The dawn did not break over Addis Ababa; it was strangled in its crib.
There was no morning here. There was only a suffocating palette of bruised purples and charcoal greys. Above the Entoto Mountains, a monolithic ceiling of soot, volcanic ash, and chemical smog had conspired to murder the sun. The golden rays were choked to death miles above the atmosphere, leaving the world below drowning in an eternal, murky twilight.
The city, once the rhythmic heart of the nation, now stood as a silent monument to divine judgment.
Skyscrapers loomed like hollowed-out ribcages. The glass facade of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia was gone, replaced by jagged metal teeth that whistled a mournful dirge in the toxic wind. Where windows once gleaned, empty sockets stared down into the abyss of the district, like the eyes of a bleached skull.
The air didn't just smell; it tasted. It coated the tongue with the grit of sulfur, the cloying sweetness of unburied decay, and the sharp, copper tang of old blood.
Below, the streets were a vacuum.
The cacophony of traffic, the hum of conversation, the pulse of life—all extinguished. In their place, only stubborn fires crackled, gnawing on the twisted carcasses of automobiles. The asphalt was slick, not with rain, but with a dark, viscous grime that clung to the soles of boots.
Was humanity still here? or was this merely a mausoleum built to house its extinction?
Deep beneath the rubble, in a cavernous basement converted into a laboratory, the air possessed a heat that threatened to peel skin from bone.
It was not a dry heat. It was heavy, humid, and smelled of ozone and divinity.
In the center of the cathedral-like hall, the ten tribal leaders hung suspended, displayed like butchered meat in a smokehouse. They were bound not by iron or rope, but by roiling chains of living magma.
The molten rock coiled around their wrists and ankles, hissing against their immortal flesh.
Energy pulsed along these fiery tethers—liquid light, gold and viscous. It flowed drop by agonizing drop, siphoning the very essence of their being, draining them like dying stars.
The destination of this stolen vitality was a throne carved from obsidian.
Daruel.
The Lord of Darkness lounged with the casual arrogance of a predator that has already won the hunt. He didn't just sit; he seemed to absorb the light around him, a black hole in the center of the room. As the harvested energy flooded his veins, his pale skin shimmered. Veins of molten gold pulsed beneath the surface of his arms, terrifying and beautiful.
He tipped his head back, eyes closed, a cruel smile playing on his lips. He looked like a man savoring a vintage wine after a century of thirst.
THOOM.
The heavy blast doors didn't just open; they shuddered in their frames.
Three figures scrambled into the hall. They were clad in heat-resistant black armor that seemed to drink the light, yet they did not march with military precision. They stumbled. They moved with the frantic urgency of men who knew that death was not a possibility, but a certainty.
Reaching the foot of the throne, the dark messengers collapsed. Knees hit the stone. Foreheads kissed the dust.
"My Lord!"
The leader spoke, his voice trembling so violently it rattled his mask. Sweat pooled beneath him, dripping onto the floor. "The Time Machine... we reached the coordinates. But... it is dust. Rubble."
He swallowed hard, the sound loud in the sudden silence.
"It is utterly destroyed. Beyond repair."
Daruel's smile did not vanish. It froze.
The temperature in the room plummeted. The furnace heat of the magma chains was instantly warring with a creeping frost that slithered up the obsidian throne. The golden light in the room curdled, shifting into a sickly, bruised red.
A low, guttural vibration began deep in Daruel's chest. It was less a human sound and more like the shifting of tectonic plates. The teeth of the messengers chattered from the resonance alone.
The second messenger, sensing the encroaching doom, blurted out words in a panic, desperate to fill the void.
"But! My Lord... please! We found something! We retrieved Dr. Toram's personal journal."
With shaking hands, he produced a small, leather-bound notebook. The edges were charred, but the binding held.
Daruel opened his eyes. His irises had narrowed into vertical slits, burning with a blue hellfire.
He did not speak. He merely extended a hand.
Whoosh.
The book was ripped from the minion's grasp, flying through the air to slap into Daruel's palm. He offered no thanks. His long fingers traced the spine of the book delicately, a stark contrast to the annihilation swirling in his eyes.
