**"Violet…Violet, you there?"** Vex hissed into her earpiece. Static hissed back.
She stood alone in the skeletal remains of St. Mercy Hospital's third-floor corridor. The air reeked of scorched plastic and iron-rich blood. To her left, a fractured floor-to-ceiling window groaned as its splintered veins crept further across the glass, each crack hissing like a nest of serpents. Moonlight bled through the fissures, casting jagged shadows over the **thirty-odd abnormal humans** surrounding her. Their bodies weren't flesh—not anymore. Glass-like shards of obsidian smoke formed their limbs, their hollow faces flickering between human shapes and swirling void. The floor beneath them buckled, tiles reduced to gravel under their shifting, clawed feet.
**"This is going to be so annoying,"** Vex thought, dropping her suitcase with a metallic *clang*.
She slid the brass knuckles onto her fists: **LOVE** etched into the left, its blackened steel studded with jagged pink diamonds; **HATE** on the right, bone-white alloy wrapped in barbed wire that bit into her palm. Black tendrils of energy coiled from her pores, snaking into the weapons until their engravings glowed hellish violet.
**"Well, let's have fun,"** she muttered.
The smoke around her erupted, staining her skin amethyst as the first abomination lunged.
Her fist met its face.
Glass exploded—a thousand shards embedding themselves into the walls like crystalline bullets. The thing's headless body staggered, smoke hemorrhaging from its neck before collapsing into a pile of ash and fractured obsidian.
**"Her ass would've blown its head off,"** Vex snorted, already pivoting.
Her movements were surgical. A jab cratered the next creature's chest, sending blackened glass shrapnel into the ceiling. A hook shattered a jaw, the lower half skittering across the floor like broken porcelain. Overhead punches split skulls, each impact echoing through the hallway as support beams above groaned in sympathy.
*Crack. Crack. CRACK.*
The hospital was dying around her.
Ten floors above, a chain of detonations rocked the building. Plaster rained from the ceiling as Vex drove her knee into an abomination's ribs, glass teeth spilling from its mouth. The walls shuddered—a deep, guttural moan of stressed concrete. Dust choked the air, swirling with the abyss-black smoke coiling off the creatures.
**"Left,"** hissed the voice in her skull.
She leapt as an abomination's fist cratered the floor where she'd stood. Tiles erupted upward, revealing rusted rebar bones beneath the hospital's crumbling flesh.
**"Shit. I've done this dance before,"** Vex thought, breath ragged. Her knuckles dripped with viscous black fluid that sizzled where it hit the floor. **"Wasting daylight…"**
But the horde kept coming.
She fought mechanically now—punch, dodge, shatter. Glass ground under her boots like cursed snow. A severed arm skidded past her, still twitching. Across the hall, an IV stand toppled, its plastic melting where stray drops of the creatures' smoke-blood ate through it.
Another explosion overhead. The ceiling panels split, dangling by frayed wires. Somewhere, a fire alarm wailed, its voice drowned by the building's death throes. Standing still smoke poured out her mouth like a bursting faucet. The smoke rose up going through the ceilings.
**"Now that you've got a border up,"** Vex panted, surveying the carnage, **"let's do this qui—"**
**"Oh, *hello*, sweetheart."**
The voice was syrup-sweet, saccharine enough to rot teeth.
A woman floated where the ceiling had been, her silhouette backlit by the moon. Wide hips, a chest that defied gravity, curves sharp enough to cut glass—she was a caricature of desire, draped in a gown that shimmered like liquid mercury. Her bare feet dangled above the buckling floor, untouched by the debris spiraling around her.
**"Oh, you're *good* to look at, girl!"** Vex barked, wiping black sludge from her chin.
**"Aww, thank ya kindly,"** the woman crooned, Irish lilt dripping like honey. **"And what's a pretty thing like you doin' in this dump?"**
**"Friend or foe, ma'am?"** Vex slipped her knuckles into her pockets, fingers brushing the pistol at her hip.
**"That's for you to puzzle out."** The woman flicked a finger.
Behind Vex, a wounded abomination twitched—then *imploded*. Its body collapsed inward, crushed by an invisible vice until only glittering dust remained.
