Apocalypse Ascension: Rift Walkers

Julia stood a few paces away, her rapier still dripping with the dark, viscous blood of the Wretches. Her chest rose and fell as she caught her breath, but her wide eyes were fixed on Kade. "I can't believe what you just did," she said, her voice trembling slightly, though her tone carried an undercurrent of awe.

Kade brushed a hand over his bloodied face, wincing as he felt the sting of a shallow cut across his cheek. "Had to be done," he muttered, his gaze scanning the battlefield, lingering on the monstrous corpse at the center. He tried to brush off her words, but the intensity of her expression made him pause.

Julia stepped closer, her grip still firm on her rapier. "Whatever's going on with you, it's not normal. And, honestly... I don't think I'd still be standing if you hadn't been here."

Kade shrugged, glancing at the shattered remains of the crystalline beast. "You handled yourself just fine."

"Against those Wretches, maybe," Julia replied, nodding toward the smaller bodies scattered across the ground. "But that thing?" She gestured to the hulking corpse of the larger monster. "I'd be dead if it weren't for you."

For a moment, the two of them stood in silence, the weight of what had just happened settling between them. Then Julia spoke again, her tone firmer this time. "We should stick together. At least for now."

Kade tilted his head, studying her. She didn't flinch under his scrutiny, her sharp features set with determination. He could see it clearly—this wasn't someone who would drag him down. She wasn't dead weight. He gave her a small nod. "Fair enough."

As the tension eased, Kade's gaze returned to the massive creature's corpse. His mind began to churn, piecing together fragments of the fight. When he'd been on its back, the crystalline growths hadn't just been sharp—they'd felt metallic, solid, almost like tempered steel. His fingers twitched at the memory. Those shards might be useful. Durable, at the very least. Maybe I could use them to make a proper weapon. Something better than a rusty pipe.

And then there was the core. His eyes shifted to the beast's head, the faint glow from the broken Wretches' cores still vivid in his memory. If those lesser creatures had cores, this one almost certainly did. Kade's thoughts raced. Those cores had power—enough to save his life back on the rooftop. Who knows what a larger core like this could do? He flexed his fingers absently, feeling the faint hum of resonance energy still lingering in his blood. If I'm going to keep surviving, I need every advantage I can get.

"Hold on," Kade said, motioning for Julia to stay put as he stepped toward the beast's corpse. His muscles ached with every movement, but curiosity gnawed at him. He cast a glance at the jagged spikes protruding from the creature's back. "The pointy ends hurt, so don't touch them," he muttered with a dry chuckle, wincing as the pain from his injuries flared.

Up close, the spikes looked different than he had initially thought. They weren't just grotesque growths or bone protrusions—they were metallic. A strange, darkened blue steel, unlike anything he'd seen before. His fingers hesitated over the surface, and the moment they made contact, a faint hum rippled through them. A vibration, subtle but unmistakable. It resonated with something inside him, like the energy coursing through his veins was responding in kind.

That was new.

Kade pulled his hand back, his mind racing. He hadn't paid attention when he was fighting, but now he realized—when he'd grabbed onto the spikes during the battle, he had felt this same vibration, a harmony between him and the metal, as if it were pulsing with energy of its own.

His curiosity overrode his exhaustion, and he stepped closer to the carcass. The once-massive creature had shrunk considerably, its form withered and sunken, almost unrecognizable from the behemoth he had just fought. It was clear now—the moment it had died, the energy that had fueled its monstrous size had drained away, leaving behind only a husk.

Kade exhaled, his mind working through the implications. These creatures weren't just mutating—they were consuming energy, growing from it, and when they died, that energy dissipated. He looked back at Julia, his expression unreadable.

"Whatever this stuff is, it's not normal," he muttered. "But it might be useful."

"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice cautious but curious.

Kade didn't answer right away. He crouched next to the beast, his hand brushing over one of the jagged crystals protruding from its back. The surface gleamed faintly in the dim light, sharp and heavy. The once-tense flesh anchoring the crystals had withered, leaving the growths loose and easier to remove, as though the energy that had maintained its form had dissipated.

He gripped one of the larger shards, giving it a firm tug. With a crack, the crystal came free, heavier than it looked. Kade tested its weight in his hand, running his fingers along the edge. Durable, sharp, and solid—this was no ordinary growth, reaching nearly two feet in length. He wrapped it in a strip of cloth torn from his shirt and set it aside before pulling free several more, each one a potential weapon or tool in the making. His mind worked through the possibilities. I could shape these into blades, spears... maybe even armor.

Julia raised an eyebrow. "You're scavenging now?"

Kade ignored her comment, shifting his focus to the creature's head. The wretch that he took the energy core from before, it was much smaller, this one was massive in size. He wondered... what if...With another strip of fabric wrapped around his hand, he dug into the shattered remains of its skull. The process was messy, the smell of charred flesh and blood making his stomach churn, but he worked quickly due to the faint glow emanating through the viscera. After several moments of prying and cutting, he found it—the core.

