Three months. Ninety days of chaos. Ninety days of running, hiding, scavenging, and counting every breath as though it were borrowed.
Hope's legs ached, not from exhaustion, but from the constant tension of knowing that at any moment, the world itself could strike him dead. The streets were silent now, littered with debris, overturned cars, and bodies that would never be buried. Fires burned in distant buildings, black smoke curling like living fingers into the orange sky. He had seen enough death to make ordinary humans weep, yet he wept not. He simply endured.
His sister, worn but unbroken, led the way through a collapsed subway station, her movements precise, silent. She carried a small pack of rations; they were almost gone. Every day was a gamble between survival and starvation.
"Three days left on these," she whispered, glancing at the small pouch. "After that… we'll have nothing."
Hope did not answer. Words had long since become unnecessary. Survival was not a conversation. It was instinct.
In the distance, a building groaned and fell, sending a shockwave that rattled the cracked ground beneath them. A scream followed—a human scream, terrified, meaningless. Hope felt nothing but a cold certainty: the world no longer cared for humans. The Awakened had claimed it.
And he had not awakened.
He had run. He had hidden. He had survived by luck, guile, and patience. But luck had a limit.
At the edge of a ruined park, he crouched behind a skeletal tree. A figure approached—tall, glowing faintly, radiating a presence that made the air bend. The Awakened moved among humans like gods among ants. They killed casually. Sometimes for sport. Sometimes for hunger. Sometimes simply because the world had become theirs.
Hope's sister grabbed his arm.
"Hope… we can't stay here," she said, voice tight. "They'll find us. If they find us…" She swallowed hard. "We die."
He nodded. There were no other options. He had learned long ago that hesitation meant death. They moved again, silent as shadows, through streets empty of life, except for the remnants of humanity struggling against fate.
Three months. Three months of nightmares waking in daylight. Three months of praying that one day, the world might grant him something—anything—to fight back.
But the world had no mercy.
That night, they sheltered in the remains of a library, books scattered and water-damaged, the smell of ash heavy in the air. Hope leaned against a shattered wall, staring at the ceiling where plaster fell like gray snow. His sister set a small pile of rationed food before them. Neither spoke. Words were unnecessary.
Hope closed his eyes. Memories pressed against his skull—his brother, the alley, the courtroom, the screams of those he had killed. He had survived that. And now, in this fractured world, he would survive this. Somehow.
The air shifted. A faint hum, almost imperceptible. He noticed it first in the back of his skull, a vibration running down his spine.
"Hope…" His sister's voice trembled. "Do you feel that?"
He stood, eyes scanning the darkness outside. Nothing moved, nothing breathed. Yet the vibration grew stronger, wrapping around him like invisible chains.
A circle of pale, glowing symbols formed before him. Not drawn, not painted—carved in the air itself, suspended as if reality had bent to create it.
Hope froze.
A voice echoed—not from a mouth, not from a body, but from existence itself:
"Candidate identified."
The ground beneath him shivered. He staggered but did not fall. His sister reached for him, but he motioned her back.
"Seven Trials required."
Pain unlike anything he had ever known tore through him—not flesh, not bone, but the essence of self. Memories of loss, fear, and rage collided, folding him in on himself.
Hope clenched his teeth. His mind screamed, but he made no sound.
"Then… begin," he whispered.
The air turned liquid, the world slipping away beneath him. His sister shouted his name, her voice distant, drowned in the torrent of existence collapsing around him.
And then—he fell.
Into darkness.
Somewhere in the void, a single thought burned in his mind:
"Survive… or cease to exist."