara offered to take his rifle, he shook his head, lips pressed thin.

Travis coughed weakly, managing a crooked grin at Jonas.

"Still alive," he said. "Against all odds."

"Don’t jinx it," Jonas muttered, but there was a flicker of humor in his eyes.

Ethan sat near the cellar door, his gaze fixed on the Hollow Plains.

His chest felt heavy, his thoughts heavier.

He had pulled them through the bridge, but at a cost. Pike wasn’t dead. The man’s hatred would follow them, scarred but unbroken. And beyond the plains, the quarantine zone loomed like a promise, or a cage.

But at least they were here... together.

Mira sat apart from the rest of them, her back to the wall, her eyes unfocused. She had been silent since the bridge, her hands folded in her lap.

Then the shimmer came.

DING!

~----~

[System Notice: Rank Advancement Achieved!]

[Congratulations! You have ascended to F Rank!]

~----~

Her breath caught softly.

She blinked once, feeling the change ripple through her veins as her wind became steadier, sharper, and more responsive than ever before.

Unlike when Travis Awakened, there was no burst of light, no chaos, and no miracle under fire, just quiet strength earned by refusing to break.

She smiled faintly to herself, a secret only she carried. She didn’t announce it; she didn’t need to. They’ll know with time.

For tonight, the others needed rest, and so did she.

The cellar grew quiet, the group drifting into uneasy sleep.

Above them, the Hollow Plains stretched wide and silent, the last hurdle before the quarantine zone. Behind them, scarred and burning with vengeance, Major Pike still lived.

And in the shadows of that ruined farmhouse, Mira quietly stepped into Rank F, her strength a whisper instead of a roar.

The apocalypse had not ended. But tonight, they endured.