The stench hit her before her eyes even opened—a rank, suffocating blend of putrid flesh, iron-heavy blood, and drenched fucking pavement.
Mari gagged awake, gasping for air that felt like jagged needles in her lungs. A crushing, brutal weight pressed against her ribs. Cold, clammy skin scraped her face.
She snapped her eyes open.
A dead man stared back from inches away. Half his skull was caved in, a swarm of fat white maggots squirming through the wet, blackened pit where his eye should have been.
"Jesus fucking Christ!"
Pure, primitive survival took over. Mari shoved the corpse off with a desperate, furious roar. The body slid down a heap of rotting meat, hitting the street below with a sickening, wet thud.
Mari scrambled back, her boots slick with black gore. She sucked in frantic, shallow breaths, coughing up bile. Cold rain stung her face. The air smelled like rot and burnt ash.
Alive. How the fuck was she alive?
She sat up on the pile of dead, her pulse hammering violently against her throat. But it wasn't the pile of corpses that sent a jolt of ice through her veins—it was the jagged, broken skyline.
The shattered front of a pharmacy. The burning frame of a transit bus. The scorched, crumbling concrete of a high-rise. And swinging lazily from a rusted cable above the intersection, a faded blue sign:
MERCER DISTRICT — SECTOR 7.
"No... no, no, no..."
The words clawed their way out of her throat.
Mari scrambled down the pile of bodies, hitting the asphalt hard. Her trembling hands flew across her torso, tearing violently at her soaked shirt.
No bullet hole. No shredded muscle. No shattered sternum.
She slammed her palm against her chest. Her heart pounded, unbroken, beneath a solid ribcage. She touched her throat. Intact.
Mari squeezed her eyes shut as phantom agony burned through her mind. She remembered dying. She remembered every single agonizing, bloody second of it.
The rain pouring through the shattered warehouse roof. The stench of gunpowder. The cold steel of a muzzle pressed flush against her sternum.
Lucian Vale.
Her commander. Her lover. Her fucking executioner.
She could still see the ruthless, unblinking calm in his bastard eyes. She could still hear the deafening blast, feel the kinetic strike shattering her chest, and the absolute, freezing darkness that swallowed her whole.
Mari snapped her eyes open, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "I'm supposed to be dead. He fucking killed me."
A wet, guttural snarl ripped through the alley.
Mari froze.
From behind a line of burnt-out sedans, a shadow unfolded itself. Four impossibly long, emaciated limbs scraped against the asphalt, skin stretched paper-thin over skeletal bone. Yellow, jagged claws dragged across the road as its head twitched toward her with terrifying speed.
A Hollow.
Instinct bypassed thought. Mari dove sideways, rolling behind the overturned bus just as the creature hit the metal with the force of a goddamn freight train.
CRASH!
Yellow claws punched through the bus’s steel plating, inches from her skull. "Fucking hell!"
Mari rolled beneath the undercarriage, her eyes wildly scanning the wreckage. Jagged glass, useless concrete, rusted wires. Nothing.
Then—a glint of steel beneath a crushed corpse. A tactical combat knife.
She lunged, her fingers wrapping around the grip just as the Hollow shrieked and tore the bus frame apart. The beast lunged forward, moving with unnatural, blinding speed.
Mari didn't retreat. She drove herself forward, slipping beneath its outstretched arm and plunging the blade upward into its throat.
THUNK.
Black, corrosive blood sprayed across her face, burning like acid. The blade punched straight through the creature's jaw.
The Hollow shrieked, but it didn't drop. Instead, the flesh around the blade began to squirm, knitting itself back together in seconds.
Mari's blood ran cold. "That’s impossible... what the fuck?"
She pulled back as the creature violently tore itself free, its jaw snapping back into place with a sickening crunch. Advanced cellular regeneration.
No. That mutation didn't manifest until Year Two.
The Hollow lunged, its claws whistling through the air. Mari sidestepped, feeling the wind of its strike slice through her sleeve. She caught its wrist mid-air, used its momentum to twist the arm, and brought her boot crashing down on its elbow joint.
