Jagger dragged his sister with the last of his strength, boots scraping against the rubble-strewn ground. His shoulder slammed into the wall, holding him upright as his body threatened to collapse. With a final, trembling effort, he eased Hannah down, lowering her carefully until her head rested against the cold stone. Then his own legs gave way, and he slid to the ground beside her.
His head still rang with the echoes of the last blow, each heartbeat a thunderclap inside his skull. Blood trickled down from the gashes along his scalp, streaking his face and dripping onto the broken cobblestones. Crimson streamed from his arm and legs, soaking through his torn clothes, sticking fabric to skin. Every breath rattled in his chest, shallow and ragged, as if each inhale scraped his lungs raw.
Yet even then, even broken and battered, he reached for Hannah. His hand shook violently, fingers stiff with numbness, but he pulled her against him, cradling her body close, wrapping his arms protectively around her trembling frame. She had saved him. He did not know how—did not care. All that mattered was that she was alive. That they were together.
He pressed his face against her hair, the smell of soot and singed cloth filling his lungs. His chest heaved with a shaky breath. "We'll make it through this," he whispered, though the words were more to himself than to her. "We will survive." They rang hollow, brittle against the roar in his ears, but they gave him just enough strength to keep his eyes open a little longer.
Time blurred, stretching into something that felt like hours. The roar of fire dulled, shrinking into a distant crackle. In its place rose other sounds—voices, shouts and screams that pierced the night, mingling with the clatter of stone collapsing and the harsh clang of steel on steel. The city lived in chaos beyond the alley, but here, it was a tomb.
Blood pooled thick around Jagger's legs, dark and sticky, catching the pale silver of the moon above. He could no longer tell if it was his or the goblin's. His arms were numb, fingers tingling, slipping against Hannah's torn clothing. His eyelids dragged heavy, the world narrowing to the blur of moonlight above.
"Stay up," he slurred, the words tumbling weakly from cracked lips. His chest heaved with effort, lungs catching, each breath more shallow than the last. His body trembled as he clung to his sister, his grip weakening by the second. The alley seemed to dissolve around him—firelight dimming, voices fading, until the world reduced to silence and shadow.
His eyelids slid closed.
When they opened again, there was light.
He rubbed at his eyes, groggy, fighting the haze that clung to him. The alley was still there, though transformed. The smoke had lifted, leaving only the sharp tang of charred wood and blood. The fires had burned down to ash, and morning light bled across the horizon, pale and cold.
"Hannah…" His voice came out hoarse, rasping through a throat scraped raw.
No answer.
He shifted, and suddenly the weight against him was gone. Empty. His heart lurched, panic flooding through him.
"Hannah?"
Still nothing. His gaze darted to the space beside him—bare stone, blood-streaked but empty.
"HANNAH!" His cry ripped through the alley, bouncing off the walls in a hollow echo. Desperation twisted in his chest like a knife.
He cursed under his breath, forcing his battered body upright. His legs wobbled, threatening to buckle with every step, but he staggered against the wall, steadying himself on the cold, rough stone. His breaths came in sharp gasps, his ribs flaring with pain.
The blood pooled at Jagger's feet had thickened in the cold night air, clinging to his boots in sticky strands, black as tar beneath the pale light of dawn. The metallic stench of it clawed at his nostrils, thick and suffocating, making him gag with every shallow breath. He gritted his teeth, jaw aching from the strain, and shoved himself forward with a stagger, one hand pressed tight against his ribs to keep himself upright.
He stumbled out of the alley, squinting against the sudden brightness. His eyes stung, watering from the smoke and ash that still lingered in the air. The world beyond the narrow walls opened before him, and the sight struck like a hammer to the chest.
The street was unrecognizable. The monsters had torn through everything, leaving nothing untouched. Buildings sagged in ruins, their skeletal frames jutting into the sky like broken teeth. Flames licked from shattered windows, coughing smoke into the heavens in spirals of gray and black. Cars lay abandoned in grotesque stillness—some overturned, some crushed, some burning from within, their metal frames groaning as fire devoured them. The ground was strewn with debris, glinting shards of broken glass and jagged chunks of stone, scattered between husks of vehicles that stood like tombstones.
Jagger dragged his gaze across the devastation, forcing his legs to carry him forward. He staggered toward the nearest car, half-buried in a mound of rubble. Its windshield was a spiderweb of cracks, its hood flattened into the street, but the frame clung stubbornly to shape. Relief flickered—until he saw the body.
A man slumped in the driver's seat, his torso slashed open, his head lolled back at an unnatural angle. Half his skull was caved in, a dark mess seeping down the seat. Jagger flinched violently, stomach twisting, bile rising into his throat. He tore his gaze away, eyes squeezed shut as the image burned into his mind.
His knees buckled. He collapsed beside the wreck, palms scraping against the scorched metal as he leaned heavily against it. His chest heaved, each breath tearing through him like broken glass. He couldn't move. His body had given up, spent and trembling, the strength bled dry from every limb.
Tears welled and burned his eyes, blurring the wreckage into smears of gray and red. He tried to blink them back, but they fell anyway, rolling hot down his dirt-streaked cheeks, dripping into the ash. 'I have to find her,' he told himself, clinging to the thought like a lifeline. 'She must be close, right? She wouldn't abandon me.'
The tears came faster, a silent stream sliding down his face. "Yeah," he choked out, voice raw, "She wouldn't, she must have thought I died, yeah. All this blood is the goblin's, and I just passed out."
His vision blurred again with a fresh wave, and he wiped at his face, his hand coming back streaked with ash, blood, and grime. 'What a stupid thought, Hannah leaving me behind, yeah right.' he chuckled, but it was weak and shaky. 'Hannah would never leave me behind. We promised. We swore we'd survive this together. She's my little sister. She'd never abandon me.'
The corner of his mouth twitched upward into a fleeting smile as he wiped at the tears. But when his gaze drifted down to his forearm and ankle, the smile withered. His skin was caked with dried blood, wounds crusted and torn. His clothes were shredded, clinging stiff with sweat and gore. His shoes were soaked, coated in that same black substance he no longer dared to name.
The grim realization hollowed him. His jaw clenched, and his expression hardened. 'I would have left too,' he admitted quietly. 'If I saw her like this, broken, bleeding, covered in gore… I would have ran.'
A sickening knot twisted his stomach. His fingers dug into the dirt, gripping hard, his knuckles straining white. He was alone. There was no way she would come back. No reason to.
A heavy sigh escaped him. He dragged the back of his hand across his face, smearing away the last traces of tears. "Pathetic," he muttered under his breath.
With a groan, he forced his battered body upright, using the car as leverage, his muscles screaming in protest. He steadied himself on one good leg, his other broken one quivering with each step. He looked out at the wreckage—his neighborhood reduced to ash and ruin. Homes gone, streets split open, the familiar world he once knew erased overnight. Only rubble remained, jagged shadows of what had been, a graveyard of memories.
He lifted his eyes to the horizon, then began to move, limping forward through the devastation. His steps were slow, deliberate, his weight shifted carefully with each stride. Every few paces his head turned, scanning the ruins for movement—monsters, or perhaps survivors. His ears strained, but there was nothing.
No voices.
No cries.
No life.
The streets were barren, the silence heavy and suffocating. The world hadn't just fallen—it had died.
And Jagger walked alone through its corpse.