Fragments of Dawn

The silences after the entity’s disappearance was suffocating, stretching across the ruined city like an invisible hand pressing down on their lungs. Even the wind, which had carried the eerie whispers only moments ago, had vanished, leaving nothing but the sound of their own breath and the distant crackling of fires still burning in the wreckage.

Kai stood still, his heart pounding in his chest as the last remnants of whatever had just happened faded from his mind. His vision swam, his equilibrium slightly off, as if he were standing on the edge of some unseen precipice. His fragment still burned inside him, a molten core of energy that refused to settle.@@novelbin@@

Juno was the first to break the silence. “I’m getting real tired of this cosmic horror shit.” She exhaled sharply, running a hand through her dust-caked hair. “What was that? What happened to you?”

Kai pressed his fingers to his temple, trying to steady the storm raging inside his mind. “I don’t know,” he admitted, though he hated saying it. “It wasn’t just speaking to me. It was—” He hesitated, struggling to put it into words. “It was showing me something. Or making me feel something.”

Reyes, still gripping her rifle like a lifeline, narrowed her eyes. “And?”

Kai shook his head. “It was a warning.”

Juno let out a humorless laugh, filled with frustration. “A warning for what, exactly? Because last I checked, we already lost the damn Moon, and the world’s been ending for a while now. What else could possibly go wrong?”

Before Kai could respond, a deep, distant rumble rolled through the ground beneath them. It was different from the aftershocks they had come to expect. This wasn’t the result of collapsing buildings or shifting tectonic plates. This was something else.

And it was getting louder.

Reyes stiffened, shifting her stance as she turned her gaze toward the horizon. “That’s not natural.”