The silence was deceptive.

Not the natural quiet of early morning with birds chirping and little else, but the hollow stillness of a place holding its breath. Something about it pressed in on Xander's thoughts like a palm against a drumhead. It felt like the world hadn't exhaled since the end of the undead world event. Like the other shoe hadn't dropped yet.

Broken streets crisscrossed ahead in fractured grid lines. Weeds coiled through asphalt fissures. The husks of pre-reboot cars, gutted and burned-out, lined the edges like rusting coffins. The air smelled of wet concrete and ozone, and somewhere deeper in the ruins, metal groaned.

A week. That was how long it had been since they'd burned the undead boss to the ground and dragged what was left of the region back from the brink. But Champaign still felt poisoned. There was a lingering dread here that Xander hadn't felt anywhere else.

Xander adjusted his grip on the haft of his spear, the morning sun catching briefly on the razor-sharp tip. "Eyes sharp. Kane, push north to the lot. Jo, with me. Ford, center."

Zoey's voice piped up from behind with a slight giggle. "Already covering our six, fearless leader. Try not to get dead before we find loot."

Ahead, Kane gave a quiet grunt and pivoted toward the parking lot entrance. His shield sat tight against his left side, sword low and loose as the team moved into a diamond formation.

Cabbot darted through the shadows at their flanks like a half-seen ghost, phasing in and out of spectral opacity as she chased a rat that had made the mistake of existing. Xander caught the flick of her tail just before she vanished into a drift of fog hanging low over the cracked curb. No warning postures. Just feline boredom.

Good. Let her chase rats. Cat is going to cat.

As long as she was acting like that, it probably meant there wasn't anything too dangerous nearby. Not yet. Not anything she'd seen, anyway.

The train station squatted two blocks ahead, still intact by some minor miracle. Its roof had held, mostly. Some of the windows were gone, and one of the front entrance doors hung by a single twisted hinge, but the brick walls looked sound. Tracks behind it stretched out north and south, free of blockage. That would work, if the station proved defensible. Xander's thoughts jumped ahead automatically.

Roof access. Line of sight to the citadel. Could work as a staging point for adventurers coming in to attempt a raid on it, just like JT hoped.

The path through the lot was open, but looked wrong. Too clean.

No bodies, bones, shattered wrecks. Not even scraps of clothing. Even the gory detritus left behind by lesser monsters had been scrubbed away. Just moss-stained concrete and oil-stained parking spaces.

"No scavenger leaves a scene this tidy," Jo said.

"Not unless they're smart enough to want it that way," Xander replied.

Ford tapped his staff twice on the pavement, his expression tight. "I don't sense anything undead."

"Not undead doesn't mean not a problem." Kane's tone was matter-of-fact, eyes scanning each shadowed nook like he was already imagining something lunging from it.

Xander crouched beside a shattered parking meter. A faint gouge ran from it across the ground, an arc pattern in the concrete. "Something clawed and heavy did this."

"Looks like something with at least four limbs," Jo said, pointing to the tracks in the dust nearby.

Behind them, Zoey hissed a breath through her teeth. "I swear, if we get jumped by another spider…

"Don't say it," Kane said. "You say it, it happens."

Ford chuckled, just barely. "That's not how causality works."

"Don't care." Kane raised his shield higher. "Still not saying it."

They moved forward, boots crunching over shattered glass and loose gravel, every eye sweeping the windows above. The train station loomed closer, and with it, the smell shifted.

Mold. And something else. Copper and rot, faint but fresh.

Xander slowed them with a raised hand. He angled his spear forward, eyes scanning the shadows. Nothing moved. No threats yet.

Cabbot appeared ten feet ahead, seated in the middle of the path. Her body faced the train station, but her head was turned, staring straight at Xander. Her tail stood straight up, puffed out like a bottlebrush.

A warning.

"Front-right. Corner window. First floor." Xander said.. He didn't need to. The team froze and tilted formation instantly.

He stepped forward two paces, just past Kane's shield, eyes locked on the spot where the jagged remnants of a window formed a narrow black square.

Something large moved behind the broken window. A slow drag of fur across splintered glass.

