Two weeks had passed since they'd reached the eastern settlement.
Nana sat on the edge of her bunk, wrapping fresh bandages around her hands. The blisters had finally calloused over, leaving her palms rough and scarred—hands that looked nothing like the ones she'd had in Linkon City. Mina's leg wound had healed into an angry red line across her calf, but she walked without limping now.
They'd both gotten stronger. Harder.
The settlement's leader, Mr. Simon—a grizzled man in his fifties who'd survived Avalon for eight months—had called them into his makeshift office that morning.
"We need supplies," he'd said, spreading a hand-drawn map across the table. "Food's running low. But more importantly, we need water. The rain collectors aren't enough for sixty people."
"Where?" Mina had asked, already studying the map.
Simon's finger tapped a location three districts away. "Abandoned mall. Northeast corner, second floor. There's a bathroom where the tap water still runs. Don't ask me why—Avalon logic—but it's clean, drinkable. I've tested it myself."
"And the catch?" Nana had learned there was always a catch in Avalon.
"Horse hybrids patrol that district. They've claimed the mall as their territory." Simon's expression was grim. "They're fast, aggressive, and they kill on sight. Most people who've tried to get water there haven't come back."
Mina and Nana had exchanged glances.
"We'll go," they'd said in unison.
Now, crouched in the shadow of a collapsed building two blocks from the mall, Nana adjusted the crossbow slung across her shoulder—a weapon she'd learned to use in the past two weeks. Her sword was gripped in her right hand, the weight of it familiar now, almost comforting.
"Ready?" Mina whispered, her eyes scanning the street ahead.
"Always."
They moved like predators—low and silent, using rubble for cover, each step calculated. Mina led, her month of experience in Avalon giving her an instinct for danger that Nana was still developing. But Nana's hunter training filled the gaps, her ability to read movement and trajectory translating surprisingly well to this nightmare world.
The mall loomed ahead, its glass facade shattered but its structure mostly intact. The entrance gaped like an open mouth.
They slipped inside.
The interior was a tomb of consumerism—stores with their metal gates torn open, mannequins lying in pieces across the floor, merchandise scattered like offerings to Avalon's chaos. Everything was covered in that omnipresent gray dust that seemed to coat the entire city.
"Second floor," Mina mouthed, pointing toward an escalator frozen mid-motion.
They climbed carefully, testing each step before committing their weight. The metal groaned softly but held.
The second floor was darker, the broken skylights above letting in only dim gray light. Nana's eyes adjusted, picking out shapes in the gloom—more stores, a food court with overturned tables, and toward the back—
"There." Mina pointed to a sign: RESTROOMS.
They moved toward it, and Nana's heart leapt when she heard it—the unmistakable sound of running water. Actual, flowing water, in this dead city where nothing should work.
Mina pushed open the bathroom door carefully. Inside, a single sink in the far corner was running, clear water streaming from its tap in defiance of all logic. Around it, they found empty bottles left by previous scavengers—evidence that others had discovered this miracle.
"Jackpot," Nana breathed.
They moved quickly, pulling out the containers they'd brought. But as Mina filled the first bottle, Nana's instincts prickled.
Something was wrong.
She turned toward the bathroom entrance just as the *sound* reached them—hoofbeats. Multiple sets, moving fast.
"Mina—"
The horse hybrids burst through the bathroom door.
Four of them. Massive bodies with equine heads, but walking upright on two legs like humans. They wore scraps of clothing and armor, carried crude weapons—axes, clubs, one with a chain. Their horse eyes rolled with predatory intelligence, and their teeth—gods, their teeth—were sharp and carnivorous, nothing like a normal horse's flat herbivore teeth.
No time to think.
Nana charged.
Her sword came up in the opening strike Mina had taught her, aether core flaring weakly around the blade. She moved like water, like lightning, like something that had learned to kill or be killed. The first hybrid's axe came down where she'd been a heartbeat before. Her blade found the gap between its ribs.
Black blood sprayed across the bathroom tiles.
Behind her, Mina engaged two others, her sword work brutal and efficient—no wasted movement, every strike designed to cripple or kill.
The fourth hybrid charged Nana, its club swinging for her head. She jumped, her enhanced kick catching it square in the skull. The crack was audible even over the chaos. The creature stumbled backward, dazed.
Mina's blade finished it, severing its spine.
But the remaining hybrid was faster, smarter. It feinted left, then came in from Nana's blind side, its chain whipping toward her shoulder—
Pain exploded as the chain wrapped around her arm and yanked, dislocating her shoulder with a sickening pop.
Nana screamed, dropping her sword.
"NANA!" Mina moved like fury incarnate, her blade taking the hybrid's head in one savage stroke.
The creature dissolved into mist.
Silence fell, broken only by their ragged breathing and the incongruous sound of running water.
