The old train station loomed before them like a decaying monument to a world that no longer existed. Rusted tracks disappeared into darkness, and the massive concrete structure was riddled with cracks that looked like spider webs frozen in stone.
Graffiti covered every surface—territorial markings, warnings, desperate pleas from people long dead or reborn.
Nana crouched behind a collapsed platform, her eyes tracking the movement of guards near the entrance to the underground tunnels.
Three of them, all sporting the distinctive tattoos that marked them as Tao's people—crude designs of serpents and skulls that were probably meant to look intimidating but mostly just looked infected.
"Two more inside," Zayne whispered beside her, his voice barely audible. "Rotating patrol every fifteen minutes. When they switch positions, there's a forty-second window where the left tunnelis entrance blind."
"Forty seconds," Nana repeated. "To get in, grab supplies, and get out?"
"To get in," he corrected. "Getting out is going to be the complicated part."
She shot him a look. "You didn't mention that before."
"Would it have changed your decision to come?"
"No, but I would have appreciated the heads up."
His eyes crinkled slightly—that almost-smile again. "Consider yourself headed up."
Despite everything, Nana felt a small smile tug at her lips. Even in the middle of planning a potentially suicidal supply raid, he could still make her want to laugh. It was such a Zayne thing to do, even without his memories.
They're waited in tense silence as the guards completed their patrol rotation. Nana's hand rested on her iron pipe, ready to draw it at a moment's notice. Beside her, Zayne's breathing was steady and controlled, his body coiled like a spring.
Then the moment came—the guards shifted positions, creating that precious blind spot Zayne had mentioned.
"Now," he breathed.
They moved as one, keeping low and fast as they crossed the open ground and slipped into the tunnel entrance.
The darkness swallowed them immediately, thick and oppressive. Nana's eyes adjusted slowly, picking out the rough walls and the crude stairs leading down into the earth.
The smell hit her first—dampness mixed with something organic and rotting. Then came the sounds: dripping water, distant voices, the scuffle of movement echoing through stone passages.led the way with confidence that spoke of muscle memory, his feet finding purchase on steps that had become slick with moisture and moss.
Nana followed close behind, one hand on his shoulder to maintain contact in the darkness.
They descended three levels before Zayne paused at a branching corridor.
He tilted his head, listening, then gestured left. Nana nodded and followed.
The storage area was exactly where he'd said it would be—a large chamber carved out of the earth, reinforced with scavenged metal and wooden beams. And inside, stacked against the walls in organized rows, was more food than Nana had seen in one place since entering Avalon.
Canned goods. Dried meat. Bottles of water. Medical supplies. Weapons. Everything that people on the surface were killing each other over, hoarded down here in the dark by Tao's gang.
Nana jaw clenched. While people starved above, while bodies piled up from malnutrition and desperation, these bastards sat on enough supplies to feed hundreds.
"Quick," Zayne murmured, already moving toward the nearest stack. "Fill your pack. Priority is water and protein."
Nana didn't need to be told twice. She shrugged off her backpack and started loading it systematically—water bottles first, then canned meat, then protein bars, then anything else that would fit. Beside her, Zayne worked with the same efficient precision, his hands moving quickly but carefully to avoid making noise.
They'd filled both packs and were reaching for their weapons when a voice cut through the darkness.
"Well, well. Look what we got here."
Nana spun, her iron pipe already in hand.
Three figures emerged from the shadows—two men and a woman, all sporting Tao's tattoos and carrying weapons that ranged from makeshift clubs to actual machetes.
"Hazel Eyes Devil," the woman said, and there was venom in her voice. "Tao's been looking for you. Said you ran off like a coward. Left us to starve."
Zayne's posture shifted, becoming something dangerous and coiled. "I left because Tao was more interested in playing warlord than keeping people alive."
"And yet here you are," one of the men sneered. "Stealing our food. Guess the Devil's got a hypocrite streak."
"Your food?" Nana stepped forward, her voice cutting like a blade. "You're sitting on enough supplies to feed half the district while people die on the streets. This isn't yours—it's stolen from everyone who needs it."
The woman laughed, harsh and ugly. "Listen to the little hunter. Got herself a moral compass. That gonna feed you, sweetheart? Keep you alive when the next cycle hits?"
"Better than being a thief and a coward," Nana shot back.
The man with the machete moved first, lunging at Nana with a wild swing. She sidestepped easily, too easily—these people might look intimidating with their tattoos and wild hair and constant stream of curses, but they fought like amateurs. Like people who'd relied on numbers and intimidation rather than actual skill.
Nana was a Class S hunter. She'd trained under some of the best fighters in Linkon City. She'd survived months in Avalon fighting creatures that would make these gang members piss themselves.
This wasn't even a challenge.
Her pipe caught the man's wrist with a sharp crack, sending the machete clattering to the ground. She followed up with a kick to his knee that dropped him, then brought the pipe down on his shoulder hard enough to make him cry out.
Beside her, Zayne was handling the other two with equal efficiency. His movements were precise, surgical—every strike calculated to disable rather than kill. The woman went down first, her club knocked from her hands before a quick jab to her solar plexus left her gasping. The second man tried to rush Zayne and ended up face-first on the ground with Zayne's knee on his spine.
The whole fight lasted maybe thirty seconds.
"Like I said," Zayne muttered, breathing only slightly harder. "Weak. Desperate. Tao's gang isn't what it used to be."
Nana was about to respond when she heard it—a sound that made her blood run cold.
