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All Chapters of WORLDS COLLIDE - THE SACRIFICE: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

21 Chapters

1 The Awakening

The beach house on the headland above Crescent Cove had big windows and the kind of quiet that made people honest. Gabe Mitchell stood barefoot by the glass with a mug of coffee that had given up on being hot. The Pacific pressed a slow shine across the morning. Gulls angled down towards safer thermals. The horizon wore a thin bruise. He wasn’t watching the water. He was watching the mantel. Beyond the glass, a narrow track wound down the headland through salt-stunted scrub. The deck boards had silvered in the weather; sand collected in the joins no matter how often they swept. Brooke had left a pair of shoes beside the door. His own were under the chair, one on its side. Ordinary things. He had become fond of finding them there. The house had taken time to feel like a home instead of somewhere to wait for the next disaster. They had stopped putting every noise down to the sea. Sometimes a loose window was only a loose window. This morning, he wished that was all i

2 JAKE

The picture filled the screen, then became the room. It was a squat brick stack a block off Broadway, wedged between a pawn shop and a barber who did more fades than taxes. The awning was sun-faded, the sign missing a bulb. Inside, the carpet stuck slightly on the lift, the air smelled of old timber and fryer oil, and the jukebox cycled through Midnight Oil and an ’80s mix the barman insisted was retro when really it was just tired. Mid-afternoon brought the usual: a couple of tradies in hi-vis arguing amiably about footy, two students with laptops open to notes neither of them was reading, an older couple sharing a pot pie and silence. Mediocre—the kind of place you chose when you didn’t want the world to look directly at you. Jake Michaels sat with his back to the wall, a schooner sweating on the varnish. His pack was looped around his ankle—not because he thought someone would nick it, though that happened too, but because muscle memory never stopped being practical. He wasn’t d

3 SCOTT

Two evenings before Gallus reached Sydney, Bowen did date nights small. Fairy lights tangled through the fig trees on Herbert Street, pretending winter couldn’t bite. The Coral Sea breathed beyond the breakwater—hush in, hush out—like the town was trying not to wake itself. Inside La Piccola Marina, a busker’s guitar smoothed over clinking glass and low talk. For an hour, Scott Masters and Faith let themselves be ordinary. He’d shaved—she had insisted. Demonslayer, his one sword, was at home in its scabbard, leaning against the cedar chest like a sleeping dog. Faith’s fingers found Scott’s. “You know, after everything at Hideaway Bay, your parents must be so proud.” “Yeah, they are, since we moved in with each other, life has been so much clearer,” Scott said, looking in her blue eyes. They both smiled at each other and sipped on a glass of St. Hallard’s wine. The barman nudged the TV volume up for the footy. The picture stuttered— —and snapped to BREAKING NEWS. They broke

4 JANE

JaneJane Doe walked the lonely highway in an old brown jacket, a worn brown yarra hat, and jeans, with boots that had accepted mileage in her quest for self-discovery. A buckled sign rose from the haze: SYDNEY 62. Jane kept walking. An NRMA van hunched on the verge a kilometre ahead, a broken-down van with its bonnet up, and hazards fretting orange into the smoke. People huddled in its lee—a mum with two kids wrapped in blankets, an old man with his tie folded into his pocket, a uni kid clutching his backpack like a life raft. None of them was watching the road. They were staring into the weed-choked gully beyond the Armco bollards. Jane slowed down to a slow walk. Predators change the air. The gully felt tight, as if sound itself had learned to wait. Something moved in the long weeds. Not a dog. Not a wolf. The joints were wrong. Forelimbs too long. Shoulders ridged like a man’s. Black fur oil-dark over hungry muscle. Eyes amber, ringed with a pale, frost-grey rim. Direwolf

5 ELLIE AND CEREBUS

Ellie and CerebusThe ferry slid away from Manly Wharf with the lazy confidence of something that had made this crossing a thousand times already that morning. Ellie leaned on the rail, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, boots braced wide against the deck’s gentle sway. The salt air was sharp and clean, the kind that made the city feel briefly forgiven. Behind her, Cerebus lay sprawled in the sun like an oversized, three-headed tourist attraction—one head asleep, one watching gulls with professional interest, the third tracking the shoreline as it drifted away. “Don’t start,” Ellie murmured as the right head growled low at a passing pelican. This was supposed to be nothing. A day off. Manly fish and chips, too much walking, pretending the world wasn’t always one bad breath away from ending. Sydney glittered ahead—glass, steel, sails. Circular Quay waited like a postcard. Then the water beneath them changed. Ellie felt it first through her boots. Not a wave. Not wake. Something d