"Want me to poke it?" Zoey asked.

"Not yet," Xander said. "We still don't know what we're poking."

The window next to the station entrance offered nothing. Whatever they had seen, or thought they had seen, was gone now.

He stepped forward, letting Kane move into the lead. Jo mirrored him on the opposite flank, her sword already in hand. Ford and Zoey followed close behind. Cabbot trailed further back behind them, tail still puffed, ears flat, clearly offended by something only she could sense.

The doorway into the station yawned wide, one door hanging by twisted hinges, the other lying in a splintered heap. Inside, the air was colder. Still. It smelled of concrete dust, old metal, and rot.

The station's main floor was cavernous, ceiling vaulted three stories above with forgotten grandeur. The second floor was little more than a wraparound balcony, its railing rusted but mostly intact. Columns stretched from the floor all the way up, some broken midway like snapped bones. The old ticket counter stood at the far end beneath the balcony, half swallowed in shadow. Offices and storage rooms lay beyond.

The whole place was quiet. Too quiet.

Just a massive space emptied of people and frozen in time.

A shattered analog clock hung above the ticket windows. The hands pointed directly to the exact moment the Simulation reasserted itself.

Kane moved toward the counter, shield raised. Jo slid to the right, checking a row of toppled benches. Xander moved left. His boots scraped across tile warped by time and neglect.

Behind him, Zoey whispered, "You know that thing's still in here."

Xander nodded once, not taking his eyes off the offices.

"Looks like a good place for something big to bed down," Ford added. "Closed, dark, reinforced."

Zoey climbed a half-broken and barely stable column. It was one of the few that no longer touched the ceiling, with cracks that ran up its base. She perched halfway up, nocked and ready.

A few benches stood between Xander and the counter, along with floor lamps rusted into place. He moved around them, careful not to brush anything.

Then his elbow nudged an old table.

A rusted lamp toppled with a metallic clatter, hit the tile, and shattered. The crash echoed through the hall like a dropped cymbal.

Everyone stopped. The silence afterward wasn't just quiet. It was absolute.

Xander didn't move. Didn't blink. His eyes were on the dark break between the counter and the back offices.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The sound came slowly at first. A deep, wet huff. Then scratching. Wood and stone gave way beneath heavy weight.

Jo met his eyes across the space. She had already planted her feet in anticipation of what came next.

The office door exploded outward.

Splinters and a chunk of the frame flew across the concourse. A mass of scar-riddled black fur charged through in a blur of motion and weight. Its shoulders were higher than a man's head. Its claws were too long, curved like knives, and its teeth jutted past its lips in uneven rows.

[Analyze] Gloommaw Bear | Level: 14 Rare | Status: Enraged | Class: Beast

It was already roaring before it cleared the door.

The sound hit like a concussive blast. Dust rattled loose from the ceiling. Tiles shook underfoot. The entire room blurred for a breath.

The bear lunged into that heartbeat.

Kane stepped in and took the full impact against his shield. The slam rang like a bell and shoved him back a half step, but he held. His boots didn't slide.

Xander moved immediately. He darted left and angled behind the bear, spear tip already glowing.

Jo followed hard on Kane's right. Her sword snapped with lightning just before it struck. The blade hit the bear's flank and left a streak of scorched fur. It roared again, spinning toward her with a swipe that missed by inches.

Xander drove his spear forward, aiming low behind the front leg. The tip punched through hide and muscle. Not deep enough. The bear turned on him next.

Then an arrow hit.

The shaft hit the bear's ear and exploded in a crack of frost. Blood sprayed. The beast reeled, bellowed, then turned sharply toward the pillar Zoey had perched on.

It charged.

Marble shattered as the pillar cracked in half under the bear's mass. Zoey leapt clear, but not fast enough.

The backhand came out of nowhere. A sweep of claws caught her midair and sent her spinning across the station like a kicked doll.

"Zoey…!" Xander started.

Ford was already casting.

Light flared from his hand just before Zoey hit the far wall. It wrapped her like a shield. She slammed into the marble and crumpled, but the spell had softened the blow. A second heal followed fast.

