The silence that engulfed the Boundary was after the Vampire's departure was evident.

  Jett remained frozen behind the car for several moments - he couldn't hear anything. There was no audible wheels moving against the pavement of the road from traffic—no barking dogs - there was only the faint ringing left over from the explosions and the parched sounds of his erratic breathing in the still air.

  "Is it over?" he asked himself.

  He cautiously peeked over the dented hood of the car. The street looked the same, but it was also fundamentally wrong. There was the familiar brickwork of the buildings - the parked cars, the cracked pavement - they were all bathed in that flat, unchanged light from the trapped street lamps.

  Above Jett was the translucent dome - it was still shimmering faintly.

  It was like a vast - soundless ceiling cutting him off from the night sky of the real world. Debris from the fight between Volkov and the socketless Vampire littered the asphalt - all around him were chunks of concrete - shards of metal, and dark stains he didn't want to identify.

  "Okay.. okay, they're gone." He said to himself. "They just.. left. Left me here."

  Jett pushed himself up—his legs were shaky and exhausted, he still felt the aching soreness of his muscles. But that was overshadowed by a fresh wave of adrenaline. He wanted to understanding this.

  He had to find a way out.

  He retrieved Bloodletter from where he had dropped it near the car - the surface of the dark bat was unscathed by the abrupt incident that had taken place earlier.

  Holding Bloodletter was a relief for Jett - even though it was incapable of breaking through the Boundary itself. He glanced at his sling bag; he could feel Murk shifting about inside.

  "Alright, Murk.. let's figure this out."

  Jett started walking down the street, towards his own apartment building. His footsteps were disturbingly loud in the silence of the Boundary, each step collided against broken asphalt and dusty - dry bricks. He kept glancing up at the shimmering dome—then he scanned the empty windows and doorways around him. The neighborhood felt deserted - and evacuated.

  But he knew that everyone else were just… outside. On the other side of the impassable wall.

  He reached the entrance to his building. The glass doors were intact to his surprise. He pushed one open and peered into the dimly lit lobby.

  Empty.

  The usual faint smell of dust and old cooking seemed amplified in the stillness.

  ‘Could I just… wait it out in my apartment?’

  The thought was tempting. Hide, lock the door, pretend none of this was happening. But what if this bubble lasted forever? What if something else was in here with him? The thought sent a chill down his spine - it was colder than when he had experienced Renja's touch.

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  He backed out of the lobby—deciding against holing up. He needed information.

  Jett walked further down the block - towards where the street should have led out of the neighborhood. He reached the invisible wall again, and pressed his hand against its smooth - cool surface.

  It was still solid.

  Still impenetrable with an almost undetectable vibration.

  He looked down the adjacent street that was sealed off by the same barrier. He could see the normal glow of city lights beyond the Boundary, it was close but utterly unreachable.

  ‘Who makes something like this?’ he thought, his frustration was mixing with his fear.

  ‘And why? Was it the Vampire? Did he trap Volkov, and I just got caught in the crossfire? But why leave it up?’

  The Boundary felt… intentional and solid. Not like something temporary. The energy within the trapped space felt thick and latent—like the air before a thunderstorm.

  He turned back - and scanned the enclosed area. It was his block—maybe part of the next one over. He surveyed the damage from the fight – the shattered pavement, the scarred building walls. These weren't low level creatures. During his joke of a one-sided fight with the Gargoyle, Volkov had actually been holding back the entire time. And then there was that socketless one.

  Their power was terrifying.

  'And now they're gone, leaving this… containment field behind and abandoned. Am I going to be trapped here forever?'

  Butt Jett couldn't shake the feeling that the emptiness wouldn't last. Something about the scent air suggested this space wasn't meant to stay vacant for long.

  He felt exposed and vulnerable—like a single tiny ant trapped inside a vast, soundless cage.

  Jett's gaze shifted across the street to the dilapidated building Barty claimed as his new residence. If this bubble encompassed his own apartment, it almost certainly covered the structure directly opposite.

  'Was Barty trapped in here too?'

  The thought gave him a sliver of hope. Facing this situation with someone else—even Barty, felt infinitely better than facing it alone.

  Jett moved away from the Boundary wall, his steps took him across the silent street. The abandoned building looked even more forlorn and decrepit under the trapped flat lights. Shadows pooled deeper in its broken windows and crumbling facade. The bent chain link fence surrounding it seemed like a useless relic now, it was utterly irrelevant against the energy wall that encompassed everything.

  He slipped through a familiar gap in the fence. He approached the main entrance – it was a heavy wooden door hanging precariously off its hinges. He pushed it inward with the tip of Bloodletter, the screech of rusted metal echoed loudly in the Boundary, causing Jett to flinch.

  "Barty?"

  Jett asked aloud, his parched voice was absorbed into the thick, dusty air within.

  "You in here? Bartholomew Quibblebottom?"

  No chuckle answered him. No shadow detached itself from the rafters - only silence greeted Jett—it was deeper and more stagnant than the silence outside.

  He stepped inside while holding Bloodletter at his side. The interior was pitch black away from the doorway's weak light.

  His Veschar enhanced sight adjusted slowly to the darkness—piercing the gloom, it revealed the familiar decay – fallen plaster, scattered debris, and the skeletal remains of furniture. But the stillness he felt outside seemed magnified in here, it was always pressing in on him.

  He moved quietly through the main ground floor room - his footsteps crunched softly on grit and broken glass. He scanned the high ceiling beams where Barty had been perched before.

  Empty.

  "Barty?"

  He called out again—a little louder this time, he forced confidence into his voice.

  "It's Jett! Pizza Inferno guy! Are you stuck in this bubble thing too?"

  He checked the adjoining rooms – there was a collapsed kitchen area - and a room filled with moldering heaps of unidentifiable trash.

  Nothing. No sign of the winged creature. No lingering scent beyond dust and decay. No trace of Barty's energy.

  It felt… empty. Utterly empty.

  'Is he not here?!'

  A cold knot formed in Jett's stomach. Barty wasn't present. Either the Boundary hadn't reached wherever Barty had actually been when it formed, or the creature had somehow escaped - like Volkov. Or maybe he'd never even been inside.

  The hope of finding an ally that was however strange evaporated—leaving behind a starker, colder fear.

  He was alone with Murk - and trapped in a silent artificial pocket of the city, with no way out and a feeling that the emptiness wouldn't last forever. He backed out of the building slowly—and glanced tentatively into the deep shadows before stepping back onto the strangely lit street.

  The silence continued—and the abandoned building behind him felt less like a potential refuge and more like a tomb. Every shadow seemed too deep - every sliver of the trapped streetlights felt like a warning.

  His altered senses were trying to warn him.

  His grip tightened on Bloodletter—the surface of the bat offered him meager reassurance though.

  Suddenly, the quality of the silence changed.

  It became pressurized. A low subsonic sound vibrated through the soles of his shoes, it was felt more in his bones than it was heard with his ears. Every hair on his body stood up.

  Jett looked up instinctively at the shimmering dome of the Boundary.

  High above - directly over the center of the trapped neighborhood—the transparent surface began to warp. It swirled like oil on water - the faint shimmer intensifed and began coalescing. The light flattened then bulged inwards - stretching and thinning.

  Until it tore open.