My Husband and Son Gave My Escape Pod to the Prophet

The black rift did not just consume the leaping creature. It pulverized it.

A sickening crunch of bone echoed over the roar of the flames, followed by a spray of gray dust expelled from the dark tear in the air.

I stared at my raised left hand. The blue shimmer of my spatial vault was gone. In its place, a pitch-black aura coiled around my fingers, mirroring the necrotic veins crawling up my forearm.

Another monster vaulted the fireline.

"Get back," I rasped, thrusting my palm forward.

I did not reach for my stored weapons. I pulled on the new, suffocating weight anchoring my mind. The black rift expanded. An invisible force slammed into the leaping infected, flattening it against the metal floor. Its spine snapped with a loud crack. The creature dissolved into ash.

This wasn't a storage pocket. It was a meat grinder. A Void Dominion.

More shrieks pierced the smoke. The horde surged around the dying flames, their claws scraping against the scorched grating.

I scrambled backward. My blackened arm throbbed, the infection burning like liquid ice in my veins, but my mind felt terrifyingly clear. I reached into my old spatial tether with my right hand, pulling a fresh plasma pistol from the ether. With my left, I directed the void.

I fired a blue plasma bolt into a creature's skull, then swept my left arm horizontally. The black rift mirrored the motion, carving a swath of crushing gravity through the front line. Five monsters crumpled into piles of shattered bone and sludge.

I turned and ran toward the abandoned Sector Four subway entrance.

I kicked open the rusted turnstile gate. The heavy metal screeched, echoing down the pitch-black tunnel.

Static hissed from my wrist console. The emergency override channel clicked on, broadcasting the Haven-7 command frequency. I had severed the private link, but the base's automated system forced the wide-band connection open.

"Confirming Ark Pod trajectories," Director Hale’s voice barked through the tiny speaker. "Status on the evacuation roster."

"Pods One through Three are clear of the atmosphere," Marcus reported. His tone held zero hesitation. "We are on course for the orbital rendezvous."

"Understood, Commander," Hale said. "I am updating the survival logs. Do we have visual on Evelyn Vale?"

I leaned against the cold tile of the subway wall, my chest heaving. I brought the console close to my mouth. I almost pressed the transmit button.

"Evelyn Vale is gone, Director," Marcus stated.

My thumb stopped a millimeter above the button.

"Can you confirm a KIA?" Hale asked.

"She didn't make the pods," Marcus replied. "The platform was overrun. The structural integrity failed."

"Wait," Caleb’s voice cut in, frantic and thin. "We don't know that! She had her weapons. She could have made it to the lower levels!"

A soft, trembling sigh crackled over the frequency. Seraphina.

"Caleb, hush," she whispered, her voice amplified by the pod's internal mic. "Do not torture yourself with false hope."

"It isn't false!" Caleb yelled. "My mother doesn't just die!"

"I saw it," Seraphina said. Her tone carried a sickening, practiced sorrow. "The visions came to me during the launch. The fire... the black sludge. It swallowed her entirely. Her light went out."

I squeezed my eyes shut. The jagged scratch on my arm burned, but it was nothing compared to the ice forming in my chest. She stole my seat. Now she was using her fake prophecies to erase any rescue attempt.

"Are you certain, Oracle?" Hale asked.

"My visions do not lie, Director," Seraphina answered. "She fought bravely. But she belongs to the Tide now. We must honor her sacrifice by looking forward, not back."

"Understood," Hale said. "Updating the official roster. Evelyn Vale, Status: KIA."

"Dad, no!" Caleb screamed. "Tell them to send a drone! Just look for her!"

"Enough, Caleb," Marcus commanded. "The Oracle has spoken. Evelyn is dead. Let her rest."

I opened my eyes. The darkness of the subway tunnel stared back at me.

I didn't press the transmit button. I wrapped my blackened fingers around the metal casing of the wrist console. The Void Dominion surged into my grip.

The device shattered into a dozen pieces. Metal and wire ground into dust, falling from my palm to the dirty concrete floor.

They wanted a dead woman. They got one.

I turned my back on the surface and walked deeper into the tunnel. The air grew thick with the smell of old rust and damp earth. My boots crunched over shattered glass and debris.

The infection in my arm pulsed, feeding the dark energy swirling around my left hand. I didn't need a flashlight. The black rift hovered a few inches above my palm, distorting the shadows, crushing the debris in my path into fine powder.

I was a hunter now.

A faint sound echoed from the depths of the tunnel.

I stopped. I raised my plasma pistol, aiming into the gloom.

It wasn't the guttural hiss of the infected. It was high-pitched. Rhythmic.

A baby’s cry.

I lowered the gun and hurried down the sloping concrete, rounding a collapsed ticket booth. The crying grew louder, bouncing off the curved walls of the station platform.

"Quiet, please," a frantic whisper hissed from the dark. "They'll hear us."

"I can't get him to stop," another voice sobbed. "We are trapped."

"Keep your heads down," a gruff male voice ordered. "If those things come down those stairs, we use the pipes."

I stepped onto the edge of the platform. The darkness was absolute, broken only by the faint red emergency lights near the tracks.

"Who is there?" the gruff voice demanded. A metal pipe scraped against the concrete. "Stay back!"

"Lower your weapon," I said.

I raised my left hand. I didn't summon the crushing gravity. I pulled on the edge of the Void Dominion, expanding the rift outward like a canopy. The black tear widened, its edges fraying into a stark, unnatural luminescence that pushed the shadows away.

The pale light spilled across the tracks.

Forty-seven terrified survivors stared up at me from the hollowed-out shell of a derailed train, their faces illuminated by the swirling energy of the rift.