The rain hadn't stopped in three days.
Redhaven was drowning in mud and rust, its streets slick with brown water and gasoline rainbows. The air was heavy, the kind that made breath stick in the chest.Inside the salvage hangar, the Giggs team gathered around a cracked map spread across a steel table. The smell of oil mixed with boiled coffee and gun grease.
Mara leaned over the map, tapping a finger near a cluster of red-marked buildings."The depot's south section was where we saw it last," she said. "The Carrier doesn't move far from its brood, but it hunts every three to five days. Tomorrow's the fifth."
Derek cracked his knuckles. "Then it's hungry."
Linnea crossed her arms. "And smarter than the usual ones. Carriers coordinate. They send scouts ahead, track patterns. It's not a wild pack — it's a nest with a brain."
Oz stood beside his sister, eyes fixed on the map. His expression was unreadable, but his mind burned.For three days straight, he'd been refining his Peek until he could hold it for eleven full minutes. He hadn't pushed further. Mara forbade him. She said every gift needed a leash before it could be a weapon.
Now, she needed that gift off the leash.
Tomas pointed with his wrench. "We can bait it. Leave a flare line leading from the yard into the service tunnel. If it follows, we hit it from two sides — Linnea with shrapnel, Derek with suppressing fire. Mara holds the front. Kid stays behind and tells us where the rest are crawling from."
"Kid's got a name," Derek said, grinning at Oz.
"Oz," Mara said softly. "You think you can handle it?"
Oz nodded. "I can Peek for ten minutes safely. Fifteen if I use a crystal mid-combat."
Linnea frowned. "You sure about that? You've only taken Level 1. Pushing beyond ten minutes drains more than energy—it starts eating into your life force."
Oz looked down at his gloved hands. "If I can see the Carrier before it moves, I can warn you where it'll strike. That's worth the risk."
Mara studied him quietly for a long moment. She wanted to say no — to keep him safe, tucked behind the steel walls where she could pretend the world hadn't already claimed him.But the boy looking back at her wasn't the twelve-year-old she'd been raising.He was something else now.
"Alright," she said at last. "You stay close. You do exactly as I say. You don't use Jump. Ever. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Derek clapped him on the back hard enough to rattle his teeth. "Look at that — our little dimensional scout's growing up."
"Leave him be," Linnea muttered. "He's doing more for us than half the 'veterans' in this base."
They spent the evening preparing gear.
Linnea sat cross-legged by a workbench, reforging shrapnel mines from scavenged bearings. Derek checked his rifle's bolt and replaced the firing pin. Tomas tuned the truck engine until it purred like an old cat.Oz packed supplies into his Dimensional Space—food, ammo, grenades, fuel cells, even a small field generator. The inner dimension shimmered faintly in his vision as each item vanished from his hands.
The space inside wasn't dark anymore. When he reached into it, he could almost see the floating shapes of everything he had stored — an endless, silent warehouse lit by a soft bluish glow. His personal world, expanding as his power grew.
He didn't know why, but he could feel it growing — stretching wider every time he used it.
That night, sleep refused to come.
He sat by the window, watching the rain smear the world into gray lines.Mara joined him silently, handing him a tin mug of hot water flavored with something bitter.
"Couldn't sleep either?" she asked.
"Too loud inside my head," Oz said.
She sipped. "You scared?"
He thought about it. "Yes. But not enough to stop."
Mara smiled faintly. "That's how I know you're my brother."
They sat together in silence. Outside, the lightning flashed, momentarily revealing the rusted skyline of Redhaven — broken towers like the bones of dead gods.
"Oz," Mara said after a while. "If things go bad tomorrow—"
"They won't."
"—if they do," she continued firmly, "you take Linnea and Tomas and you run. Don't look back. Don't wait for me."
He stared at her. "You can't ask me that."
"I can," she said. "Because I'm not asking you to abandon me. I'm asking you to protect the team. You're the only one who can move all of us if something goes wrong. Promise me."
Oz clenched his jaw. "I promise to get everyone out alive. Including you."
Mara smirked. "You got that stubbornness from me."
The rain stopped before dawn.
The team rolled out at first light, truck engines humming low. The wasteland gleamed wet and silver under the rising sun. Steam rose from puddles like ghosts.
Oz rode in the back beside the crates, hand on the conduit staff Linnea had reinforced with carbon strips. The metal felt warm to the touch, almost alive.
He breathed slowly, steadying his heartbeat. Inside his mind, the door to his dimensions pulsed faintly — waiting.
When they reached the depot perimeter, the air grew still. No wind. No birds. The silence of a place the living had forgotten.
Mara raised her fist, signaling halt. The team dismounted. Linnea began laying proximity flares in the mud. Tomas dragged the dummy crates into the open as bait. Derek watched the tracks through a cracked scope.
