There was a perfect—immense circle. And within that circle, darkness pulsed.

  Then, the Eye opened.

  It was colossal - filling the unnatural aperture in the sky. A single blood red iris stared down—it was devoid of a pupil or sclera, it was just an ocean of crimson malice. It wasn't looking at anything specific; its gaze was vast and indifferent, encompassing the entire trapped section of the city. Seeing it felt like staring into the void and having the void stare back with cold - hungry awareness.

  Jett's breath nearly left his lungs entirely. An extreme sense of dread lanced through him. It wasn't like the fight between the two earlier. This felt wrong on many levels.

  'Oh, hell no..!'

  Raw panic began to override his training and thoughts. He quickly sprinted away from the Eye - looking desperately for cover. His eyes landed on a bright yellow school bus parked halfway down the block - it was miraculously unscathed by the earlier Feral battle.

  It offered size - solidity - something to hide behind.

  He sprinted towards it, his steps were driven purely by indescribable terror. As he ran, the crimson Eye shifted again, and things began to emerge.

  First came the shambling tide. Figures spilled from the Eye like rotten fruit from a burst sack.

  Zombies.

  They were not the fast kind from movies—but lurching broken things. Skin sloughed off grey flesh in wet chunks - jaws were hung slack revealing blackened teeth - empty sockets wept red ichor. They moved with jerky uncoordinated gaits - driven by a singular mindless hunger that radiated outwards like a foul stench.

  Hundreds poured out, a wave of decay flooded the street below the Eye.

  Then came the skittering carpet.

  A chittering—clicking wave flowed from the portal, spreading rapidly across the pavement.

  Parasitic Rats.

  Just like the one he had fought in the alley - but multiplied a thousandfold. A nauseating carpet of matted fur - glowing green eyes - razor teeth, and obscenely writhing—barbed tentacles swept outwards - covering the street and crawling over the zombies - their sheer numbers were a harrowing spectacle.

  The air was filled with their high-pitched screeches.

  Jett barely reached the bus - he dove behind its relative safety just as the first wave of Abominations began to spread further. He pressed himself flat against the cool metal - peered cautiously around the edge—and then he saw them.

  'Holy shit!'

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  Emerging last from the crimson Eye - unfolding themselves into the trapped space. Tall - impossibly, unnervingly tall – thirty feet or more. They were skeletal thin—their pale, translucent skin were stretched taut over sharp, geometric bones that seemed wrongly angled. Their backs were horribly hunched, making their long - spindly arms dangle almost to the ground.

  Their heads were lolled atop thin necks—they were featureless save for dark pits where eyes might have been. They all walked with a slow disjointed gait - like colossal marionettes whose strings were tangled—their movements were both jerky and unnaturally fluid. They emanated a profound sense of emptiness - of things that should not exist in comprehensible space.

  The horde descended. Zombies stumbled forward, rats swarmed - the tall pale figures visibly loped silently among them. The silence of the Boundary was shattered by the groans of the dead - the screeching of the rats - and the scraping, clicking sounds made by the towering abominations. The blood red Eye remained open above—watching its children spill into the cage.

  'I'm definitely done for..!'

  Jett pressed himself harder against the bus - Bloodletter was clutched in a white knuckled grip. He was utterly trapped. Trapped inside a cage filling rapidly with harrowing nightmares.

  The horrifying cacophony of the horde – groans, screeches, clicks, shuffles – washed over him. Each inhalation of his throat felt like he was swallowing glass.

  ‘This isn’t real. This can't be real!’

  He told himself repeatedly - even as his eyes relayed the undeniable truth.

  The colossal red Eye hovered overhead, it was like a red star in the artificial sky. The shambling dead - the carpet of tentacled rats - the tall, pale figures. It was a scene ripped from the most feverish nightmare.

  Fear was a physical thing - it felt like a cold weight in his gut - and a tremor in his hands, Jett had never experienced true fear until now. But beneath it, an inkling of something else permeated him – it was the raw instinct to survive, it was sharpened by Brenda’s relentless drills and his previous encounters. Hiding here was temporary. The horde was spreading, and slowly filling the contained space.

  Staying put meant eventually being found.

  ‘Move! Gotta move. Get high up. Get… perspective.’

  He peered cautiously around the front of the bus. The nearest wave of zombies was still a block away - lurching aimlessly. The rats were everywhere - they were a rippling tide of green eyes and twitching tentacles, they seemed momentarily focused on swarming the slower undead. The tall, pale figures moved sluggishly.

  Now was his only chance.

  He moved away from the bus—forcing himself into a low crouch. He remembered Brenda’s words about the Noxic Step – it was a dampening sound, that affected the air somehow. He didn't have the control and the finesse - but he attempted to focus his will, trying to channel even a fraction of that concept into his movement.

  He envisioned sinking into the environment - becoming weightless and silent.

  He moved quickly - darting from the bus to the dark doorway of a closed storefront. His steps weren't entirely silent, but they were quieter than his usual panicked scrambling. He pressed himself against a brick wall - listening and watching them. The main flow of the horde hadn't reached this side street yet.

  He spotted something – it was a rusty fire escape ladder leading up the side of an adjacent apartment building.

  High ground.

  He sprinted across the short distance - his heart was pounding against his ribs. He reached the ladder and started climbing quickly - Bloodletter was bumping against his back. The metal rungs were cold and slightly slippery. He didn't look down, he was focused only on the upward movement, hauling himself rung by rung.

  He reached the roof of the five story building, scrambled over the ledge - and collapsed onto the tarred surface, gasping for air. He crawled further away from the edge - seeking the relative cover of a large ventilation unit.

  Once his breathing steadied slightly - he cautiously raised his head and looked down.

  The view was staggering. From here, the sheer scale of the invasion was terrifyingly clear. The street below was swallowed with movement. Hundreds of zombies formed a grotesque slow moving river. The parasitic rats were a living carpet that flowed around obstacles—their collective chittering were a faint, horrifying buzz even from this height. And the tall, pale figures… they moved like patient herders among the chaos - their featureless heads occasionally tilted as if they were perceived something Jett couldn't.

  The giant red Eye dominated the false sky - its unblinking stare was pressing down on everything.

  ‘So many… did they all come from that weird looking eye?’

  He was scanning the rooftops opposite, looking for escape routes or other vantage points - when movement caught his eye. It wasn't the horde below—but nearby and on the same roof - huddled behind a crumbling brick chimney stack.

  Two figures.

  One was immediately and unmistakably Barty. The winged creature was perched on the chimney like a gargoyle contemplating a rain shower - his leathery wings were tucked tightly behind him, his familiar wide grin was fixed on the chaos below.

  'He seems unfazed, and more like… entertained.' Jett thought.

  The other figure was large, bulky—and trembling violently, while clutching his head. He wore a familiar superhero T-shirt stretched tight over a considerable frame.

  ‘No way…’ Jett thought, his eyes widened.

  ‘Todd?’

  It was Todd, the guy from the comic book store. The one who ate half a pizza in five seconds. He looked utterly terrified, his face was pale - and he was muttering frantically to himself.

  "Not real… just like the comics… too many… oh god, the tentacles…!"

  Barty glanced over at Jett's arrival, his black eyes became fixed on him.

  "Well, well! Look what the cat dragged in! Or rather..what scrambled up the fire escape like a particularly panicked squirrel. Enjoying the apocalypse du jour, pizza boy?"