I woke up feeling genuinely rested, my first real sleep in a proper bed since this nightmare began.

  After a quick shower, I made my way to the mess hall and found Siva and Andy’s group already up, having what passed for breakfast, plates of instant prata, eggs, and 3-in-1 coffee.

  Someone had salvaged a portable stove and gas tank, and the smell of fried dough and eggs filled the air. For the first time, it almost felt… normal. The mood was lighter than yesterday. The grief over Andy’s lost team mates still lingered, but it had been replaced by something steadier, a new focus. We had direction now. Clear the remaining Crimson Zones, one by one, and get the hell out of the Northern Sector.

  Siva waved when he saw me and handed over a plate of egg prata and a mug of coffee. We took a seat at one of the corner tables, away from the chatter.

  “So,” he said between bites, “I’ve been talking to Andy’s people. They’re asking if we want to party up with them. We’d share XP and loot, and apparently we can even chat through the interface once we’re linked.”

  I’d thought about it last night and still hadn’t decided. There were obvious advantages, mainly safety in numbers, better coordination and that chat feature would make things smoother during fights. No more shouting over monsters and chaos.

  But the other part of me didn’t like it. That kind of connection meant you couldn’t just tune out. You’d hear their voices in your head, literally. Their panic. Their pain. Their fear. And when someone died… what happened to that connection then? Did the chat just go silent?

  Joining a team came with weight. Commitment. Responsibility.

  And I’d never been very good at that.

  When did you ever care for anyone but yourself?

  The voice whispered through the back of my head, quiet but sharp. I took a slow sip of coffee, pushing the voice deep into the recesses of my mind.

  “We’ll see,” I said finally. “You can join them if you want.”

  Siva nodded, trying to hide the disappointment that flickered across his face. He didn’t push it, though. I studied the young boy sitting across from me. How old was he really? Eighteen? Nineteen?

  He would have been the right age.

  With breakfast over, we geared up to leave the safety of the prison complex and explore the area around us. Our next stop was Woodlands Waterfront Park and use it as our grinding zone. The place overlooked the straits and offered a clear view of Johor Bahru, the southernmost Malaysian state, across the water. Part of me wanted to see if this… whatever it was… extended beyond Singapore.

  Only Andy, Shawn, and five others from his party decided to join us. The rest stayed behind. You could see it in their eyes that they’d had enough. Maybe they weren’t giving up, but they’d accepted this place as home. That kind of quiet resignation made me uneasy.

  We left our transports behind and walked the short distance to the park. Cicadas filled the air, their high-pitched rhythm blending with the crunch of our boots on cracked pavement. The overgrown canopy above filtered the moonlight into thin green shafts, turning the air damp and heavy.

  Swee Lin, one of Andy’s younger party members, held up a glowing orb of light in her palm and made it hover ahead of us. A simple Torch spell, but its steady illumination cut through the dimness under the trees.

  We spent the next few hours grinding through the park. The same mutated macaques we’d fought before came at us again, but this time they didn’t seem as terrifying.

  Then came the new ones. Monitor lizards, grotesquely merged with two heads, six legs and jaws lined with jagged teeth dripping a milky fluid. Their saliva hissed when it touched the ground, eating through leaves and bark like acid. No, not eating through them. Decomposing them.

  They moved faster than expected. A few of the melee fighters were bitten before we adapted, but the healers moved in quickly, glowing hands pressing over the wounds. The flesh sealed within seconds, though the look on their faces said it still hurt like hell.

  I mostly kept out of the main fighting. From a distance, sometimes on a park bench, sometimes perched on a small hill, I'd picked targets and loosed arrows. The bow felt steady in my hands now, each shot a little cleaner, a little more deliberate.

  When needed, I called out danger to the team, spotting movements they couldn’t from the ground. With nine of us in the party, the mobs didn’t stand much of a chance. The difference between chaos and coordination was night and day.

  I could see the benefits of this setup firsthand. A two-headed lizard lunged toward Siva, its saliva already hissing where it dripped onto the grass. I drew, aimed, and let the arrow fly. It struck the creature square in the neck. It thrashed once, then collapsed in a heap.