"This is insufficient."
Daruel's voice was the sound of a landslide—heavy, grinding, and terrifyingly calm.
"Razed this laboratory," he whispered. "Every wall. Every floor. Every brick."
He leaned forward, the magma chains behind him flaring up to cast demonic shadows across the hall. "There are hidden chambers; I can smell them. Find them."
His voice rose, cracking the stone beneath the messengers' knees. "And bring me every quantum physicist left alive on this cursed rock. Drag them from their holes. If they are dead, bring me their heads; I will wring the memories from the rotting tissue myself."
"As you command, my Lord!" the three screamed in unison, their foreheads scraping the floor.
As the minions scrambled backward on hands and knees, a sound sliced through the tension.
Laughter.
Weak. Broken. Wet with blood. But undeniably mocking.
Among the suspended prisoners, a man with broken wings lifted his head. It was Ratuel, Lord of the Fire Tribe. His body was a withered husk. His skin had turned grey, and his hair, once a roaring flame, was now dull ash. Yet his eyes... his eyes burned with a suicidal defiance.
"She is coming for you," Ratuel wheezed. A thick glob of blood rolled from his lip, sizzling as it hit the magma chain. "Do you think a book will save you? She... is coming."
Daruel rose slowly from his throne.
The movement was unnatural—too smooth, too fluid. The chains connecting him to the prisoners clattered like dry bones. He drifted toward Ratuel, the stolen light swirling around him in a halo of destruction.
"I will not wait for Dr. Toram," Daruel whispered.
He stopped an inch from Ratuel's face. The heat radiating from him was enough to singe eyebrows.
"I will go to her myself, little bird."
Daruel's hand shot out, clamping onto Ratuel's skull. His fingers sank into the bone as if it were soft clay.
"ARGHHH!"
Ratuel's scream was not just sound; it was physical force.
Daruel accelerated the absorption. The essence of Fire was ripped violently from Ratuel's body. It flowed like electric lava, tearing through muscle and soul to rush into Daruel's arm. The prisoner convulsed, his spine twisting until it snapped, his scream echoing until his vocal cords tore... and then, silence.
High above in the skeleton of the skyscrapers, something shifted.
It had the shape of a man, but the proportions were all wrong. Arms too long, knees bent backward, skin charred like burnt wood. Massive, leathery wings wrapped around its body like a shroud.
The creature's ears twitched. It unfurled, revealing eyes that burned with predatory hunger.
With a shriek that shattered the glass remaining in the window frames, the monster dove. It was a blur of shadow against the grey sky, plummeting toward the asphalt.
BOOM.
It landed in the center of the street, spiderwebbing the road. Dust billowed.
The beast tasted the air, snapping its head left, then right. Its nostrils flared, seeking the scent of fear, sweat, and meat. Finding only ash, it let out a bone-chilling screech of frustration and launched itself back into the sky, disappearing over the rooftops like a bad omen.
Down on the street, silence returned. But the street was not empty.
Behind the charred remains of a bus, a shadow moved.
A young man, barely in his twenties, crouched in the wreckage. He looked less like a human and more like a feral cat—soot-stained, trembling, his clothes hanging off a frame wasted by starvation. He waited. He counted the seconds.
One. Two. Three.
He listened until the beat of leathery wings faded into the wind. Only then did he slowly peek around the rim of the rusted wheel.
Terror was etched into his face. His hands shook uncontrollably, tapping against the metal. Clink. He froze. Eyes wide. Breath held. Silence.
He exhaled a breath he didn't know he was holding.
He looked down.
Beside him lay a young woman. Her face was the color of old parchment, her lips cracked and bleeding. Her right leg was wrapped in thick cloth, but the bandage was no longer white. It was heavy and wet, stained dark with blood and yellow pus. The sickly-sweet smell of gangrene, faint but unmistakable, hung in the air between them.
"The beast is gone," the young man whispered. His voice was brittle, barely audible over the wind. "Sarah? Can you hear me? Can you stand?"