Oz stood near Mara, eyes half-closed.
"You can open it," she whispered.
He nodded. The world blurred — colors drained, outlines stretched, and in an instant, the Dimensional Peek opened.
Reality split into layers.
In the visible world: the rusted depot, the abandoned train yard, the mist hanging like a curtain.In the hidden layer: lines of faint light weaving through the structures — trails of movement, heat echoes, and something darker pulsing deep below.
He saw them.
Dozens of zombies crawling under the freight cars, their bodies half-buried in mud, motionless but not dead. Waiting. The Carrier's brood.
And deeper still, in the tunnels beneath the depot, a pulse like a heartbeat. Slow. Steady. Enormous.
"It's below," Oz whispered. "Under the south platform. Big. Breathing."
Mara nodded. "Can you mark its path?"
He focused, his mind following the faint blue strands that connected the sleeping monsters to their master. Each one vibrated with a rhythm — all leading back to the same core.He traced them, marking invisible points in the air with his staff.
"There," he said, pointing to a broken section of the platform. "If we strike there, it'll come."
Mara looked to Derek. "Set the charges."
Linnea crouched beside him, connecting wires to a scavenged detonator. Tomas positioned the truck for retreat.
Oz stayed still, eyes unfocused, Peeking into the dimension's edge.
Then something happened — something he hadn't seen before.Beyond the Carrier's lair, further down, there was another light — a faint golden shimmer, pulsing irregularly, buried in the earth. It didn't feel like a zombie crystal. It felt alive. Warm.
His focus wavered, and the image blinked out. The Peek snapped shut.He staggered, breathing hard, vision swimming.
"Oz!" Mara caught him. "How long?"
"Ten… minutes," he panted. "I saw something under it. Not part of the nest. Something glowing."
Linnea frowned. "A reactor cell?"
"No," Oz said quietly. "It felt… human."
Mara's jaw tightened. "We stick to the plan. We don't chase ghosts."
She turned to the team. "Everyone ready?"
Four voices answered in unison."Ready."
"Then let's wake the devil."
They planted the last charge and took position behind the wrecked crane.Oz crouched beside Mara, sweat slick on his forehead, watching the detonator light blink red.
Mara raised her hand.
"One…"
The base of the platform rumbled.
"…Two…"
A low groan echoed through the depot, like metal bending under pressure.
"…Three."
She pressed the trigger.
The explosion ripped the silence apart — a flash of orange and smoke that rolled across the rails like a storm wave. The ground trembled. The air filled with dust and ash.
Then came the scream.
It wasn't a sound made for human ears — a piercing, wet shriek that carried through bone and air alike.Freight cars shook. Windows shattered.
Derek muttered, "Oh, it's awake, alright."
From beneath the platform, the Carrier tore free.
It was larger than anything Oz had ever seen — a grotesque fusion of man and beast, its limbs stretched long and lean, its torso armored with bone plates. Its jaw split in four directions, drooling black bile. A glowing blue crystal pulsed inside its chest like a second heart.
"Contact!" Mara shouted.
Gunfire erupted. Derek's rifle barked, Linnea hurled a shrapnel mine, and Tomas revved the truck to life.
The Carrier moved impossibly fast for its size, slamming into a railcar and flipping it aside like paper. The ground shook with each step.
"Oz!" Mara called. "Peek — now!"
He closed his eyes and reopened the dimension.The world fractured again — and he saw it.
Every movement the Carrier made rippled through invisible strands, like vibrations in a web.Those lines were its nerves, its instinct — and Oz could read them.
He shouted, "Left flank incoming! Two broodlings — railcar five!"
Derek turned and fired. The broodlings exploded mid-crawl."Got 'em!"
"Another one — right side! Behind the pillar!"
Linnea spun, detonator in hand, and blew the support beam apart. Dust rained from above.
Mara's flames burst into life, coating her arms and shoulders, eyes burning orange. She met the Carrier head-on, unleashing a wave of fire that melted the mud beneath her feet.The monster roared, skin sizzling, bones cracking.
Oz felt his heart pounding in sync with the dimensional rhythm.The world was no longer chaos — it was visible, structured. Every movement connected to another through the web only he could see.
He could almost predict the next attack before it came.
Then, the glow beneath the Carrier flared again — that golden pulse, bright and rhythmic, like a human heartbeat.It called to him.
He almost reached for it—
—and then the Peek shattered.
The world slammed back into color and noise. His knees gave out. The Carrier lunged through the fire.
Mara screamed, "Oz, get down!"
He hit the ground just as the monster's claw ripped through the air where his head had been.
The depot exploded into chaos.
The depot was fire and thunder.