"Your shoulder—" Mina was already at her side, examining the injury.
"It's fine," Nana gasped, though tears streamed down her face from the pain. "Just... dislocated. I can—" She gritted her teeth and slammed her shoulder against the wall. Something popped back into place with nauseating finality. "See? Fine."
"You're insane." But Mina was smiling, that fierce survivor's smile. "Completely insane. And absolutely terrifying. Did you see how fast you moved? You were like a machine."
"Learned from the best." Nana retrieved her sword with her good arm, testing the shoulder gingerly. It hurt like hell, but it worked. "Come on. Let's get that water before more show up."
They filled every bottle and container they'd brought, working quickly. Mina checked Nana's shoulder wound—bleeding but not deep—and wrapped it with cloth torn from one of the dead hybrid's relatively clean clothing.
"You know," Mina said as she worked, "when we first met, you could barely hold a sword without dropping it."
"I was pathetic."
"You were learning." Mina tied off the bandage. "Now look at you. Taking on four hybrids like it's nothing. Your Zayne is going to be very impressed when you find him."
The name made Nana's chest tighten.
"If I find him. He could be anywhere. Could be..." She didn't finish the thought.
"Could be fighting just as hard to survive as you are." Mina shouldered their supply bag. "Could be looking for you too. Have faith, Nana."
They made their way back through the mall, moving even more carefully now that they were loaded down with water. But the trip back was blessedly quiet—no more hybrids, no demons, just the endless gray afternoon of Avalon.
"You know what I miss?" Mina said suddenly as they navigated through a collapsed building's interior.
"What?"
"Chocolate. Real chocolate, not the stale candy bars we sometimes find. I miss sitting in a cafe with a hot chocolate and just... existing. No monsters, no survival, just sweetness and warmth."
Nana smiled despite everything. "I miss strawberry candy."
"The expensive kind?"
"Yeah." Nana's voice softened. "Zayne gave me one. Before all this. When I was injured from a mission and sitting in his emergency room trying not to pout." The memory felt like it belonged to someone else's life. "He just... handed it to me. Told me not to pout and go home. It was such a small thing, but..."
"But it meant everything," Mina finished.
"Yeah."
They walked in comfortable silence, two survivors who'd become something more than friends—sisters in arms, forged in the fires of Avalon's endless nightmare.
The settlement appeared ahead, its walls a welcome sight. The guards recognized them and opened the gates immediately.
"You made it!" Mr. Simon hurried over, his weathered face lighting up when he saw their haul. "And you brought water! Actual water! How much did you—"
"Ten bottles, full," Mina reported. "Plus some canned goods we found that looked edible."
"Excellent work. Both of you." Simon clasped their shoulders. "Get some rest. You've earned it."
Inside the settlement, other survivors gathered around as Mina and Nana distributed their findings. The young survivors—teenagers mostly, ranging from fifteen to nineteen—had been out on their own supply runs. A girl named Sera had found medical supplies. Twin brothers had scavenged weapons from an old police station. An older man had somehow managed to trap and kill a hybrid, bringing back its meat.
Tonight, they would eat. They would have clean water. They would survive another day.
As evening fell (though the sky never really changed in Avalon), Nana sat with Mina on their usual spot—a section of the settlement's wall where they could see across the broken city.
"You think he's out there right now?" Mina asked quietly. "Watching the same sky?"
Nana stared at the gray expanse, imagining Zayne somewhere in the distance. Was he injured? Hungry? Scared? Or was he that same ice-cold doctor, dealing with Avalon's horrors with clinical detachment?
*Please be alive*, she thought. *Please be surviving. Please be waiting for me.*
"Yeah," she said aloud. "I think he is."
"Then we'll find him." Mina bumped her shoulder gently against Nana's good one. "We've survived this long. A few more weeks, months, whatever it takes—we'll explore every district if we have to. We'll find your ice doctor and figure out how to get everyone out of here."
Nana turned to look at her friend—this woman who'd saved her life countless times, who'd taught her to survive, who'd become the sister she'd never had.
"Thank you," she said. "For everything."
"Thank me when we're drinking hot chocolate in the real world," Mina grinned. "And you're introducing me to this mysterious Zayne who apparently makes your face do that thing."
"What thing?"
"That soft thing. Like you're remembering something that doesn't hurt."
Nana didn't have an answer for that.
Below them, the settlement bustled with activity. People talking, laughing even, finding moments of humanity in the midst of horror. The smell of cooking food drifted up—actual hot food, a luxury they hadn't had in days.
Tomorrow would bring new dangers. New fights. New losses, probably.
But tonight, they had water. They had food. They had each other.
And somewhere in Avalon's endless nightmare, Zayne was surviving too.
Nana was sure of it.
She had to be.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.