SNAP!
The monster howled. Mari snatched a jagged, rusted iron pipe from the rubble and drove it straight down through the creature's skull, pinning its head to the pavement.
"Stay down, you ugly bastard!"
The Hollow convulsed once, twice, and went still.
Mari stood over the corpse, wiping the black, foul-smelling blood from her cheek. Rain washed over her, but her mind was spinning out of control.
The timeline was broken. The mutations were evolving way too fast.
A sharp scream cut through the storm, followed by the violent, rhythmic bark of automatic gunfire.
Human life.
Mari didn't hesitate. She snatched her knife from the beast's skull, vaulted over a crushed sedan, and sprinted through a narrow alleyway.
She rounded the corner and skidded to a halt.
Five Hollows were swarming an armored transport vehicle. Three soldiers were already butchered, their blood flooding the gutters. Only one man remained standing, his back pinned against the transport's reinforced hull.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Tactical armor drenched in dark blood.
His rifle barked—BANG! BANG!—blowing out a monster's skull.
Four left.
Mari’s heart seized in her chest. Dark, rain-soaked hair. A sharp, angular jawline. A jagged scar cutting through his left eyebrow.
Cassian Rook.
Future Commander of the Northern Wall. One of humanity’s ultimate weapons.
And one of the four bastards Mari had personally murdered in her previous life.
Behind Cassian, a Hollow leaped from the roof of the transport, claws bared for his throat.
CLICK.
His rifle went empty. "Fuck!"
Mari moved before she could process the irony. Her wrist flicked, and the combat knife flew through the air.
THUNK!
The blade buried itself to the hilt in the creature’s eye socket. It crashed onto the pavement at Cassian's boots, dead before it hit the ground.
Cassian spun, his rifle instantly raised as a blunt weapon. His dark eyes locked onto her. A flash of shock rippled across his rugged features. "Mari?!"
She stared at him, her chest heaving. He remembers my name? No—he shouldn't know me yet.
"Move, goddammit!" she roared.
Cassian dropped instantly. A second Hollow sailed over his head, its claws whistling through the air where his chest had been a fraction of a second ago.
Mari intercepted it in mid-air, grabbing its thick wrist. The creature’s raw strength nearly drove her to her knees, but Cassian was already up. He seized the monster’s other arm, his eyes meeting Mari’s across the snapping jaws.
"On three," Cassian growled, his muscles straining.
"Fuck three—two!" Mari shouted.
They wrenches the arms in opposite directions. The Hollow’s shoulders dislocated with a loud, wet pop. Mari twisted its head while Cassian slammed his knee into its spine, snapping its back. Mari drove her elbow down into its temple, crushing its skull.
Two down. Three to go.
Cassian wiped blood from his forehead, a feral grin breaking through his grim exterior. "You always this charming?"
"I don't remember you talking so fucking much," Mari snapped, snatching her knife back from the dead monster.
Cassian’s eyebrow twitched. "Have we met?"
Mari’s throat tightened. If you only fucking knew. "Focus!"
A third Hollow charged from his blind spot. Cassian raised his empty rifle to block, but Mari shoved him hard, taking his place. The monster's claws raked across her armor, sparking off metal. She drove her elbow up, crushing its windpipe.
Cassian recovered instantly, swinging the stock of his rifle like a sledgehammer. CRACK! The Hollow's jaw exploded into bone fragments. Mari stepped in behind it, driving her steel blade straight through the back of its neck.
Four down. One remaining.
The last Hollow circled them cautiously, its low snarl vibrating in the rain-slick street.
Mari stepped forward, flipping her blood-stained blade into a reverse grip. "That piece of shit is mine."
Cassian slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle with a crisp CLACK. "Not a fucking chance."
The creature lunged. Cassian fired—BANG! The heavy round tore through its shoulder, throwing off its balance. Mari closed the distance in a blur, ducking beneath a wild slash, and slammed her blade upward under its chin.
THUNK.
The steel pierced straight into its brain. The creature froze, its yellow eyes rolling back, before collapsing like a sack of stones.
