Horizon Novels & Stories

But today, her focus was off, and she knew why. It was a Dragon Moon--just not for their kingdom. Rather, the kingdom directly to their north, Hightower, would be forced to make the sacrifice that night. Every time a Dragon Moon rolled around, Nya found it difficult to concentrate, even when it wasn’t her kingdom who would choose someone to be taken by the dragon. Just the idea that the bastard would be flying through the sky, filling the air with shrieks and fire, claiming another innocent life. Even if it wasn’t a citizen from Frindom, it was a person who would be dead soon enough, someone who was blameless, and that wasn’t right.

The black horizon of the Pacific didn’t just rumble; it bled. Through the dense, wet curtains of the harbor fog, the silhouette of *The Leviathan* materialized like a prehistoric leviathan cut from matte-black steel. The naval destroyer sat three miles out, a ghost ship commissioned by the absolute peak of corporate desperation, its heavy forward cannons slowly rotating toward the coordinates of the free port of Blackridge. They weren't here to negotiate an asset recovery. They were here to execute a scorched-earth liquidation.

Third horizon. "It came out of the eastern water." Lucien reached me. "What does it say?" Writing crawled across the glass, in no language either of us knew. Then it translated itself. WE CAN SEE YOU. Nobody spoke. I looked east, and for the first time in four years the horizon didn't feel empty. It felt like something looking back. • • • That night I stood at the window again. Lucien came up behind me. "You're doing that thing again." "What thing?"

The horizon was a jagged smear of charcoal gray and bruised violet. For three years, I had walked toward it, guided by nothing but the rumors whispered in the hushed, terrified voices of dying scavengers. They spoke of a place that held the line, a fortress of humanity amidst the rotting sprawl of the walking dead. They called it "Haven."

They were arranged in a **Grid**. And at the very edge of the horizon, in letters made of white fire that only I could see, were the words: **[TRIAL VERSION: 29 DAYS REMAINING]**

The horizon fractured violently— Not vertically. Not horizontally. Radially. From them. And for the first time— The older presence hesitated.

Nova’s POV I could see the sun starting set. It was casting beautiful hues of orange, pink and gold, across the early evening sky. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, so I decided to take a moment to just take in and absorb the beauty of nature. I had the ominous sensation if I didn’t figure out a way out of this, I wasn’t going to be seeing another sunset.

The morning came blood-red. The horizon was a wound, bleeding light through clouds that looked more like torn fabric than sky. The storm from the night before hadn’t passed it had twisted. The air was heavy with the scent of rain and something metallic, like the atmosphere itself was rusting. Nora stood outside the shelter, her eyes locked on the distant crater. She could still feel it, the pulse beneath the earth, faint but steady. Every few seconds, the shard in her pocket hummed in rhythm, as though something deep below was calling it home.

"There’s so much I want to show you, so much of the world waiting for us to see together." The engines roared to life, and within moments, they were soaring above the clouds. Lune gazed out of the window in awe, the landscapes below becoming miniature as they climbed higher. Arlo watched her, smiling softly, his heart swelling with happiness to see her so captivated. He leaned back, feeling a deep satisfaction in his heart—this honeymoon was everything he wanted, and more importantly, it was with the person he wanted most in the world.

We continued even though the hallways gave way and collapsed. "Almost there!" As the VTOL appeared, its engines already roaring, Rook shouted. We jumped on board as the fortress collapsed, sending a huge tidal wave of steel and fire into the sea. The Beyond Horizon As the VTOL rose, the ridge slipped under the waters, its secrets buried once more. As the weight of our actions settled over us, the cabin became quiet as we gazed out to the horizon. "Is it over?" I turned to Damien and inquired quietly.