  Siva looked up, gave me a quick salute, and turned back to the next wave without missing a beat.

  We found the mobs easier to handle this time around, though there were a lot more of them. They came in waves, macaques, twisted dogs, the occasional oversized monitor lizard, all charging without fear or hesitation.

  Then came the crows.

  They weren’t much bigger than normal ones, but their talons were razor-sharp, and they attacked in tight, coordinated swarms. A murder of them swooped in with a deafening screech, diving at our faces and necks.

  I rushed forward into the middle of the party and triggered Haze.

  A translucent mist burst around me, spreading outward until it covered a five-meter radius. The air shimmered faintly, bending the light. The effect was immediate as the crows’ dives grew erratic, their attacks missing wide as they slashed blindly through the fog. Inside the haze, we could still see clearly, our movements sharp and coordinated.

  One of Andy’s party members raised her staff and cast a fire spell, turning it into a makeshift flamethrower that scorched any crow that dove too close.

  We cut them down one by one until the last few fell twitching to the ground.

  When the silence returned, I noticed something strange. None of the mobs had tried to flee. Not the macaques, not the lizards, not even the crows. Even outnumbered, even when they had no chance, they kept fighting until the last of them was dead.

  That… bothered me.

  We fought our way down to the waterfront, cutting through the last wave of creatures until the path finally opened up. The air was thick with the stench of blood and burnt feathers. Our boots squelched on the wet concrete as we reached the water’s edge.

  For the first time since entering the park, there was peaceful silence. No growls or screeches. Just the slow, steady slap of waves against the promenade.

  I lowered my bow, lit a cigarette, and looked out toward the sea.

  Beyond the shoreline, the water stretched out dark and still, but only for about a hundred meters. After that, everything disappeared into a solid wall of fog. It didn’t move or shift. It just hung there, white and endless, like someone had painted over the horizon. Even the sound of the waves seemed to fade the closer they got to that veil.

  Johor Bahru should’ve been visible from here. I searched for the lights, the bridge. Something. But there was nothing. Just... fog.

  Andy came up beside me, his expression unreadable. “So much for checking if this thing’s global,” he muttered.

  “Yeah,” I said quietly. “Feels like the world just… ends out there.”

  The others lingered behind us. No one dared throw anything into the mist. We’d all seen enough strange things to know better.

  For a moment, it felt like standing at the edge of an unfinished map where reality simply stopped. And somehow, that was worse than anything we’d fought so far.

  We’d been ignoring the notifications popping up mid-fight, but now that it was over, I finally opened them.

  [XP Gained: +2,100 (Party Share Applied)]

  [Current Level: 4 — Progress: 91%]

  Almost there. One more fight, maybe two, and I’d hit Level 5.

  More prompts flickered across my HUD.

  [Loot Acquired]

  [Gold +480]

  [Crude Torch x10 – Standard flame torch. Burns for 20 minutes.]

  [Beast Bone Fragment x4 – Base material for weapons or talismans. Emits faint resonance near monsters.]

  [Rapid Decomp Vial x5 – Created from the saliva of the Monitoring Monitors. Each drop rapidly decomposes organic material.]

  I examined the torches first. They were nothing fancy, just oil-soaked rags tied to sturdy sticks. But reliable light was still a gift.

  The vials, though… that was something else. Small glass tubes filled with milky liquid, faintly pulsing like they were alive. The idea of using monster saliva as a weapon or tool was grotesque, and brilliant.

  Swee Lin whooped somewhere behind me. “Finally! I can stop burning mana just to keep things bright.”

  The others laughed, not loudly, but genuine. For once, the sound didn’t feel forced. For once, we felt like people instead of survivors.

  By the time we’d moved off, the fog over the water hadn’t moved an inch. It hung there like a curtain, waiting. I flicked my cigarette into the waves and turned away. Enough staring into nothing.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  We made our way back to the prison in silence, the cicadas fading behind us. Once there, everyone split off to prep their vehicles. Engines sputtered to life one by one. I found the sound oddly comforting in this broken world.

  Siva was about to climb onto the bike behind me when I stopped him.