Silence fell over the street, save for the hum of rain and their ragged breathing.
Cassian lowered his rifle, staring at her with intense, probing eyes. "You move like a ghost, and you fight like you've been killing these things for a fucking decade."
Mari pulled her knife free and wiped the black gunk on her pants. "I have."
His gaze hardened. "Who the hell are you really?"
Mari stared at him. How could she explain the horrific truth? That she had bled beside him in the snow? That she had watched him turn into a ruthless war god? That she had eventually hunted him through the ashes of a burning city and driven this exact blade into his heart?
"I've lived through this fucking nightmare before," she said quietly.
Before Cassian could demand a real answer, a deafening, metallic shriek tore through the sky.
Every civil defense siren in the city detonated simultaneously. The sound echoed off the skyscrapers, merging into one agonizing, high-pitched scream.
Mari’s blood ran cold. That wasn't a breach alarm. It was an extinction warning.
Cassian looked toward the center of the city. "What the hell is that?"
Far beyond the skyline, the colossal black monument known as the Spire began to pulse. First a sickening crimson... then a blinding, searing white.
"No..." Mari whispered, terror seizing her chest. "No, no, no—it's too fucking early!"
The Spire flared.
BOOM.
A violent kinetic shockwave ripped through Mercer District. Windows exploded outward in a million glass shards. Overturned cars were swept away like autumn leaves.
Mari was lifted off her feet and slammed hard against a concrete pillar. Pain exploded in her shoulder as the breath was violently knocked from her lungs. Across the street, Cassian was launched through a storefront window in a cloud of dust and debris.
"God... dammit," Mari wheezed, dragging herself upright and coughing up blood and ash.
Then she looked at the sky—and her heart fucking stopped.
The storm clouds parted. A shadow vast enough to swallow the entire sun hovered over the continent. Black, jagged objects began raining down from the heavens by the thousands, tearing through the atmosphere like dark meteors.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Impacts shook the earth. Fifty yards away, a massive, obsidian shell smashed into the asphalt.
Cassian stumbled out of the ruined storefront, bleeding heavily from a cut on his temple. "What the fuck are those?!"
Mari’s fingers tightened around her blade until her knuckles turned white. "Eggs."
The giant shell fractured. A massive, jagged claw tore through the obsidian casing, followed by a terrifying, alien shriek that rattled Mari's teeth.
"The Spire wasn't supposed to awaken until the fourth year," Mari murmured, horror giving way to a cold, razor-sharp focus. "Everything is fucked."
Cassian stepped beside her, his rifle raised. "What did you say?"
Mari turned to look at him, rain washing the dirt from her face. "I lived through this shit. I watched humanity burn to ashes..." Her eyes burned with ruthless determination. "...and I died at the end of it."
She remembered everything now. The lies. The betrayals. The four bastards who had risen from the ashes to rule the ruins of humanity—only to destroy it from within.
Cassian was the first. Lucian was the second. And two more were out there, waiting in the shadows.
This time, she wasn't going to be their soldier. She wasn't going to be their lover, their pawn, or their victim.
The newborn monster tore itself completely free from its egg, roaring as it locked its glowing eyes on them.
Mari stepped forward.
Cassian reached out, his bare hand grabbing her wrist. "Mari. Wait."
She glanced back. His eyes weren't filled with suspicion anymore—there was a fierce, protective warmth there that hit her like a physical blow.
"You don't have to fight this damn thing alone," Cassian said, his voice steady amid the roaring sirens.
Mari looked down at his grip on her wrist, then back up into the eyes of the man she had once killed. A cold, dangerous smile touched her lips as she pulled her arm free.
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Rook."
"I don't," he replied cleanly, racking his rifle's bolt.
Mari turned back to the approaching night terror, her blade gleaming in the apocalyptic light of the Spire.
"Good," she whispered, her voice laced with absolute venom. "Then try to keep up, asshole."
The monster lunged. Mari charged head-on, stepping into the mouth of the apocalypse.
This time, she knew the rules.
This time, she knew who to kill. And if the world was going to burn four years early—she was going to light the fucking fuse herself.