It happened so suddenly.
One moment, Axel was beside her, his presence a steady force keeping her grounded. The next—he was gone.
The world felt like it had shifted without him, leaving her standing in an empty alleyway with her breath caught in her throat. The air was still, too still. The kind of unnatural silence that made her pulse spike with dread.
"Axel?"
Her voice trembled as she turned in frantic circles, her eyes scanning the darkness, searching for any sign of him. But there was nothing. No movement, no footsteps, no lingering warmth where he had stood just moments before.
He was just here. Where did he go?
Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as panic coiled in her chest, tightening like a vice.
Had something taken him?
Had he left?
No—he wouldn't. He promised.
Her breath came in short, shallow gasps as she searched the alley, her hands shaking. There were no signs of a struggle. No footprints. No shadows shifting unnaturally like before. It was as if he had simply ceased to exist.
She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms.
This isn't right. Something happened.
The weight of realization settled deep in her gut, cold and unforgiving.
She was alone.
And Doomsday was coming.
---
Axel's POV
Darkness.
Heavy, suffocating, endless.
Pain thrummed in my body—not from any wound, but from something deeper, something unnatural. A force had wrenched me from Selene's side, pulled me through the fabric of reality itself, and now—
Now I was here.
My eyes snapped open, but all I saw was an infinite void stretching in every direction. A world of nothingness, shifting and writhing like a living thing.
There was no ground beneath me, yet I wasn't falling.
No sky above, yet something pressed down on me like an unbearable weight.
Where am I?
I forced myself to stay calm, even as my pulse hammered in my ears. One moment, I had been with Selene. The next, I was here. Trapped. But by what? Or who?
Then, a voice.
It echoed through the void, deep and ancient, layered like a thousand voices speaking as one.
"You've strayed too far, outlander."
Every muscle in my body tensed.
That voice... it wasn't human. It wasn't even alive in a way I understood.
I turned sharply, scanning the black abyss around me, but there was nothing. Just an endless expanse of shifting darkness.
And then—
Something moved.
A massive form loomed ahead, shifting between something almost humanoid and something far more monstrous.
Its presence alone sent a chill through my core.
"You do not belong here. Yet you persist."
I clenched my fists, my jaw tightening.
"I don't care what you are. Let me out."
A low, rumbling sound filled the void—not quite laughter, not quite a growl.
"Your defiance is meaningless. The cycle will not change. Doomsday will come. You cannot stop it."
My teeth clenched. "Watch me."
The entity didn't move, yet its presence thickened, closing in around me. The weight of it pressed against my chest, suffocating, demanding submission.
"Foolish."
Its voice slithered through the void, wrapping around me like chains.
"You fight against the inevitable. Doomsday is not an event to be prevented—it is the order that restores imbalance."
I scoffed, narrowing my eyes.
"So you'd rather wipe out everything than let the world survive?"
"The world has already been undone. The moment she awakened, the course was set."
Selene.
My breath hitched, but I forced myself to stand firm.
"She didn't ask for this," I snapped.
"None of this is her fault."
"And yet, she is the key. The one who calls the end, and the one who may delay it. But delay is not salvation."
My fists tightened.
"Then I'll find another way. I won't let her die for something she never chose."
The void rippled, like waves moving through an ocean of darkness.
"You are blind to what you are."
The words struck deeper than I expected.
I swallowed, but the weight in my chest only grew heavier.
"Your power is borrowed. Your existence here is an anomaly. Yet you dare to challenge the order?"
I gritted my teeth.
"Then what am I?"
For the first time, the entity fell silent.
But I could feel it shifting. Watching. Calculating.
Then—
The void cracked.
A flood of light burst through, searing my vision.
Images flashed before me in fragmented pieces—a memory not my own, yet deeply familiar.
A figure standing in a sea of stars.
A hand reaching toward an unfamiliar sky.
Power surging through veins that were not human.
And then, a voice—one I barely recognized as my own.
"I was never meant to be here."
The truth struck like lightning.
The pieces clicked into place, and I staggered back, gripping my chest as if the revelation itself could tear me apart.
I wasn't just a guardian.
I wasn't just someone sent to protect Selene.
I was something far more ancient—something that should never have been here to begin with.
The entity's voice rumbled once more, but this time, it sounded almost amused.
"Now you begin to see."
The light intensified.
And before I could react—
Everything shattered.
---
Selene's POV
A sharp gasp tore from my throat as I jolted upright, my entire body trembling.
Darkness.
The sky above was pitch black, the stars nowhere to be seen.
The world around me was wrong.
The streets were gone. The buildings—gone. Everything was submerged in water, ruins barely visible beneath the surface. Broken remnants of what once stood jutted out like skeletal remains, swallowed by an ocean that hadn't been there before.
The air was thick with salt. With smoke. With something burning in the distance.
I stumbled forward, my boots splashing against shallow water that shouldn't have been here.
This wasn't a dream.
It was real.
Doomsday had begun.
To be continued.