The bear turned again, favoring its left foreleg now. Its eyes locked on Zoey. It bellowed and began stalking toward her, slow and deliberate.

Kane stepped in again, sword slashing. The blade carved shallow lines across its shoulder. It ignored him.

Xander tried to circle, but caught his boot on a broken bench half buried in rubble. He stumbled, caught himself, but lost his position.

Jo vaulted the bench in front of him and landed behind the bear. Her blade came down hard. Sparks flew.

Zoey, already climbing to her feet, scrambled up onto the ticket counter for elevation. Blood ran from her temple. Her bow was in her hand anyway.

"Ford, call shots," Xander snapped.

"There," Ford said, pointing. "Left hind. It's wounded. Watch the forepaw, there's swelling."

Kane drove forward again and kicked a fallen signboard toward the bear's face. The motion made it flinch sideways just as Zoey loosed another frost-tipped arrow. This one buried itself deep in the bear's shoulder.

The beast reared back.

It stood tall, impossibly tall. Over ten feet now, its chest a wall of black fur and pulsing fractals. It let out a full-body roar and slammed its forelegs down.

The floor buckled.

A shockwave rippled outward, lifting dust and debris in a wide ring. Kane lost his footing. Jo staggered. Xander dropped to a knee to ride it out.

The bear loomed over them.

It went for Zoey again.

Xander surged forward as he recovered from the staggering roar, called on the power of his class, and drove his spear up under the bear's chin. The glow flared bright as Radiant Strike triggered. The tip punched through muscle, then bone, and erupted from the back of its throat in a burst of divine light.

The roar died in an instant.

Xander shoved upward and twisted, angling the body to fall away from his team.

The bear hit the ground hard. Dust spiraled outward.

Only the crackle of fading frost and the echo of the bear's fall lingered.

Zoey slid down from the counter, wiping blood from her temple. "That sucked. Just for that, I'm keeping the claws," she muttered.

"Skin it, please," Xander said. "We'll take whatever we can back to Starlight. That hide's got to be useful to the crafters. Grab the meat too. Looks like dinner."

Jo moved past him, sword still in hand. "I'll sweep the east side."

"I've got west," Xander replied, stepping over the debris. "Ford, Kane, keep an eye on Zoey, and we'll regroup on the roof."

Behind them, Cabbot padded into view, circled the fallen Gloommaw twice, huffed, then sat down and stared at it like it had offended her personally.

Fair.

It kind of had.

Xander stepped away from the group and made for the back hallway. There should've been a fire escape stairwell somewhere past the wrecked offices. Most public buildings had them unless the Simulation had decided that wasn't a priority when it rewrote the place. Either way, the team needed a rooftop view.

The hallway behind the ticket counter had choked with debris. Doorframes tilted off-center, ceiling panels dangled in clusters, and scorch marks licked across concrete walls where something had once burned, maybe during the reboot or maybe just last week. It was hard to tell.

He found the stairwell buried under half a dozen broken filing cabinets and a slab of fallen drywall. It took a couple minutes and a shoulder check to clear the way, but the metal door eventually gave under pressure.

The stairwell beyond reeked of old rot and rust.

Halfway up, he found them. Two sets of remains, curled in against the far wall. A bent crowbar lay across one skeleton like a last stand that didn't make it past the second swing. Someone had tried to barricade the upper landing with shelving and chairs. It hadn't worked.

He paused long enough to shift the corpses gently to the side, making sure they were out of the way before pressing on.

The door to the rooftop groaned open against the wind.

Flat concrete stretched across the train station roof, cracked and blistered with weather damage but otherwise solid. The view was clear in all directions. From here, the city's wounds were even more obvious. Entire buildings had been sheared in half, streets were overtaken by creeping moss and rusted wreckage, and fog crept in thin tendrils along the abandoned streets like the aftermath of a flood.

But what caught his eye wasn't the ruin.

It was the citadel.

It stood several blocks east, squatting in the heart of downtown like a tumor that had grown overnight. Gothic spires, black stone, sharp geometry that matched nothing the city had been before the reboot. A four-block radius around it had been razed clean, as if the Simulation had reached down and wiped away anything inconvenient before dropping this thing in its place.