A soft, whistling wind. Not natural. Too rhythmic. Too deliberate.
"Oh no," she breathed. "Zayne—"
The poison gas spirit materialized at the tunnel entrance like smoke given form—a massive deer-like creature with antlers that spread like bare tree branches and eyes that glowed an eerie green.
Wisps of toxic vapor drifted from its mouth and the wounds in its ethereal body, seeping through the gaps in the walls and spreading through the underground chamber with terrifying speed.
"GAS!" Zayne shouted, already moving. "Everyone out! NOW!"
But it was too late. The poison was already filling the space, thick and cloying, burning Nana's lungs with every breath. Around them, Tao's gang members who'd been coming to investigate the commotion was dropping, clutching their throats as the toxin overwhelmed them.
Nana felt her knees buckle. The world tilted sideways, colors bleeding together like watercolors in rain. Her vision blurred, doubling and tripling until she couldn't tell which Zayne was real and which were hallucinations born of oxygen deprivation and poison.
She'd been here before. In her first trip to Avalon, when a gas spirit had nearly killed her. Zayne had saved her then—had used his ice evol to crystallize the poison in her lungs, giving her body time to fight it off.
But this Zayne had no ice evol. This Zayne was just human, just as vulnerable as she was.
Through her failing vision, Nana saw him stagger, one hand pressed to his mouth as he coughed violently.
But he didn't fall. Didn't collapse like everyone else around them.
Instead,he turned toward her.
Nana tried to speak, tried to tell him to run, to save himself, but her voice wouldn't work. Her body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, pulling her down toward the ground that suddenly seemed very far away.
Then Zayne was there, his hands gripping her shoulders. He said something she couldn't hear over the ringing in her ears, then she felt herself being lifted. The world spun as he threw her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, one arm locked around her legs to keep her secure.
He started moving, running despite the poison in his lungs, despite his own vision starting to blur. Around them was chaos—pure, unfiltered chaos. Gang members dying or already dead, their bodies dissolving into Black mist.
Hybrids that had been drawn by the commotion now fighting over the fresh corpses, driven by hunger that overrode any sense of self-preservation. A giant had somehow gotten into the tunnels and was tearing through a group of demons, the confined space amplifying every impact into thunder.
And through it all, Zayne ran.
He dragged Nana up the stairs, his breath coming in harsh, rattling gasps. She felt him stumble once, twice, catching himself against the wall before continuing. His shoulder dug into her stomach with every step, but the pain was distant, muffled by the poison coursing through her system.
They burst out of the tunnel entrance into slightly fresher air, but it wasn't enough. The poison had already spread too far, claiming too many people. The entire train station area was a warzone—people fleeing in every direction, creatures hunting, the gas spirit still visible as a massive, ethereal presence moving through the chaos.
Zayne didn't stop. Couldn't stop. His head was spinning now too, the edges of his vision going dark, but he forced his legs to keep moving. There—a broken building to their right, partially collapsed but with walls that might provide some protection from the spreading gas.
He staggered toward it, using the last of his strength to get them inside. The building was a gutted shell, but one corner had a small alcove where the walls formed a rough shelter. Zayne half-carried, half-dragged Nana there, finally collapsing against the wall and pulling her close to his chest.
Outside, the screaming continued. The sounds of death and destruction and pure chaos incarnate.
But in here, in this small protected space, there was just the two of them.Zayne head lolled back against the wall, his vision swimming. Every breath felt like fire in his lungs.
His body wanted to shut down, wanted to give in to the poison and let unconsciousness take him.
But the girl in his arms—the small, fierce hunter who'd protected him without knowing why, who'd fought beside him like they'd done this a thousand times before—she needed him to stay awake.
Needed him to keep her grounded while her body fought off the toxin.
So he tightened his grip on her, one hand coming up to rest against her hair.
"Stay with me," he murmured, his voice rough and broken. "Come on, Miss Hunter. You're tougher than this. I know you are."
Nana's eyes flickered, trying to focus on his face. Her lips moved, forming words he couldn't quite hear.
"Don't try to talk," he said quickly. "Just breathe. Slow breaths. In and out. Your body knows how to fight this. You've done it before."
He didn't know how he knew that. Didn't know why he was so certain that she'd survived poison gas before, that she had the strength to survive it again. But the knowledge sat in his chest like truth, unshakeable and absolute.
His own vision was darkening at the edges now. The poison was winning, dragging him down toward unconsciousness. But before he let it take him, he allowed himself one moment of satisfaction.
All of Tao's gang members in that tunnel were dead. He'd seen the bodies, seen the white mist rising as their lives ended and the rebirth cycle claimed them. Which meant the tunnels were unguarded now. Abandoned. Full of supplies that he and Nana could come back for once they recovered.
The thought made him want to laugh, but he didn't have the breath for it.
Instead, he pressed his face into Nana's hair and whispered, "We made it. We're okay. Both of us are going to be okay."
He didn't know if he believed it. Didn't know if they'd wake up from this or if the poison would claim them both, send them spiraling into that white mist and whatever came after.
But he knew one thing with absolute certainty: if he was going to die, he wanted it to be like this. Holding her. Protecting her. Making sure that even in unconsciousness, she knew she wasn't alone.
Outside, the chaos continued to rage.
Inside, Zayne's eyes finally slid closed, his breathing evening out into something that was either sleep or the beginning of death.
in his arms, Nana's small frame curled tighter against his chest, seeking warmth and safety in the only place that felt like home.
.
.
.
.
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To be continued.