The relative darkness of the shattered storefront offered a moment of respite that lasted exactly two seconds.
Arthur and the woman were dragging Zane's dead weight deeper into the abandoned building—their eyes fixed on the entrance, bracing for the inevitable collision with the horde of sprinting Runners. The air was filled with Zane's ragged gasps and the distant, howling snarls of the closing pack.
Then came the light.
It started as a blinding, pure-white flash that ripped through the shattered rear windows of the building, instantly turning the darkness into a searing, agonizing noon. The light was followed by a colossal, booming roar—a sound that was less an explosion and more the noise of the earth itself being struck by a colossal hammer.
BOOOOOOOM!
The kinetic wave hit them like a physical wall of pressurized air. The building groaned, then violently buckled. Glass, dust, and chunks of concrete exploded inward. Arthur and the woman were slammed into the cold, damp floor, their bodies instinctively curling around Zane. A massive steel beam from the ceiling ripped loose and crashed where they had been standing moments before, narrowly missing them.
The initial detonation was replaced by a continuous, low, deafening roar of crumbling masonry and screaming metal. The world tilted, the sound vibrating in their bones, blurring the line between noise and pain. Then, as suddenly as it began, it faded to a chaotic, muffled silence filled only with the trickling of falling dust and the settling of rubble.
Arthur coughed violently, spitting dust and blood. His ears were ringing, but his mind was functional. He blinked, pushing shattered glass off his back, and looked down at Zane, who was barely conscious. His eyes, usually clear and bright, were wide and bloodshot, but they were blazing with a frantic, ethereal light—a brilliant, unstable mix of gold and white that strained against the darkness.
"Zane! What the hell was that?!" Arthur yelled, his voice sounding distant and ragged in his own ears.
Zane didn't answer. His mouth moved, but only a desperate, silent gasp escaped. The ethereal glow intensified, his face contorted in a silent scream of agony as he desperately poured the last of his magical will into a singular, impossible task.
With a final, shattering CRACK, the space directly above the three figures shimmered and solidified. A massive, transparent dome—a colossal forcefield of pure, agonizing yellow-gold energy—snapped into existence, a desperate cocoon of protection.
It appeared not a moment too soon.
The rest of the building, destabilized by the kinetic blast, finally gave way. The front facade, already weakened, slammed inward, followed by the roof and the upper floors. Tons of concrete, twisted steel, and rubble cascaded down with a deafening roar, turning the interior into a collapsing deathtrap.
Arthur and the woman watched, horrified and paralyzed, as the ceiling vanished and the sky was replaced by an avalanche of debris. They braced for the impact, but the crushing, final weight of the building slammed harmlessly against Zane's impossibly strained dome. The forcefield roared with the immense pressure, shimmering violently and pulsing with destructive electrical arcs as it bore the weight of the entire structure.
The building completely imploded around them, leaving a massive pile of fresh rubble where the storefront had been.
The three survivors were now trapped in a small, dome-shaped pocket of darkness and suffocating dust, buried deep beneath a mountain of wreckage.
Zane's eyes, still blazing with effort, met Arthur's. A slight, knowing nod was all he could manage before the light vanished completely, extinguished by his sheer exhaustion. The forcefield, no longer sustained, blinked out of existence.
Immediately, a few small but significant pieces of rubble shifted, settling with heavy thuds against the roof of their prison. But the structure of the surrounding debris held, Zane's final act having created a solid air pocket.
Zane's body went utterly limp. His head lolled to the side, and he passed out instantly, his breathing shallow and faint.
Arthur quickly slapped his hand against his ringing ear, trying to clear the ringing. He looked at the woman, whose face was pale and covered in dust, but whose eyes were wide and focused.
"Zane..." she whispered, her voice filled with a stunned disbelief that transcended mere fear. "He... he saved us."
Arthur swallowed, the metallic taste of blood thick in his mouth. He gently felt for Zane's pulse, confirming the feeble, steady rhythm.
Arthur coughed again, the effort causing a spike of pain in his ribs. He turned his attention to the surrounding darkness. The air was thick with cement dust, making every breath a chore. They were in a pocket of space roughly the size of a small bathroom, surrounded on all sides by tons of concrete and steel.
Arthur: We're buried, (he stated, the realization flat and grim.)
Arthur swallowed, the metallic taste of blood thick in his mouth. He gently felt for Zane's pulse, confirming the feeble, steady rhythm.
Arthur: Yeah. He did, (he rasped, the words scratching against his raw throat. He then looked up, his gaze meeting the woman's in the suffocating darkness.) And now we're stuck. Probably with less oxy, so... breathe slowly.
The woman nodded slowly, her dark blue eyes, though still wide, beginning to narrow with calculation. She reached up and brushed a thick layer of dust from her choppy blonde hair. The silence of the tomb was profound, broken only by their controled breathing and the faint, almost unheard shifting of the rubble above. The noise of the outside world—the groans, the snarls, the pounding feet—was completely gone.
"What... what are you people?" she asked, her voice low and demanding, cutting through the silence like broken glass. "That explosion... that wasn't some gas leak. That was a cataclysm. And what Zane just did... the light, the forcefield... it's not possible."
Arthur leaned back against the damp concrete, careful not to jostle Zane.
Arthur: We're convicts, (he began, his voice flat.) Forced to deals with the impossible. That thing that grabbed Rex, those zombies... they're all impossible. And so are we.
"Impossible," she repeated, the word laced with bitter skepticism. "Impossible people doing impossible things. Where were you all when the plague was just beginning?"
Arthur: We weren't here. We're not from this place. We're... from another world entirely. Why we're here is something I have no answer to.
The woman stared, absorbing the impossible truth. Her eyes glazed over for a moment, a memory flickering behind them, and then she nodded slowly, the cynicism momentarily replaced by a grudging acceptance.
"Another world," she murmured. "Right. The way this one's going, that tracks." She blinked, her focus snapping back to the present. "I almost forgot. My name is Jenna."
Arthur: (He gave a curt nod.) Okay, Jenna. Since you're from... this world, (he paused, glancing at the mound of rubble), and you've been dealing with these things, mind telling me what else is out there? What other kinds of zombies are out there?
Jenna: (She frowned, a worried crease forming between her eyebrows.) Honestly? I don't know. The usual non powered types, yeah, everyone knows those. But the special types are the ones affected by the radioactive storm from the last three years... The Runners, the Brutes... those are the ones most commonly seen and known.
Arthur: Okay, so the one that flew... the one that took Rex... that was your first time seeing anything like that too?
Jenna: (Her eyes went wide again, and she whispered worriedly.) Yes. Absolutely. We heard tales of things, but nothing that fast, that strong. Nothing that flew. (She shook her head, the truth clearly sinking in that they are dealing with something far beyond her world's natural evolution.)
Jenna: (She hesitated, then looked at the silent pile of rubble.) So... about your friend, Rex... do you think... he could still be alive? That cataclysmic explosion came from the same direction...
Arthur: (His voice was instant and sharp, cutting her off.) He's alive, (he stated, his voice flat and final, refusing to acknowledge the possibility of his friend's death.) He's alive. I know he is. For all we know it could have been him. He's done it before... don't know how and why but... yeah.
Jenna: (She sighed, recognizing the brittle denial in his tone. She simply nodded.)
Arthur: (He leaned his head back against the cold, damp concrete, whispering, not to Jenna, but to the suffocating darkness.) Where are you guys... I hope you're somewhere safe.
The silence of their rubble-filled tomb settled again, heavy with fear, exhaustion, and the grim reality of their impossible situation.