Chapter 2

  The next two years changed everything.

  By 2022, the world felt like the dystopian future people had joked about in books and movies. Portals had appeared slowly at first, each one cleared almost as soon as it opened. Humans had lined up for those early gates—eager, terrified, hopeful.

  Now the portals were different. They scattered themselves across the map, mostly in urban sprawl, dropping directly on top of existing towns or cities. Humans had plateaued while the other species kept climbing.

  The Draken led with 6.1 million points, the Gifted trailed just behind at 5.9. He didn’t need to check to know humans were last. You could hear it in the way the radio hosts talked, how they clung to every new scrap of information like gamblers waiting for that next big win. For most people, the other species were nothing more than names on the giant scoreboard that filled the sky.

  Ashe had planned to go to university. Instead, schools shut down and turned into training facilities. He’d barely stepped outside since. He hadn’t seen his friends. His parents watched him like he might break.

  He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t depressed. He felt alone in a world at war—terrified of dying, but aching to matter to the fight in some way.

  Now he lay on his carpet, phone in hand, listening to the radio. WarFronts had become his lifeline, his one thread to the outside world. At first, the show had fired him up, made him feel proud, angry, hopeful. But the further humans fell behind, the more its optimism sounded like a bad joke.

  Today, the words washed over him like warm water that suddenly turned to ice, leaving a shiver along his spine. No one knew when the war would actually end, but everyone knew what losing would mean.

  “Operation Dragonspire will begin tomorrow. Be ready for the humans to win!” the host shouted.

  It sounded good. But it was the same kind of “plan” they’d been promising would change the war for years. Nothing had happened. Nothing had improved.

  It all felt doomed.

  Ashe grabbed his phone, his walking stick, and a coat. His parents were at the hospital again, patching up Portal Jumpers who’d come back broken and bleeding from whatever waited on the other side. He had time for a walk—to clear his head.

  Outside, he slipped on his bone-conduction headphones. They let him hear the world and his music at the same time. Without them, his thoughts tended to spiral straight into the abyss.

  Ironically, today he put on It’s a Wonderful Life. The song was a distraction, a way to pretend there might still be a better world.

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  The air was fresh. It had just rained, and the smell of wet summer pavement filled his lungs. For a second he just stood there, breathing it in, then stepped off down the sidewalk. His walking stick tapped and vibrated in his grip, mapping out the street in tiny pulses. He’d walked this route hundreds of times. He knew exactly where he was going.

  Until he didn’t.

  His stick snagged between cobblestones and wrenched out of his hand. The handle jammed hard into his solar plexus as it fell, knocking the air clean out of him. The stick clattered away. He stood there, stunned and gasping, before his knees hit the ground.

  He groped across the pavement, fingers sweeping for the cool metal. When they finally closed around it—

  Everything shifted.

  His stomach lurched like a car rolling over the edge of a hill. The ground under his hands changed from rough stone to soft grass. The air went sharp and cold, the muggy summer humidity vanishing in an instant.

  Panic flooded him.

  No way, he thought, frozen in place as his senses scrambled to catch up. It can’t be… a portal.

  The sound of footsteps—faint at first—grew louder with each heartbeat until it became a full-on gallop, a cacophony of thuds rushing straight at him. Ashe braced, muscles tensing for impact.

  For a split second, he felt it coming. Not touch, not sound, just a sharp, crawling warning in his nerves, like the memory of a bite that hadn’t happened yet.

  Then something clamped down on his leg. Hard.

  He screamed, high and sharp. Heat flooded down his thigh as teeth punched through flesh. He tried to twist away and the motion only ripped him further open.

  His hands flew to the creature’s head, fingers skimming over fur and bone, searching. There—eyes. He planted both thumbs and drove them forward. The orbs squished, then burst wetly under the pressure, hot fluid slicking his hands.

  His heart hammered out of control. His breath came ragged. The fear of dying, actually dying, was suddenly the clearest thing he’d felt in years. All at once, he didn’t want to be special or useful or chosen.

  He just wanted to live.

  The jaws tore away from his leg as the creature shrieked. Ashe dropped, scrabbling across the ground. He heard it snapping blindly, teeth clacking against teeth as it hunted for him.

  We’re both blind now, he thought wildly. But I’ve had practice.

  His fingers hit metal. The walking stick. Familiar. Solid. He wrapped his hand around it, turned toward the sound, and swung.

  The stick cracked against flesh with a dull whack. The animal yelped. He swung again. And again. Its cries grew weaker, more broken, but he didn’t stop. He kept hitting until there was nothing but the wet thunk of metal into meat.

  Silence settled around him, broken only by his own tearing breaths.

  He slumped back, leg stretched out. Adrenaline still burned through him, holding the worst of the pain at bay—for now. His pants were shredded, his thigh mangled. The wound felt jagged, as if something had chewed through him with wire.

  He yanked his shirt over his head, tore it into strips, and forced his ruined pants down. Working by touch, he wrapped the fabric high around his thigh and twisted, tightening it until the blood slowed and that cold, numb feeling of lost circulation crept in.

  Crude tourniquet. Temporary fix.

  But he was alive. For the moment, that was enough.