The Carrier tore through the smoke, a blur of sinew and bone. Every step shattered concrete, every roar peeled the skin of the world.Mara's firestorm lit up the night — a blazing inferno that painted her like a goddess of war.She moved fast, too fast for Oz to follow with his human eyes, her blades glowing red as she slashed through the monster's outer shell.
But the Carrier didn't die.
Its body was wrong — bones rearranging, muscle fibers splitting and twisting as if refusing to obey mortality. Every wound she inflicted only seemed to move the infection around, patching itself together.
"Oz!" Mara shouted over the roar. "Get clear!"
He didn't move. His ears rang, his vision blurred from the overload of his last Peek, but he forced his shaking hands to tighten around the conduit staff.
Linnea's voice crackled through the comm-link. "Charges depleted! We're falling back!"
Derek fired another burst, the sound sharp and rhythmic. "We're not leaving without her!"
The Carrier swung a massive arm, slamming into a freight car. Metal screamed as the car flipped end over end, landing in flames.Oz ducked behind the debris, coughing through the smoke.
His head was pounding, every heartbeat echoing like a hammer against glass. The dimensional web was gone—his Peek had collapsed—but he could still feel its afterimage. The connections lingered faintly, like burnt outlines on his mind.
And beneath it all, he still felt that golden pulse beneath the ground.It was stronger now — steady, calling, a rhythm that somehow matched his own heart.
He didn't know why, but he knew this:whatever it was, the Carrier was protecting it.
Mara leapt onto the creature's back, driving a blade into the thick muscle near its spine. Flames burst from her palm, igniting the wound. The Carrier screamed, flailing wildly, slamming its back into a wall to crush her.She let go at the last second, landing hard, rolling across the dirt.
Derek rushed forward, rifle blazing, emptying his last magazine into the monster's glowing chest.
"Come on, you ugly bastard!"
The Carrier turned. Its chest cavity opened like a grotesque mouth, revealing the glowing blue crystal deep within — pulsing faster now.It lunged, and Derek barely had time to scream before a claw the size of a shovel tore through him.
"DEREK!" Linnea's voice broke, high and raw.
The Carrier hurled his body aside like scrap.
Oz's stomach twisted. The smell of blood and burnt oil filled his throat.Mara's face hardened — grief folding into fury. Her flames flared bright enough to blind.
"Linnea, Tomas!" she shouted. "Pull back to the truck!"
"What about you?!" Linnea's voice cracked through static.
"I'll end this!"
Mara charged, fire trailing behind her like comet tails. The Carrier met her halfway — two forces colliding with the violence of storms.The impact sent shockwaves through the depot. The ground cracked, sparks rained down from the collapsing ceiling.
Oz tried to stand. His body wouldn't obey. His limbs felt heavy, as if reality itself were pushing him down. His Awakener energy was low — nearly empty.
He looked at the crystal fragment in his pocket — the Level 1 upgrade Mara had given him. His last reserve.He hadn't taken it yet.
He hesitated only a heartbeat before swallowing it.
The effect was immediate.
It was like molten lightning pouring through his veins. Pain first — sharp, bright, unbearable — then clarity. His vision widened, every sound and motion stretching and folding into focus.The air shimmered. The dimensional lines flared back into existence — thousands of glowing threads crisscrossing the battlefield.
He gasped. "It's back…"
The Peek opened on its own — unrestrained, powerful. He didn't have to try anymore. The door inside him swung wide, and he saw everything.
The Carrier was surrounded by a lattice of glowing veins — its entire body a living conduit for dimensional energy. Every muscle, every movement was powered by the blue crystal pulsing in its chest — not magic, but resonance.The thing wasn't alive in the biological sense. It was a dimensional echo, a creature being puppeted through layers of space.
Oz could see it now — threads leading upward, beyond this world, into another dimension entirely. Something was controlling it.
"Mara!" he shouted. "It's not just a zombie — it's a puppet!"
"What?!" she yelled back, ducking another swing.
"It's being controlled — from somewhere else! The core crystal's not just power, it's an anchor!"
She didn't have time to answer. The Carrier lunged again, faster than before. Its claws sliced through her armor, cutting deep into her side. Blood sprayed across the mud.Mara stumbled, fire sputtering. The smell of scorched flesh filled the air.
"OZ!" Linnea's voice screamed over the comm. "She's hit!"
He moved before he thought.
The staff in his hands pulsed with the same faint blue light as his Space — his power resonating, syncing with the dimensional threads around him.He swung it down, focusing everything he had on the lattice he saw — and the staff cut through it.Not physically. Dimensionally.
The sound was like glass breaking underwater.
The Carrier froze mid-step. Its limbs twitched violently, as if confused by the sudden loss of control. The blue veins along its body flickered erratically.
