James rushed to Olivia and Sophia, panic in his voice. "Are you two alright?"
Olivia clutched Emma tightly to her chest, nodding through her tears. "We're fine… it hurts, but we're okay."
Sophia winced as she touched the bleeding scrape along her brow. "Just bruises… I'll live."
Emma was sobbing, her small frame trembling in her mother's arms, still shaken by what she had seen. The scent of scorched air and splintered wood clung to everything, thick and suffocating.
Outside, Sophia and Alex stepped out cautiously. But when their eyes swept over the wreckage beyond their street, their hearts dropped.
What once was their town now looked like a graveyard.
Houses reduced to rubble. Flames licking at collapsed beams. The night air was choked with smoke, and the streets were stained with blood and ash. Cries echoed through the distance—some human, some not. Shadows twitched in alleyways. Corpses lay broken and scattered, some half-consumed by things that no longer moved.
The neighborhood had been turned into a warzone.
Then—faint at first—came the low, steady thrum of rotor blades.
Helicopters.
They grew louder, sweeping across the burning town until they hovered above the devastation. A spotlight swept over the destruction… and froze. In the midst of all the carnage, the Walker house still stood—damaged, yes, but intact. A miracle at the epicenter of ruin.
Alex waved frantically, shouting. One of the crews spotted him and directed the others. Within minutes, helicopters began to descend nearby, kicking up dust and ash in powerful gusts. Armed soldiers poured out, weapons drawn, their expressions hard and confused.
The lead officer stepped forward. "What happened here?"
Sophia and Alex exchanged a quick glance.
"Creatures attacked the town," Alex said, trying to keep his voice steady. "We barely survived."
The officer's eyes narrowed. "And the house?"
"We don't know," Sophia added quickly. "We just hid inside."
Suspicion lingered in their stares. But there were too many wounded, too much death. There wasn't time to press further.
Inside the house, soldiers paused as they crossed the threshold. Their boots crunched over glass and splintered wood. The living room was a ruin: a jagged crater tore through the floor where Angelo had landed, and above them, the roof was split wide open to the storm-dark sky. Runes still lingered faintly on the edges of the room, burned into the wood like scars.
And at the center of it all—unmoving—was the boy.
Angelo lay in the crater, unconscious. His hair was snow-white now. His skin was pale. The strange runes that had once pulsed across his body had vanished, leaving no trace… except the mark on his back. That remained—glowing faintly like a brand burned into his soul.
He looked peaceful.
Too peaceful.
As if something had simply… left.
The soldiers stared in a mix of awe and unease. One reached out, hesitant to touch him.
"Is he alive?" someone muttered.
"Get him to the medics," the officer ordered. "Carefully."
Within the hour, the entire family—James, Olivia, Emma, Alex, and Sophia—was relocated to the nearest military base. Medical staff worked quickly, treating their injuries and trying to assess what had happened. Angelo was moved to the infirmary, separated from the rest.
That's when things began to spiral.
Doctors examined him thoroughly—no burns, no broken bones, no internal damage. It didn't make sense. But when they tried to insert an IV, the needle bent. Another attempt. Same result. It was like his skin had turned to steel beneath the surface.
Whispers filled the room.
Something was wrong.
"Isolate him," the lead doctor said.
"What? No!" Olivia tried to push forward, but soldiers blocked her path.
"He's not dangerous," Sophia argued. "You don't understand—"
But her voice was drowned beneath the rising wave of orders and protocol. Soon, the entire family was separated. Interrogated. Monitored.
And while the humans tried to contain the aftermath, they remained blind to what was truly beginning.
Because far from the scorched streets, far beyond the flickering lights of broken cities… something else was coming.
Something far worse was already unfolding.
Because elsewhere… the second breach had begun.
This time, what crossed over weren't mindless beasts.
They were calm.
Composed.
Terrifying.
Entities cloaked in radiant light and endless shadow. Their forms glowed like embers wrapped in stormclouds, eyes burning like dying stars. Their wings unfolded across dimensions, stretching into realms unseen by man.
They weren't loud.
They were deliberate.
Measured.
These were angels.
And they had come not to destroy—
Not yet.
They came to observe.
To understand.
To decide.
But they weren't alone.
Because the Watchers—those who had only ever watched from the edges of reality—had begun to move.
To hunt.
No longer passive. No longer bound.
They stalked the world now, unseen and patient. Their gaze, once distant, now pierced through every shadow, every soul.
And so the earth trembled beneath the weight of two presences:
The angels who judged.
And the Watchers who remembered.
Both now roamed freely across a broken world.
And far above, beyond the veil where reality thinned, even greater forces stirred.
They all felt it—the return of something ancient. Something long buried. Something that should never have existed.
A presence born not from divinity or darkness,
but from the abyss itself.
The one born from nothingness.
— End of Arc I —