  “You know Andy’s got a half-empty bus, right? You never liked this ride. You could go with them.”

  He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck, a habit I’d started noticing when he was unsure.

  “My dad used to say we shouldn’t separate when we travel,” he said softly.

  “I’m not your dad,” I snapped before I could stop myself.

  He flinched. He just nodded once and walked away toward the bus.

  “Siva… I.” I started, but he was already climbing aboard the bus.

  The look on his face stuck with me longer than I wanted to admit.

  I hadn’t meant to bite like that. I didn’t even know why I did. Maybe it was guilt. Or fear. Or both.

  It’s fine, I told myself. Maybe it’s better this way.

  The convoy rolled out of the prison gates, engines humming, tires crunching on broken asphalt. We passed bodies of mobs and humans alike strewn along the road, silent reminders of what waited for us.

  The air grew colder as a white mist began to creep in again, thickening the further north we drove.

  And then we saw it. We'd arrived. The Bird Paradise gantry emerging through the haze, its once-colorful sign now streaked with rust and deep claw marks.

  Feathers drifted down from somewhere above, slow and silent.

  We slowed to a stop.

  Above us, something screeched long, echoing, and wrong

  We passed through the Bird Paradise gantry on foot, weapons drawn, the metal arch looming above us like the jaw of some enormous beast.

  The moment I passed through the gantry, a faint ping echoed through my HUD.

  [Zone Locked: Bird Paradise — Crimson Zone (Level 4–6)]

  The sound was soft, but it carried weight, like the digital equivalent of a closing gate. We were sealed in.

  The walkway ahead wound through empty ticket counters and shattered display boards, each one still plastered with faded posters of colorful birds mid-flight. Beyond that, the path opened into the main park, where glass-domed aviaries rose like broken cathedrals, their steel ribs tangled with vines and moss.

  It should have been alive with noises from parrots or hornbills, or with the endless flutter of wings, but there was nothing. Not even the wind.

  Even our footsteps sounded wrong in this quiet place.

  “This place should be crawling,” Andy muttered as he walked beside me, longsword at the ready. “Where the hell are the birds?”

  No one answered. We all felt it, the heavy stillness pressing against our skin.

  We stopped at the main plaza, where an artificial waterfall once stood. The pool below was dry, filled instead with feathers and bones. I motioned for everyone to fan out.

  The HUD map blinked faintly, red dots flickering at the edge of detection, just beyond the aviaries. Then they vanished.

  “Movement,” I said quietly. “North side. Maybe a dozen.”

  Andy raised his hand for his team to form up, shields to the front. We advanced through the winding paths between exhibits of tropical plants gone wild and vines spilling across cracked pavement.

  The silence broke all at once.

  A shriek tore through the canopy. Not one voice, but hundreds, layered over each other until the sound became a physical thing. Branches shook. Leaves rained down.

  Something massive descended from the fog above.

  It wasn’t one bird. It was hundreds, maybe thousands of smaller ones, black-feathered and gleaming like shards of glass, swirling together into the rough shape of something monstrous. A single, enormous avian form made from a storm of living birds. They clicked and folded into place, forming enormous wings, body, and head.

  For some stupid reason, my mind went to Voltron. Form legs and arms…

  “Spread the fuck out!” I yelled, releasing the first arrow straight into the storm of wings.

  Andy’s team veered left while Siva and I broke right. Spells and arrows lit the air. Bursts of flame, streaks of light, and arcs of energy slammed into the still-forming giant above us.

  Click. Click. Click.

  The sound rippled through the air like a chorus of snapping bones as the creature continued to take shape. A massive fireball struck its chest, scattering part of the swarm but instead of breaking apart, the separated birds twisted mid-air and reformed into three smaller amalgamations that dived straight into Andy’s group.

  The main body finished assembling. Its colossal wings unfurled with a thunderclap.

  The shockwave hit like a truck. I was thrown backward, the impact slamming the air from my lungs. My HUD flared red as my bones cracked. I rolled across the concrete, gritting my teeth and slammed down a healing potion from my hotlist. A surge of warmth flooded through me as bones knitted, and torn muscle stitched back together.