6 Bennelong Point

Bennelong PointEllie left the ferry behind at a run. Circular Quay was noise and motion—sirens cutting through voices, paramedics forcing order out of panic. The ferry groaned against the wharf behind her, battered but still afloat. Ellie never looked back. She cut through the crowd, boots striking stone, Cerebus pacing her stride for stride. His three heads tracked three different threats—one watched the crowd, another scanned the harbour, and the third swept the skyline—while his single powerful body flowed effortlessly through gaps that opened just in time. The harbour tugged at her awareness as she ran. Not forward. Down. Something ahead had weight. She passed the MCA, her breathing steady, legs burning, the Sword of Bellerophon riding securely at her side. People scattered when they noticed the sword, the three-headed dog, and the certainty in her stride. No one tried to stop her. Bennelong Point opened before her. The Sydney Opera House rose white and flawless against t

7 Road to the Sydney

A black Hilux built as a tribute to Back to the Future appeared in the distance, pulled into the right lane, and drew level with the creature. “Oh, no, you don’t.” Scott Masters rolled down his window and tasted smoke and cold air. Demonslayer lay wrapped in a towel on the passenger seat, its hilt pressed against the door. He didn’t unwrap it. Not with children watching unless there was no other choice. “Here we go again.” He leaned on the horn and yanked the wheel. The ute slammed into the creature’s ribs with a thunderous bang. Scott bounced violently inside the cab as bone gave way like splintering timber, crushing the demon between the Hilux and the coach. The Scorcher Demon skidded to a halt, recovered with frightening speed, and sprinted after the coach once more. “We must have fooooood… Hungry I am!” It sounded more annoyed than hurt. “Pesty little hu-man. It tried to hurt me.” It never took its eyes off the coach. Scott accelerated again, drawing level with the mons

8 Getz this into ya!

Getz this into ya!Scott reached the service station on foot. Hours earlier, he’d still had a vehicle. The Hilux had died on the highway, engine crushed by the coach that had the kids in it. The scorcher demon had come in fast—too fast—and the coach had been slower than it looked, packed with kids, belts tangled, windows fogged white with panic. Scott hadn’t thought. He’d driven straight into the heat, clipped the thing hard enough to break its line, and stayed there until the coach cleared the bend. The Hilux hadn’t made it out of the battle that he fought. Scott had walked away with scorched boots, ringing ears, and the certainty that Sydney was next. The service station buzzed under fluorescent lights, smelling of oil and burnt coffee. A bored teenager behind the counter looked up as Scott pushed through the door. “Hire car,” Scott said. “Something cheap.” The kid frowned at the screen. “Hyundai Getz.” Scott nodded. “Price.” “Twenty-nine bucks. Hourly. Cheap and nasty.” Sc

9 The Forecourt

The harbour surface buckled into a diesel-sheened churn. Gallus, the size of a large monster the size of a building twelve storeys high surged up through foam and floodlight—wet mass and plated hide forcing water aside by sheer displacement. A wolf-beaked head snapped once, hooked beak slick with runoff. Beneath it, a mantle of tentacles unrolled, each ending in a circular mouth lined with needle teeth. The water broke into uneven chop, slapping the seawall in irregular surges. He hit the Opera House breakwater with a concussive impact that shattered glass. Granite blocks shifted. A tentacle the size of a tram girder slammed across the forecourt and scattered the group hard. “Feet!” Gabe shouted. “Watch your footing!” They found a rough line because standing alone got you killed faster, as tentacles made the ground nearly impossible to get to the upper foreground, and werewolves patiently waited for the team to come to them. “He’s taken occupation of the main hall,” said Brooke,

10 The Corner

10 The EscapeGallus rose out of the water again. Not quickly. Not in a single motion. He climbed. Tentacles found stone, released, then found it again. Triffid mouths stayed behind at rails and corners, opening and closing, marking where he had been. Black ichor streaked the forecourt where limbs dragged across tile and concrete. A ferry sat broadside at the basin edge, nudged into place and held there, its hull pressed against the seawall. At the steps, shallow water pulsed in short bursts—just enough to keep footing uncertain. Gallus reached the edge of the forecourt and continued forward. Tentacles slid into gaps beneath the Opera House—service corridors, access frames, broken stairwells. Panels tore loose. Railings vanished into the water. Sections that didn’t fit were pushed aside and dropped into the basin. He moved into the structure. Not on top of it. Inside it. Like something finding shelter where shelter hadn’t been intended. The Opera House shuddered and change

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