11: The fusion

3:30 PM.

The streets of Rostia had become almost unrecognizable.

Thick, grey dust hung heavy in the air like fog. Fires burned in several districts, their flames illuminating piles of rubble and abandoned vehicles.

The survivors who were still able to move wandered aimlessly through the wreckage, desperately searching for family members and friends.

Some dug through the ruins with their bare hands. Others called for help until their voices became hoarse.

A young woman knelt beside a collapsed building, clawing at the broken concrete.

“Please! Somebody help me!”

Her fingers were bruised and bleeding as she kept crying out and digging. “My little brother is in there! He’s only eight! Please!”

A red-haired young man approached her with a pale face. “Miss, you need to step back. This building is unstable. It could collapse further.”

She looked at him as though he had spoken another language. “My brother is in there.”

“I know, but…”

“MY BROTHER IS IN THERE!”

Her scream echoed through the ruined street and the man fell silent.

He wanted to help her, but he had already spent the last hour digging through the wreckage of a daycare center searching for his own daughter. The only thing he had found beneath the crushed beams was a single pink shoe and nothing else.

He just stood there, his shoulders slumped and his eyes completely hollow.

The woman turned back to the debris and continued digging.

Suddenly, the ground shook harder than it had at any point before.

People who had managed to find temporary shelter on open ground were knocked straight off their feet.

Deep, jagged cracks raced across the asphalt, splitting entire street intersections apart. Remaining buildings groaned beneath the strain, and the few structures that had survived the previous tremors began collapsing one after another.

Then came a sound that nobody had ever heard before. It was a deep, unnatural rumble that rose from beneath the earth.

Everyone looked scared as they looked around, searching where the sound came from.

It didn’t sound like shifting tectonic plates or grinding rock; it sounded alive, breathing, and immense.

And for several seconds, the entire world vibrated with its heavy, oppressive frequency.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the ground became still and the buildings stopped shaking.

The dust continued drifting through the air, but the terrible roar faded into the distance.

The red-haired man turned slowly back toward the spot where the young woman had been digging for her brother. All he saw was her dead body under a heavy slab of masonry that had crushed her.

He stumbled back at the sight in horror, his chest heaving.

Around him, the other survivors stood paralyzed amid the ruins, their bodies trembling, their clothes covered in dust and blood.

Some fell to their knees in relief while others wept.

A few stared blankly at the destruction surrounding them, unable to comprehend how much they had lost.

4:07 PM.

A sudden, sharp crackling sound whipped the air. The sound was so clear and distinct that everyone turned their heads toward the source.

At first, a few muttered frantically that another earthquake was starting, but it didn't sound like it.

Driven by a mix of dread and morbid curiosity, survivors walked forward carefully through the ruins, slow and steady until they stopped dead in their tracks, their eyes widening in disbelief.

A gigantic, circular rift stood in front of them above the ruins of Rostia’s financial district.

Its edges shimmered with an eerie blue light, while the space inside it swirled like a bottomless ocean of darkness.

It was enormous.

Even from several streets away, the survivors could see it clearly.

A man standing beside an overturned, burning car slowly tilted his head back, his jaw slack.

“What… the hell is that?”

Nobody answered.

Moments later, similar electrical snaps echoed from different directions across the city.

Over in another district, Ward and Susan stood shoulder-to-shoulder among a group of stunned survivors, staring up at another identical rift hovering silently above a flattened plaza.

“What is that thing again?” Susan whispered, her fingers digging desperately into the fabric of Ward’s jacket.

Ward just stared, his throat completely tight, unable to find any words.

Within minutes, enormous spatial gates began appearing across the world.

Some hovered above ruined streets.

Others materialized over forests, mountains, deserted highways, and the middle of oceans.

They varied in size, but every single one shared the same appearance: enormous circular openings suspended in space, their rims radiating strange light while their interiors revealed nothing but swirling light.

They looked like portals.

A surviving police officer staggered into the middle of the road, staring up at the massive gateway looming directly above him.

He slowly lifted his radio.

“Control, this is Officer Miller. Do you copy?”

Static answered him.

He tried again.

“Control, we have an unidentified aerial phenomenon over the city. Repeat, unidentified phenomenon. It appears to be some kind of… portal.”

His voice faltered.

He lowered the radio and stared at the impossible structure.

“What the hell is going on?”

Across the world, millions of survivors were asking the same question.

Then all of a sudden, some survivors started to see something glowing among themselves.

The glow kept getting brighter.

Ward shoved a trembling hand deep into his pocket and pulled out the single blue crystal and two white crystals he had managed to secure. All around him, other survivors who happened to possess similar stones pulled them out, staring in pure bewilderment as the crystals began to shine.

Susan dragged her crystal out of the pocket of her torn gown, breathing a quiet sigh of relief that she hadn’t stashed it in the handbag she had lost hours ago.

A few streets away, the red-haired man stared down at the glowing golden crystal resting in his palm. He had picked it up off the pavement the day before while walking to work simply because it looked unusual, and now, it was shining, illuminating his bloodstained fingers.

The crystal had become almost blindingly bright.

“What is this…?”

Before he could drop it, the crystal began to tremble.

A thin crack appeared across its surface until it dissolved into a stream of radiant light.

Before he could react, the beam shot forward, striking his forehead and sinking straight beneath his skin.

He stumbled backward, gasping as a foreign sensation flooded his nervous system, feeling as though an invisible hand was violently rewriting the internal architecture of his body. He dropped hard onto one knee, clutching his chest with both hands as a wave of searing pain washed over him.

Around him, dozens of other crystal-holders fell into immediate disarray, disoriented, some dropping to the ground.

The light spread beneath the red-haired man’s skin, illuminating his veins for a brief moment before disappearing completely.

He let out a ragged gasp, his chest heaving as he stared down at his trembling hands. “What… just happened to me?”

He could feel something inside his body, something that hadn’t been there before.

Across the world, the same phenomenon was occurring.

People who had survived the earthquake and still possessed crystals began experiencing an extraordinary transformation.

Some people screamed as the crystals dissolved into their bodies.

A few experienced nothing more than a brief flash of light before collapsing to their knees, clutching their chests in confusion.

But the result was the same.

The crystals disappeared.

They were no longer objects that could be held, traded, or stolen, becoming part of the people who possessed them.