The screams had become a constant—like wind, like the buzz of insects. They layered over the ruined streets of Hervey Bay like a skin of noise, thin but suffocating. Somewhere behind the old cinema, a man cried out, a wailing crescendo that ended in wet gurgling and the heavy crack of something being split open.

  Malachai crouched low in the shell of a burned-out car, his breath shallow and pain coiling through his ribs like coals under skin. The Skinwalker’s slash had cut deep; the blood wouldn’t stop leaking, and the ache had settled into his bones like frost. His chest burned with every breath. But worse than the pain was the knowledge clawing at the back of his skull—he was utterly alone.

  The city was no longer a city. It was a carcass—sprawling and bloated, reeking of death and rot. Glass lay like snow across the ground, jagged teeth waiting for flesh. Smoke rose from hundreds of quiet fires, curling against the black sky above the gate. That was the worst part—the sky. It hadn’t turned dark from nightfall. It had turned dark because something was standing on the other side of the gate, looking in.

  And it was breathing.

  Malachai had heard it the night before. Felt it in his spine. A slow, grinding inhale that dragged the mist into the sky, rattled windows, and left the world still in its wake.

  They were coming through faster now. In the beginning, the monsters had spilled out in chaotic waves, but now it was hunting. Purposeful. A swarm with direction. The creatures knew where to go. Where the people were hiding.

  Where the meat was.

  He peered through the shattered glass of the windshield. Across the parking lot of the Coles supermarket, a group of survivors were running—six of them, stumbling over debris, dragging a seventh between them. A boy. Limp. Maybe dead already.

  From the rooftops, Wendigos screamed and leapt.

  They were tall, skeletal things, coated in frost and black, greasy hair. Their mouths unhinged like snakes, lined with teeth that weren’t made for chewing—just tearing. As they dropped onto the fleeing group, the sound of impact was flesh meeting cement. Bones cracked. Blood sprayed in a great arc.

  One woman tried to scream. A Wendigo tore out her throat before she could.

  Another survivor—a man in a torn flannel shirt—pulled a knife, but it wasn’t a weapon. It was a last wish. The creature ripped off his arm with one jerk of its jaw, the limb dangling from its maw like a prize.

  Malachai shut his eyes.

  He didn’t want to watch. But he had to.

  Because this was real.

  And because he needed to know if anyone ever survived long enough to matter.

  One of the Wendigos crouched over a twitching body and began to eat. It didn’t chew—it burrowed, long fingers punching into soft stomach, cracking ribs like twigs to reach organs still steaming with life. It devoured heart, liver, lungs, licking bone clean as its head twitched side to side, blood painting its chest in smears. Another creature pulled intestines free, dragging them across the ground like festive ribbon.

  They feasted like it was holy.

  The others dragged the last survivor—a young girl—into the supermarket. The doors had been broken for days, the entryway coated in flies and gore. Malachai heard her screaming, heard her begging.

  Then he heard nothing at all.

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  He didn’t move for nearly an hour.

  Not until the creatures wandered off, their bellies full and their heads raised to scent the air again. Searching. Always searching.

  Malachai crawled from the car, fingers slipping on blood-slick steel, pain flaring in his side. The wound throbbed, hot and wet, but not fatal. Not yet. He pressed a filthy rag against it and kept moving. He couldn’t stay in the open—not during a dungeon break.

  They hadn’t taught them that term in school. No one had. But now it was everywhere, scrawled in blood and spray paint across fallen walls:

  GATE = DUNGEON

  IF IT BREAKS, YOU DIE

  RAID OR RUN

  He’d heard rumors, months ago, of how the gates could be closed. Enter, fight, kill the boss. Simple words, but they didn’t mean anything anymore. This one had been open too long. No raid had come. No heroes. No elites. Just silence, then screams, then death.

  Now it was too late.

  The monsters were loose. The dungeon had ruptured. The gate was no longer a cage. It was a throat, and the world was sliding down it.

  He ducked into a service tunnel beneath the shopping center. The concrete steps were soaked, the walls slick with condensation and something darker—handprints. Dozens. Child-sized. Claw-sized. Something had been dragged down.

  Malachai lit a small candle from his pocket—a leftover from a raided home—and kept it shielded as he moved. The air was thick with mildew and copper. He stepped over three bodies. One was a teenager with her face gone, like it had been carved off with a spoon. The others were older, curled in fetal positions, eyes wide and staring.

  They’d died screaming.

  He tried not to think about how recently.

  He found shelter in a janitor’s closet, wedging the door shut with a bent pipe and huddling behind overturned buckets and dusty bottles of bleach. He could still hear movement above. The creatures never slept. They wandered, whispered, sniffed the air like hounds that had learned to mimic voices.

  Once, hours ago, he’d heard his mother calling him from the dark.

  But she’d died the first day.

  He clenched his teeth. Gripped the pipe. And stared at his bleeding hand.

  Then the system pulsed again—unbidden, silent, but there.

  Trait Fragment Accumulated: Wendigo

  +2 Strength, +1 Vitality

  New Ability: Feast of Flesh (Locked)

  Class Evolution Path Progressing…

  He shook his head slowly. He didn’t understand it. No one else he’d met—before they died—had spoken of these windows. This system. This… game.

  They awakened powers. Sure. But they felt them. They didn’t see them.

  Why him?

  Was it the kills?

  The blood?

  The class?

  The word whispered itself again, soft as a breath:

  Reaper.

  Something thumped against the door.

  A slow, deliberate knock.

  Not a crash. Not a claw.

  A knock.

  Three times. Then silence.

  Malachai didn’t breathe.

  The thing on the other side whispered, voice high and lilting:

  “Malachaaaaai… open up. We found you.”

  It was the girl from the parking lot.

  The one who’d screamed.

  The one who’d been dragged inside.

  Her voice was full of broken teeth.

  He did not open the door.

  Not yet.

  But he would.

  Because the only way out of this hell was to go through it.

  And the Reaper was awakening.