Aira woke to the smell of ash.
Her lungs burned as she sucked in a sharp breath, coughing violently. The ground beneath her was cold and uneven, pressing into her back through her jacket. For a moment, she didn't move afraid that if she did, the pain would finally catch up to her.
Slowly, she opened her eyes.
The sky above her was wrong.
Not dark, not bright just dim, as if the night had been bruised. Smoke drifted lazily overhead, illuminated by scattered fires that burned without sound. Twisted metal and shattered concrete surrounded her, forming a wide crater that looked less like an impact site and more like something had punched its way out of the earth.
Aira pushed herself up onto her elbows, heart pounding.
"I… survived?" she whispered.
Her wrist pulsed.
She flinched, staring down at her arm. The symbol from earlier was still there, faint but unmistakable etched beneath her skin like it had always belonged there. When she touched it, a dull ache spread up her arm, not painful, but deeply uncomfortable.
Aira swallowed.
She wasn't alone.
A few meters away, someone groaned.
Riven Calder came to with a sharp inhale, sitting upright so fast it made her dizzy. Her head throbbed, and her ears rang like she'd been standing too close to an explosion which, she realized grimly, she probably had.
She scanned her surroundings instantly.
Crater. Fire. Debris.
"Great," she muttered. "Not dead."
Her eyes landed on a girl nearby, struggling to stand. Another lay face-down in the dirt, unmoving. Riven's instincts screamed at her to leave, to get as far away as possible before whatever caused this came back.
Then her wrist burned again.
She hissed through her teeth, clenching her fist. The symbol flared briefly, responding to her agitation.
Riven stared at it, jaw tightening.
"No," she said quietly. "You don't get to just"
A voice cut through the smoke.
"Hey! Are you okay?"
Riven looked up.
Aira stood a short distance away, coughing but upright, her expression a mix of fear and determination. Their eyes met, and something unspoken passed between them a shared understanding that neither of them knew what was happening, but pretending otherwise wouldn't help.
Riven stood slowly. "Define okay."
Lumi woke with tears already in her eyes.
She was lying on her side, hands curled close to her chest, the world spinning gently around her. The air tasted metallic, and her head throbbed with a deep, lingering ache.
"Please," she whispered, not sure who she was begging. "Please let this be a dream."
She opened her eyes.
It wasn't.
The crater stretched out before her like a wound in the earth. Firelight reflected off shards of glass and twisted beams. She pushed herself up, trembling, and that's when she noticed the glow.
Soft. Warm.
Her wrist.
Lumi gasped, clutching her arm to her chest. The symbol pulsed gently, almost reassuringly. It felt… alive.
"No," she breathed. "No, no, no…"
She scrambled to her feet, panic rising as she spotted the others. Strangers. All around her. All marked the same way.
Something inside her twisted.
Whatever this was, it wasn't random.
Zee Marrin woke screaming.
She bolted upright, hands clutching her head as fragmented images slammed into her thoughts stars collapsing, voices speaking in languages that bent her mind, numbers spiraling into infinity.
"Stop….stop….make it stop!"
Her scream echoed through the crater.
Aira rushed toward her immediately. "Hey! Hey, it's okay"
Zee recoiled violently, scrambling backward until she hit a slab of concrete. She stared at her wrist in horror, watching the symbol flicker erratically, glitching like corrupted code.
"I saw it," Zee whispered, eyes wide. "I saw something. It was looking at us."
Riven snorted. "Yeah? Join the club."
Aira shot her a look. "Not helping."
Riven shrugged, but her eyes never left Zee. Something about the girl's panic felt… different. Sharper. Like she'd seen more than the rest of them.
Kora Bell woke to silence.
No alarms. No shouting. Just the soft crackle of distant flames.
She sat up slowly, hands shaking as she looked around. Her father was gone. The house was gone. Everything she recognized had been replaced by rubble and smoke.
Her chest tightened painfully.
"Dad?" she called, voice barely above a whisper.
No answer.
Kora's breath hitched as she noticed the others. Strangers. Alive. Moving.
Her wrist burned faintly, reminding her of the impossible barrier she'd felt before losing consciousness.
She swallowed hard and stood, forcing herself to walk toward the group.
"I..I think we're the only ones," she said quietly.
The words settled over them like ash.
Isha Vorn woke already thinking.
Her first instinct was to catalog: injuries, environment, possible causes. She rolled to her feet smoothly, ignoring the ache in her muscles as her eyes scanned the crater.
"Localized impact," she murmured. "No secondary explosions. Energy signature unknown."
She paused, staring at the symbol on her wrist.
"…Highly unknown."
She looked up at the others, curiosity overriding fear. "Did any of you experience a synchronization event before losing consciousness?"
They stared at her.
Riven blinked. "She's speaking another language."
Isha frowned. "I'm speaking English."
"Barely," Riven shot back.
Rhea Solace woke last.
She rose to her feet silently, brushing dust from her clothes as if she'd simply tripped and fallen. Her expression was calm too calm.
She looked at the crater.
Then the sky.
Then the others.
"You're all here," she said softly. "Good."
Aira frowned. "You were expecting us?"
Rhea tilted her head slightly, eyes unfocused. "Not consciously."
That sent a chill through the group.
Seven girls stood together in the smoking remains of a city block that should have killed them.
Seven wrists bore the same alien mark.
Sirens wailed faintly in the distance too far away, too slow.
Riven crossed her arms. "Okay," she said. "Someone explain why we're alive."
No one answered.
Then the ground beneath them hummed.
A low vibration rolled through the crater, deep enough to rattle bones. The symbol on each of their wrists flared simultaneously, burning brighter than before.
Zee whimpered. "It's happening again."
Aira clenched her fists. "Everyone stay close."
The air warped.
Something shifted beneath the crater floor.
And whatever had fallen from the sky wasn't finished with them yet.