Book 3 - Chapter 4
The howls didn’t stop.
They clawed at the silence, rising and falling like waves crashing against a fragile shore. At first, they were distant—low, guttural sounds that could almost be mistaken for thunder. But as the hours dragged on, they grew louder, sharper, until the walls themselves seemed to hum with the vibration. Every cry carried hunger, rage, and something worse: patience. They weren’t just attacking. They were waiting.
I lay in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, my body a cage of pain. Sleep was impossible. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw them—the glowing eyes, the jagged limbs, the maw of teeth. The memory of that creature lunging as the gates slammed shut was burned into my mind like a brand. I could still feel the heat of its breath, the weight of its gaze. It wanted me. It wanted all of us.
Jasper sat in the chair by the window, his silhouette rigid against the dim light. He hadn’t spoken in hours, but his posture said everything. He was listening. Watching. Waiting for the moment when the barrier failed.
The door creaked open, and Dr. Kellan stepped inside, his face drawn tight. He carried a tablet in one hand, his fingers gripping it like a lifeline. “How’s the pain?” he asked, his voice low, as if afraid the walls might hear.
“Manageable,” I lied. Every breath was a knife, every movement a storm of agony. But pain was the least of my worries.
Kellan nodded, though his eyes didn’t soften. “We’ve reinforced the wards,” he said, glancing at Jasper. “But the readings are… unstable. The supers are hitting the barrier harder than we’ve ever seen.”
Jasper’s jaw clenched. “How long before it breaks?”
Kellan hesitated, and that hesitation was worse than any answer. “We don’t know,” he admitted. “Hours, maybe. Days if we’re lucky.”
The room seemed to shrink around me, the sterile walls pressing closer. “What happens if they get in?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
Kellan met my gaze, and in his eyes, I saw the truth—the truth he didn’t want to say. “Pray they don’t.”
The next hours were chaos wrapped in silence. No alarms, no announcements—just the steady hum of machines and the distant echo of fear. Nurses moved like ghosts through the halls, their faces pale, their voices hushed. Every so often, the lights flickered, and the runes etched into the walls pulsed brighter, as if straining against an invisible weight.
I tried to distract myself, counting the seconds between the howls, but even that became unbearable. They were closer now. I could feel it in my bones, a vibration that crawled through the floor and into my skin. The barrier wasn’t just being tested—it was being torn apart, piece by piece.
Jasper finally broke the silence. “If they breach,” he said, his voice low and hard, “we run.”
I turned my head, wincing at the pain. “Run where? We’re locked in.”
“There are tunnels,” he said. “Emergency routes. I asked around.”
“And if those don’t hold?” My words tasted like ash.
His eyes met mine, fierce and unyielding.
The first alarm came at midnight.
A shrill, piercing sound that shattered the fragile calm. Red lights flared in the corridors, painting the walls in blood. The monitor beside my bed screamed in protest as my heart spiked, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
Kellan burst into the room, his coat flapping like wings. “They’ve breached the outer wards,” he said, his voice sharp with urgency. “The barrier’s holding—for now—but we’re on full emergency protocol.”
“What does that mean?” Jasper demanded, already on his feet.
“It means containment,” Kellan snapped. “Every civilian stays inside their assigned zone. No movement. No exceptions.”
Another howl ripped through the night, so loud it rattled the windows. This one wasn’t distant. It was here—just beyond the walls, close enough to taste.
The lights flickered again, and for a heartbeat, the runes dimmed.
Panic spread like wildfire.
I could hear it—shouts, footsteps pounding, doors slamming. The hospital transformed into a hive of terror, nurses rushing to lock down wards, guards barking orders into radios. Somewhere down the hall, a child screamed, high and thin, a sound that cut straight through me.
Jasper moved to the door, his body a wall between me and the chaos. “We’re not staying here,” he said, his voice like steel.
“Jasper—” Kellan started, but Jasper didn’t let him finish.
“She’s not safe in this bed,” he growled. “If that barrier goes, this place will be a slaughterhouse.”
Kellan’s face twisted, torn between duty and truth. Finally, he nodded. “There’s an evacuation route,” he said, his voice low. “Sublevel three. It leads to the inner sanctum—the safest zone in the block. But you’ll need clearance.”
“Then give it to me,” Jasper said.
Kellan hesitated only a second before pressing his tablet into Jasper’s hands. “You’ll need to move fast.”
Fast wasn’t an option for me.
Every step was agony, every breath a war. Jasper lifted me like I weighed nothing, his arms strong and steady, but I could feel the tremor in his muscles—the strain, the fear. The corridors were chaos incarnate, people shoving, crying, clawing for escape. Guards fought to keep order, their voices drowned by the alarms and the howls that grew louder with every passing second.
We reached the stairwell just as the lights flickered again—longer this time. The runes on the walls pulsed weakly, their glow fading like dying stars.
“They’re breaking through,” Jasper muttered, his jaw tight.
I clung to him, my fingers digging into his jacket. “How far?”
“Too far,” he said. “Hold on to me.”
The first breach came like a scream. A bone-chilling, heart-pounding scream.
Not human—a sound so raw, so primal it shattered the air. The walls shook, dust raining from the ceiling. People shrieked, a chorus of terror that drowned everything else. Then came the smell—sharp, metallic, wrong. Blood and something darker, something that didn’t belong in this world.