A trail of small footprints was left over the crisp snow as two children descended the hilly path. They were surrounded by tall trees dusted in white, and a strong suspicious stench.

"I wonder who died now," Alina murmured before continuing, "Anyways, as I was saying, the mansion has been too quiet ever since Mister Franz left. So, now I am looking for him."

She glanced at her companion, a boy as young as her.

Johan had been silent ever since they met.

Alina did not know him, but she had seen that solemn gaze too many times to understand how he felt.

The heaviness hanging around their town had silenced many smiles.

Mister Franz would always tell her the lore of the past to distract her mind from the ugly truth.

"Do you wanna hear a story?" she asked, "I will keep it short. Alina doesn't like to beat around the bush, you see."

Johan replied in a soft voice, "Alright."

Alina cleared her throat and took a deep breath, her eyes became serious, and her voice was a little low. She spoke as if revealing the secrets of the universe.

"It started thirteen years ago…"

In the ancient Ruins of Ellora, a large astronomical structure was erected. They called it the Gate of Dawn for they believed that this revolutionary technology will help humanity sore towards new heights.

The Gate of Dawn was said to be the most ambitious project ever—something that could allow interstellar travel not only between space but also through time.

However, the project that took hundreds of years to be manifested into reality, ended in a single night.

It brought utter chaos.

Almost every corner of earth could see the bright light that erupted in the skies before it crushed everything in the depths of darkness. The cries and pleas of many were suffocated into smoke and ash.

As the flames surged high, the effects of the Dawn Gate were felt everywhere. There were untimely natural disasters, a sudden loss of connection between all satellites and space stations.

Many nations were plundered and annhilated.

The laws of science; space and time, no longer worked as the humans comprehended them.

And these effects remain stubborn even after thirteen years.

"But the worst," Alina let out a solemn sigh, "happened to skies. Mom used to say that ever since the Dawn Gate calamity, the stars and moon could not be seen. They were like tiny specks of light in the night sky, but now all we see above is darkness."

Perhaps nothing could explain the shattered world as much as the Ruins where it all begin.

When the smoke from the skies thinned, it revealed a large seemingly endless void in a place where the Dawn Gate once stood tall.

"The Abyss!" Alina exclaimed with an almost admiring voice, "This is where my favorite part comes in. You see, Mister Franz is a seeker and so he knows a lot about Abyss.

"Alina wants to become like him too but Mister Franz says I am too young.

"Now, now, you see. The Abyss is kind of a scary place, it's where all the monsters come from but Mister Franz says all answers lie there. Our world will only return back to normal once we explore those depths.

"He's so cool…

"But…sometimes he acts really weird. Maybe because he is an adult but Mister Franz would say everything came from the Abyss, even Alina. Sometimes he would say the Abyss will devour us all.

"It's funny because he will always forget saying this. But…I wonder if he is falling sick?"

A silence fell across the snowy forest as Alina's excited gaze become a little sad. She lowered the large bloody rock and blankly stared at the dead wolf.

It has fur as beautiful and dark as the night. The cub was young but with a crooked body bent in peculiar angles, his canines were too large just like his abnormal claws.

Some of his flesh was rotten, skin sunken to bones.

Yet he had almost killed Alina with a fury she had only seen a few times.

Now as it remained so silent, as his dark crimson blood seeping through the snow, Alina remarked how it was not as warm as it should be.

The wolf must be a creature of Abyss.

She sighed, wiped the blood off her face, before lunging the cub over her shoulder. Her feet staggered from the sudden weight.

"It's been an hour since we met," Alina glanced at Johan and pouted, "And you didn't even ask me for my name."

He has a lost look in his eyes but her childish complaint brought a soft smile. Even when half of his face was hidden behind a muffler too big for him, his smile was easy to see, it caused flicker of light to appear in his eyes.

"What's your name, Alina?"

Alina opened her mouth to say something, then stole her gaze away with a pout. She adjusted her grip on the wolf.

"The rift should be near."

Johan hesitated before following her, "Are you sure about that?"

"Mister Franz is a seeker, he has to be there."

Where the radiation and darkness of Abyss failed to spread, these Rifts made up for that.

They connected the abyss to the rest of the world and were used by the seekers and abyssal beasts alike to venture into each other's territories.

But the rifts were rare to find.

Those who survived built their colonies as far from the rifts as possible.

Johan was silent for a while but then said nothing and simply followed Alina deeper into the forest. He was an inch taller than her, with the same blond hair and light blue eyes.

The darkness of the day was gradually increasing, along with the whispering winds and falling snow.

Johan calmly listened as Alina continued beating around the bush and forgot to tell the story she had initially wanted to.

Most of her words revolved around Mister Franz and Abyss, it was almost like she was obsessed with the void that made many people weak in the knees.

But he said nothing.

Alina was too hopeful when she brought up the Abyss, too broken when she mentioned how Mister Franz was her only family alive and how he was meant to return three months ago.

Something about her words caused an emptiness to reflect in Johan's gaze.

"Do you have a family?" Alina brought him out of his thoughts.

He nodded, "A sister."

"How's she?"

"She's… she's sick."

Alina thought about Mister Franz, "Don't worry, things will be okay."

Johan glanced at her, the smile which never left her lips. He wasn't sure what to say.

"What if that never happens?"

She grinned, "It always does."

A sudden rustle of leaves grabbed her attention. Johan wanted to stop her but knew it won't happen that way.

Alina peered through some bushes, a curious gleam dancing in her blue eyes.

There, buried beneath snow and bushes, was a girl with a metallic arm. That sort of technology no longer worked, neither did the cyborgs.

Alina knelt and pushed away all the snow and leaves.

The girl was only a few years older than her, with long black hair and foreign features. Besides the cyborg's arm, there wasn't anything inhuman about her.

She appeared too real.

And beautiful.

Alina placed her head over the girl's heart and waited for a while but there was no heartbeat. Her brows creased together. She could not reach any conclusion.

There was no way a cyborg could look that human. The girl's skin was too soft for that. Alina poked the boobs. They were too real indeed.

But a dead human doesn't look like that.

She went deep in her thoughts as she took the metallic arm and tried to analyze it. The technology was different than anything she had seen before. Her eyes averted to the cave.

Could it be that the girl came from Abyss?

The arm suddenly twitched. Alina froze, quickly glancing at the girl when she met those partially open eyes, inked in a shade darker than blood.

A small spark flickered through the metallic arm before a bright beam of light soared through the sky. It burned everything that came in between, turning it all to ashes.