The girl's eyes fluttered open. They were glassy, swimming with fever. She looked at him, but recognition was slow to come. "I... I don't know."
"We have to try," he pleaded, his gaze flicking to her leg. "The infection... the lines are turning black. We need antibiotics. We have to find a pharmacy."
"Is there... one near?" Her voice rasped like tearing paper.
The young man peered through the broken side mirror of the bus, scanning the desolate street. Through the haze, two blocks away, a faded green cross hung askew on a collapsed building. A faint emergency light flickered.
"I see it," he lied about the distance, forcing a smile that trembled on his lips. "It's not far. Just a little way. I promise."
"I'll try," she whispered. Tears leaked from her eyes, cutting clean tracks through the soot on her cheeks. "I... I'll try."
He nodded frantically. "Yes. You can. We can."
He wedged his shoulder under her arm. Gritting his teeth, he hoisted her up.
As her weight shifted onto the rotting leg, agony tore through her, strangling a scream in her throat. Her fingernails dug into his arm until they drew blood, but he didn't flinch. Together, using the burnt bus as a shield, they began to move.
Step. Drag. Step. Drag.
The sound of her foot dragging across the grit seemed deafening in the quiet.
They made it ten meters. Then twenty.
Suddenly—
SCREEEEEECH!!
The sound didn't come from the distance. It came from directly above.
It was the shriek of metal shearing against metal, a high-pitched frequency that felt like a drill boring into their skulls.
The young man couldn't think. Instinct took over. He let go of her. Hands flew to his ears as he screamed in pain, his eardrums threatening to burst. Without his support, the girl's legs buckled. She hit the asphalt hard.
THUD.
Before either could recover, the sky split open.
There was no thunder. No warning.
A beam of concentrated energy—a violet and white lash of destruction—hammered down from the heavens. It struck the center of the road with the force of a meteorite.
BOOM.
The shockwave knocked the wind from their lungs. Dust, asphalt, and debris exploded outward in a lethal cloud.
The young man staggered to his feet, swaying. A high-pitched ringing screamed in his ears. The world spun.
"Sarah!" he tried to shout, but no sound came out.
He opened his mouth to call her name again. Instead, he coughed.
A thick, hot spray of crimson splattered onto the grey pavement.
Confused, he stared down. He looked at his chest.
Slowly. Horrifically.
His body betrayed him.
There was no pain, only a bizarre, numbing cold. He watched, eyes bulging, as his upper torso began to slide.
He had been bisected at the waist.
The energy lash had cauterized the skin but shredded the internal structure. Like wet meat sliding off a table, his top half slipped from his hips. It hit the ground next to the girl with a sickening, wet squelch.
His intestines unspooled onto the cold ground like coiled rope.
The girl stared.
She didn't scream. Her mind simply refused to process the image. Her friend, whole a second ago, was now in two pieces. Desperate to escape the gore, she scrambled backward, dragging her useless leg, her mouth open in a silent shriek of absolute terror.
But the nightmare wasn't finished.
The energy lash hadn't just severed the boy.
CREAAAAK...
Behind her, the massive, burnt-out carcass of the bus groaned. The metal gave way.
Slowly, the two halves of the bus began to separate. The rear half, severed by the blast, tipped forward, looming over her like a falling mountain.
The girl looked up.
Her eyes went wide. She saw the rusted underbelly of the machine. She saw the dark.
She opened her mouth to beg.
CRUNCH!
Tons of steel skeleton collapsed on top of her.
It didn't just crush her; it erased her. Her bones snapped like dry twigs. Her organs ruptured instantly.
And then, the street fell silent. The only movement was the settling dust.
A moment later, the sound of wings returned.
The massive, gargoyle-like monster landed atop the crushed bus. Its talons scraped against the metal. It sniffed the air, nostrils flaring as the metallic scent of fresh slaughter hit its senses.
It let out a screech of triumph that echoed through the ruins.
Abandoning the metal pile, it hopped down to the asphalt. It lowered its snout to the pavement and began to lap up the fresh blood pooling from the shattered boy.
Lunch had been served.