It was different from the others he'd seen. Larger, darker, and pulsing faintly with a deep, ominous purple light, brighter than the one he'd seen before. Kade wrapped it tightly in the fabric, his fingers tingling from the faint warmth that radiated through the cloth. He slipped it into his pack alongside the crystal shards, his mind already turning over the possibilities.

Julia watched him with a mix of curiosity and disbelief. "What's so important about that thing?"

Kade finally looked up, meeting her gaze. "No idea," he admitted, his fingers gripping the strange metallic shard he had pried from the creature's remains. "But I'm not leaving it behind."

She frowned but didn't argue, her attention shifting to their surroundings. The eerie silence pressed in on them like a weight. "We need to keep moving," she said, scanning the distant streets, where fires still burned, their embers flickering against the ruined skyline. "This place isn't safe."

Kade nodded and rose to his feet, his muscles still aching from the fight, but the resonance energy humming faintly in his veins provided just enough strength to keep him going. As he adjusted his pack, a thought crossed his mind—one that had been pushed aside in the chaos of survival.

"What the hell even happened?" he muttered, finally voicing the question that had been lingering beneath the surface.

Julia turned to him, her expression shifting as she realized just how little he actually knew. "You don't know?"

Kade shook his head. "I've been too busy not dying."

She exhaled, rubbing a hand down her face. "Jesus, you really are coming down from the mountain, aren't you?" She glanced toward the horizon, her eyes distant as if reliving the moment. "The sky… it burst open."

Kade frowned. "Yeah, I noticed."

"No, I mean—really burst open. Not just here. Everywhere." She gestured upward, where the sky still bore deep fractures, the glowing purple rifts splitting through the clouds like wounds in reality itself. "There were reports coming in before the networks went down—portal-like cracks sprouting across the sky all over the world. Different locations, different sizes. No pattern. Just chaos."

Kade's jaw tightened. "And the government? What the hell were they doing while the sky was breaking apart?"

Julia let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Trying to keep people from tearing each other apart in the streets." She glanced at him. "Before the circuits in most electronics fried, there were emergency broadcasts. The government—hell, every government—was scrambling. Apparently, this wasn't completely unexpected."

Kade's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Yeah. Scientists had identified something—otherworldly beings, they said. Had them under observation for a while. They didn't know exactly what would happen, but they knew something was coming. The higher-ups had been preparing for the worst… but not enough. Not nearly enough." She shook her head, a hint of frustration in her voice. "The last message that got through was basically telling people to bunker down and hope for the best. Stay inside. Stay safe. Take shelter."

Kade scoffed. "Great strategy."

Julia gave him a sharp look. "What else were they supposed to say? That the world was ending? That we were screwed?" Her voice was edged with something close to bitterness. "Every military in the world is supposedly acting in unison. But even that won't be enough. The resonance energy is messing with everything—communications, weapons, vehicles. Anything with a circuit is unreliable at best, dead at worst. Some bases went dark before they could even mobilize."

Kade felt the weight of her words settle over him like a stone. He had already figured out that no cavalry was coming, but hearing it outright made it all the more real.

"There was something else, too," Julia continued, quieter now. "They said the monsters—the things mutating from resonance energy—they don't take hold in everyone the same way. People who were already strong, physically and mentally… they're less likely to turn. That's why military personnel haven't been as affected. Active-duty service members—hell, even athletes—seem to resist the corruption. But that just means they're using them to hold the line. The National Guard was being activated everywhere before everything went dark."

Kade exhaled slowly, his fingers tightening around the strap of his pack. So that explained why some people turned immediately while others—like him, like Julia—hadn't. It wasn't just luck. It was something deeper, something about their bodies and minds being able to process the energy instead of being consumed by it.

But it also meant that they were on their own.

"And then the signals started failing," Julia finished. "One by one, the networks crashed. The last thing anyone heard before the resonance fried the circuits was a voice."

Kade turned to her, a slow chill creeping up his spine. "A voice?"

Julia nodded, her face unreadable. "It spoke in every language at once. Everywhere. No static, no distortion. Just clear, undeniable words."

Kade swallowed, already knowing what she was going to say.

"'You have been chosen.'"

The words sent an eerie shiver through the quiet air, lingering between them like an unspoken truth neither of them wanted to acknowledge.

Kade clenched his fists, looking up at the fractured sky. The Ascendants had been watching. Planning. And now, humanity had been thrown into their twisted experiment.

He could feel his skin crawl... There was no order, no control. No one was coming to save them. Kade hated the world as it was, but not like this... he could have never imagined...

It was just them against the chaos.

He exhaled, long and slow, pushing back the creeping dread. "Let's go," he said, his tone low but resolute.

Julia followed without another word, and together, they disappeared into the shadows of the ruined city.