Oz saw his chance. "Mara, now!"
Mara, bleeding and barely standing, raised her hand. Her flames roared to life one last time — hotter, brighter, angrier.She hurled them forward in a single, blinding inferno that swallowed the monster whole.
The explosion that followed cracked the earth. The Carrier convulsed, its body collapsing inward as the blue crystal shattered.
Then silence.
For a moment, the only sound was the wind howling through the broken depot.
Oz staggered forward through the smoke, coughing. His staff hung limply at his side. The Peek had collapsed again, his energy spent, but the world still hummed faintly in his ears — echoes of what he'd just seen.
He reached Mara, who was on her knees, clutching her side. Blood ran down her arm, staining the dirt black."Mara," he whispered, dropping beside her. "You're okay — you're—"
"Don't lie to me, Oz," she said weakly, smiling through bloodied lips. "You always make that face when you lie."
He pressed his hands over the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. "Linnea! Medpack!"
Linnea ran over, tearing open the kit with shaking hands. Tomas followed, face pale.They worked fast — bandage, sealant, pressure.The bleeding slowed, but Mara's breathing was shallow.
"Oz…" she murmured, gripping his wrist weakly. "Did you see it?"
He nodded. "The web. The lines. It wasn't alone. Something was pulling it from above — like a hand holding a puppet."
Mara's eyes fluttered, but her voice stayed steady. "Then it means… there's more than this. The crystals… they're not natural."
He swallowed. "No. They're dimensional fragments. Connectors."
Linnea's hands froze mid-motion. "Connectors to what?"
Oz stared into the hole the Carrier had come from — the black pit where he'd felt the golden pulse. "To whatever's down there."
The ground shook.
Before anyone could move, a wave of light burst upward from the crater — golden, blinding.Oz shielded his eyes, but the light wasn't like fire or electricity. It felt alive, warm, aware.
He heard a voice — not with his ears, but in his mind.
You see what others cannot.And yet you are blind to what you are becoming.
The golden light poured around him like water, wrapping him in weightless warmth.He saw flashes — visions — cities floating in the void, towers that pierced dimensions, a thousand worlds orbiting each other like reflections in broken mirrors.And then — the same door from his awakening dream.
When the time comes, you will open this door again. And the worlds will change.
The light vanished.
Oz gasped, falling backward, every nerve screaming. His eyes burned. His heart raced as if it had forgotten how to beat.
Linnea caught him before he hit the ground. "Oz! What happened?!"
He looked up at her, trembling. His irises shimmered faintly gold.
"I saw… something," he whispered. "A world beyond ours. And it saw me back."
They left the depot at dusk.
Mara was half-conscious in the back of the truck, her wound sealed with synthflesh. Linnea drove. Tomas sat silent. Derek's seat was empty.
No one spoke for a long time.
As the sun sank behind the ruins, Oz sat with his back to the window, staring out at the wasteland. His staff rested across his lap. The world looked different now — sharper, more defined. He could still see faint dimensional traces in the air, like smoke only he could sense.
He thought of the Carrier's web — how its life was a reflection of something else pulling the strings.And he wondered how many others like it existed.
When they reached Redhaven, the guards cheered. They'd seen the explosion from miles away.But when the truck rolled through the gates and they saw Mara carried on a stretcher, the cheering stopped.
Commander Holt met them in the courtyard. His face hardened as he took in the scene. "Report."
Mara, barely conscious, rasped, "Carrier… terminated."
Holt nodded slowly, then looked at Oz. "And you?"
Oz met his gaze. "I saw something in the nest. Not a crystal — something alive. Golden. It spoke to me."
Holt frowned. "Spoke?"
"Not with words," Oz said quietly. "With understanding."
Holt studied him for a moment longer, then nodded. "We'll debrief tomorrow. For now, get your sister to the infirmary."
Hours later, when the base lights dimmed and the generators quieted, Oz sat alone outside the medbay.The rain had started again, soft and steady.
He stared at his hands — still trembling — and whispered to the dark, "You said the worlds will change. But into what?"
He opened his palm.Inside it lay a tiny fragment of gold — a shard from the light that had touched him. It pulsed faintly, as if alive.
He reached into his Dimensional Space and dropped it inside. The warehouse of light absorbed it, and the pulse spread — slow, steady, resonant.
Something shifted within him — small, but undeniable. The dimensions were growing stronger.And he was growing with them.
When he finally closed his eyes, he dreamed.
He was standing once more before the door among the stars. Only this time, it wasn't silent.Hands reached out from the light behind it — not to pull him in, but to guide him.
And a voice, soft but clear, whispered:
"When the world ends again…you will decide what takes its place."