**"Cute party trick,"** Vex drawled. **"Care to share the secret?"**
**"Woman to woman? Trade secrets are bad luck."** The stranger floated closer, her gown rippling as the air itself warped around her.
*Dodge.*
Vex lunged left.
The spot where she'd stood erupted—floor tiles disintegrating into powder, ceiling panels vaporizing upward in a spiral of destruction. The woman giggled, a sound like wind chimes in a hurricane.
**"Lookin' for the Paradox holder,"** she sang, drifting nearer. **"Point me their way, and I'll make your end quick."**
**"Who says you're not staring at her?"** Vex smirked.
The woman's smile faltered. **"O-oh…no, no, *no*. Not you."**
*Dodge!*
Vex threw herself sideways as another crater bloomed in the wall behind her. Drywall and insulation vomited into the hall.
**"Shit, you're a *menace*,"** Vex spat, rolling behind a gurney. It disintegrated mid-motion, steel frame crumpling like paper.
The floating woman sighed. **"Just *die*, would ya?"**
Vex's vision flickered—a sparkle of starlight in her pupils. The voice in her skull roared: *Death. Death. Death.*
The hospital groaned in agreement.
Cracks spiderwebbed up the walls as the woman descended, each step mid-air spawning new craters in the ravaged floor. Vex's suitcase slid toward a fissure, snatched back just before it plummeted into the void between floors.
**"Logical paradox, huh?"** Vex coughed, blood trickling from her nose. **"Explains the flair for drama."**
**"Oh, ya see the colors?"** The woman tilted her head, strands of auburn hair floating as if underwater. **"Why's yours gone gray, darlin'?"**
**"Born boring,"** Vex lied, drawing her pistol.
**"Liar."**
The woman flicked her wrist.
Vex's bullet froze mid-air, inches from the woman's forehead. It hung there, trembling, as the building's groans crescendoed.
**"Persistent little roach,"** the woman sighed.
Another flick.
The floor beneath Vex *lurched*. She vaulted over a collapsing gurney as the linoleum split, swallowing a nurse's station whole. Monitors exploded, their screens erupting into geysers of sparks.
**"You're a *pain*!"** the woman shrieked, composure cracking.
Vex didn't answer—she was too busy surviving.
Above them, the ceiling finally surrendered.
A cascade of rubble crashed down, swallowing the hallway in a tsunami of concrete and steel. Vex dove through a shattered doorway as the world dissolved into chaos. When the dust settled, the corridor was gone—replaced by a gaping maw of twisted rebar and shattered dreams.
The woman floated unharmed atop the wreckage, gown pristine. **"Enough games."**
Vex spat blood. **"Yeah. Enough."**
Somewhere below, the hospital's foundation screamed.
---
Elsewhere in the ruins…
Kínitos and Monti crouched behind a half-melted MRI machine, their breaths shallow. The walls here pulsed like living tissue, veins of black smoke throbbing across mold-speckled drywall.
**"What the *hell* is happening?!"** Kínitos whispered, laughter bubbling hysterically in his throat. **"This is…this is…"**
**"Quiet!"** Monti hissed.
Another explosion rocked the building. A nearby sink tore free from the wall, pipes spewing rust-brown water across the rubble.
**"You saw it, right?"** Monti pressed, voice trembling. **"The weapon—it just…*erased* the rift. Like it never—"**
A guttural *snap* cut him off.
The stench hit first—rotting meat left in bleach. Across the room, a hospital bed shifted, its wheels screeching against the floor.
Something stood there.
Not a man. A *shadow* of one, its edges fraying into smoke. Strings of void lashed it to the ceiling, each thread humming with malignant energy.
Kínitos stopped laughing. "Yeah I saw?" Said Kínitos as both man looked on.