  Beside me, Siva groaned, clutching his side. He was healing too, but slower.

  “Chris! I can’t do shit when it’s in the air!” he shouted over the roar.

  I nodded, breath ragged. “Hang back!” I yelled, already triggering Haze. The world shimmered as the translucent mist spread around us. The giant faltered, its movements jerky now that its vision was obscured. It shrieked a piercing metallic sound and beat its wings again.

  A storm of silver cut through the haze.

  Hundreds of shining projectiles filled the air, slicing through trees, stone, and flesh alike. The monster didn’t need to see us; it was blanketing the area. I tried to dive for cover, but there was nowhere to go. The feathers tore through me with shallow cuts at first, then deeper ones. My HUD screamed warnings.

  I spammed healing potions, watching my health bar stutter up and down as the magic forced the foreign objects out of my flesh. I grabbed one of the projectiles that clattered beside me.

  It was a feather. A metallic, razor-sharp feather.

  I crawled toward the edge of the dry waterfall, pressing my back against the concrete barrier for cover as another volley rained down. Feathers embedded themselves in the ground around me, vibrating like they were alive.

  Siva crawled up beside me, face pale under the blood. We hugged the low concrete barrier as the giant bird alternated between feather volleys and shockwave slams. I rifled through my inventory, searching for anything useful, finally pulling out the five Rapid Decomp vials. I read the description with a curse.

  “Fuck, this only works on organic things. That fucker’s plated in metal feathers!” I shouted over the bombardment.

  Across the plaza, Andy’s team were bleeding for it. They’d downed one of the smaller amalgamations, but the other two darted through them, slashing and tearing. Sparks and feather-shrapnel rained everywhere.

  “Listen!” Siva gasped, each word a stab. “At the core, they’re still animals, right? Like, underneath the metal… there’s flesh. Everything we’ve fought so far are flesh, even those PMDs had meat somewhere.”

  I blinked, trying to follow through the pain.

  “Can you, can you attach those to an arrow?” he yelled.

  “Yes,” I said before I’d fully thought it through.

  I pulled an arrow from my inventory, broke off the tip with my knife, and dug the spool of wire from the trap kit. Fingers numb with blood and adrenaline, I lashed the five vials to the shaft making a crude cluster of glass tied tight, the glass creaking as I twisted the ends. It looked ridiculous and fragile. My HUD pinged a notification. I waved it away.

  Siva gave me a hard, flat look. “I really shouldn't do this,” he said, voice small.

  He didn’t wait for me to reply. With a grunt, he shoved himself up and flew into the sky. No… He wasn’t flying. He was running. Running up a set of invisible stairs, heading straight for the boss.

  How the fuck...

  I had no time to stare as the Haze spell dissipated. The world opened up again, and the bird saw us. I held the saliva-laden arrow in my bow hand, braced my feet, and loosed a flurry of regular shots to keep its attention away from Siva. The wind from its wings slammed me sideways, but the shots found their marks, making small dings, enough to distract the creature.

  I slammed another healing potion, looking up just in time to see Siva leap through the air and slice straight through the creature’s midsection, his katana crunching through the metal feathers. The monster shrieked, flailing violently as its wings batted Siva from the sky, sending him spinning through the air.

  No! No!

  I forced myself upright, heart pounding, and saw the gash he’d carved, exposing a glistening patch of raw, pulsing flesh beneath the metallic layer. I equipped the Deadeye Scope from my hotlist, nocked the makeshift arrow, the vials clinking softly against the shaft, took aim and fired.

  The bowstring thrummed, and the arrow screamed upward trailing shards of light and glass.

  It hit the open gash on the bird just as it unleashed another volley of feathers, cutting through me. I dropped to my knees as I felt my breath ripped from my chest. Pain flared white-hot as I slammed another healing potion. My wounds knit, but I barely felt it over the ringing in my ears.

  The boss shrieked, a horrible, wet sound as its body began to decompose from the inside. It spiraled upward, wings flailing, chunks of its form sloughing off midair. It flew frantically in circles, then let out one final, broken squawk before crashing into the empty waterfall basin below.

  I crawled to the edge, peered over the barrier, and saw the collapsed mass of feathers, sludge, and bone. It was dead.

  Shit. Where's Siva?

  I staggered up on weak legs but healing fast and I ran. I ran until I found him.

  He was trapped inside a massive cage that had dropped from one of the shattered aviaries. His chest moved with shallow and uneven breaths. Blood streaked his arms and face, pooling beneath him.

  Why isn’t he healing himself?

  He was unconscious, I thought as the realization washed over me. He can't heal.

  I looked around, searching for a way in. The cage was seamless. There were no locks or hinges, just metal bars slick with condensation. The only opening was high above, far out of reach. I climbed, slipped and fell. I tried again and fell again.

  I pressed myself against the bars, reaching through until my fingertips brushed his shoulder. “Come on,” I muttered, pulling out a Scroll of Heal. I cast it, focused on him.

  [Error. You cannot cast Heal on a non-party member.]

  I froze.

  No. No, no, no.

  I tried again.

  [Error. You cannot cast Heal on a non-party member.]

  Again. And again. The same cold message blinked across my HUD.

  I opened the party interface, scanning the minimap for his signal, and sent an invite.

  [Error. The other party cannot accept the invite in a non-conscious state.]

  “No,” I whispered. Then louder. “No! Siva!”

  I slammed my fists against the bars. “Get up, man! Don’t do this to me!”

  Silence.

  I screamed for help, but the only answer was the echo of my own voice. Andy’s team was too far. I shoved my arm through the gap until my shoulder jammed between the bars, reaching for him, anything.

  “Get the fuck up, you little piece of shit! Come on! Don’t... Just... Don't!” My voice cracked, tears hot against my face.

  And then the memory hit me, unbidden and cruel.

  I was holding her in a hospital room, the doctor’s words still echoing. We couldn’t have kids. I’d held her as she sobbed, whispering comfort I didn’t mean. Because deep down, I was relieved. I’d never wanted children. That was her dream, not mine.

  I’d pretended to be devastated, but I think she knew. She always knew.

  The wedge started that day.

  My HUD pinged, followed by a sudden warmth spreading through my chest. My health bar jumped slightly.

  [Mass Heal – Area Effect Triggered]

  Someone had cast a mass healing spell. The air shimmered faintly with residual magic.

  Siva gasped, his body convulsing. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

  [Party Invite – Accepted]

  I lunged forward, reaching through the bars. The instant my fingertip brushed his shoulder, I activated the Heal Scroll.

  A burst of light enveloped him. Siva’s body jerked once, then the color started to return to his face. The bleeding stopped. The ragged cuts along his arms and chest began to seal.

  He blinked, eyes fluttering open. His lips trembled into a crooked, pained grin.

  “I… I…” he managed.

  “You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay,” I said, voice breaking.

  “I… I knew you’d warm up to me…” he rasped, eyes half-lidded, before looking straight up and gasping for breath.

  “Fuck off, Siva,” I muttered, and I broke, laughter spilling out of me, wild and shaking. Relief hit like a wave.

  My HUD pinged with the update.

  [Boss Defeated: Crimson Zone – Bird Paradise Cleared]

  [XP Gained: +3,200 (Party Share Applied)]

  The sound felt distant, almost hollow. I glanced up at the sky as the storm of feathers floated to the ground. What was left of the great bird lay in ruin in the basin, its body already dissolving into black motes that drifted away like ash.

  Andy’s team stumbled out from the far side of the enclosure, bloodied but alive. Three of them were missing.

  Siva coughed weakly beside me, still half-conscious, eyes glassy. I stayed where I was, leaning against the cold bars of the cage.

  The system notification pulsed again before fading from view.

  [Crimson Zone – Northern Sector Progress: 2 of 5 Cleared]

  I let out a long breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. The fog above the aviary began to thin, letting in the faintest hint of light, not moonlight. Not really, just a soft, ambient glow from nowhere.

  Siva stirred slightly and muttered something about food. I laughed, the sound raw and shaky.

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “We’ll eat. We’ll rest. Then we move again.”

  The wind carried away the last of the feathers. The air smelled like rain and metal.

  And for a fleeting moment, the world was quiet again.