One enormous set of black iron double doors marked the front. But there were other structures nearby. Smaller. Still shaped with the same stone and style, but detached.

Alternate entrances or separate dungeons? Probably, dungeons.

Xander stepped forward, scanning the buffer zone around the citadel. Undead still roamed, but they were scattered, slow, directionless. Not the swarming nightmare they'd fought through a week ago.

The buildings that used to stand in that four-block span weren't just gone. They were erased. Not even rubble left behind.

That bothered him more than it should have.

Behind him, Zoey emerged onto the roof from a different stairwell than the one Xander had taken, brushing dust off her arm. "We've got a clear climb if anyone cares about cardio."

Jo, Ford, and Kane followed her up, weapons stowed but eyes sharp.

Xander didn't answer right away. He was still looking toward the citadel.

Then Zoey spoke again. Not joking this time. "North side. Street level. Movement."

He turned fast.

A group of figures moved between two buildings, about a block out. Not undead. They walked like people who knew how to cover ground without making noise.

They were armored, uniform. Weapons slung, but ready. Their formation was loose but disciplined. Xander's stomach knotted.

Cult of the Simulation?

He didn't say it out loud. He didn't need to. The rest of the team tensed without being told.

The group on the ground spotted them and came to a halt, watching for a long moment before the front figure stepped forward, deliberately sheathed his weapon, and raised both hands with his palms out.

Xander hesitated, then stepped to the roof's edge and placed his spear down. He raised his own hands in reply.

"Zoey, stay ready," he said quietly. "Just in case this goes ass over."

"Always," she said, already crouched behind a broken HVAC unit with an arrow half drawn.

The group below advanced slowly, stopping just short of shouting distance.

Xander made the first move.

"I'm Xander Kell," he called. "From the Safe Zone of Starlight."

The reply came with a laugh.

"Then it's my lucky day," the front man shouted back. "You're exactly who we came to find."

The man lowered his hands, but didn't reach for his weapon again. He looked confident. Relaxed.

"I'm Sergeant Darvos. Commander Rex of Fort Octave sends his regards," he continued, "and requests your presence as quickly as possible."

That made Xander blink.

He turned slightly, keeping his voice low. "Commander? He was a major the last time we saw him."

Zoey shifted behind cover, keeping eyes on the group below. "What the hell's Fort Octave?"

Ford stepped up beside him. "Wait, who's Rex?"

"Old contact from the early days after the reboot. Helped us face down a gnoll horde in Saint Joseph," Xander said, eyes never leaving the street. "Among other things."

Kane scratched his jaw. "So... not Cult?"

"Not even close," Jo said flatly. She looked calm, but the tightening in her jaw gave her away. "Rex was part of the unit that pulled me out of Victor's house of horrors. Good to know he made it."

Xander raised a hand again. "The building's clear. You're welcome to join us up top."

Sergeant Darvos gave a nod. "We have much to discuss."

Xander stepped back from the edge, watching as the group began their approach to the stairwell.

He opened his interface and queued the display of his character sheet while he waited for the Sergeant.

The Simulation window blinked open and hovered in his vision. Stats. Equipment. Current title. Quests. Even now, it still felt strange seeing so much of his life summarized in digital shorthand.

Name: Xander Kell Class: Lightbringer Crusader Level: 10 Health: 360/360 Mana: 140/140

Stats Strength: 10 Dexterity: 14 (+10) Intelligence: 7 Constitution: 8 Charisma: 5

Abilities Taunt Disarm Cat's Grace Cat's Sight Spectral Sight Radiant Smite Radiant Aegis Crusader's Verdict Judgemental Strike Light Heal Moderate Heal Sanctify

Skills Spear Combat: 22 Mace Combat: 15 Knife Combat: 1 Thrown Spear: 1 First Aid: 12 Analyze: 7 Light Armor: 21 Leadership: 13 Meditation: 6 Divine Forge Master: 15

He'd come a long way since the reboot. Level zero felt like a lifetime ago, even if it had only been a few months.

So much for a simple scouting run. This was starting to look like a diplomatic mission. Maybe even a chance to take one of the steam engines out, if JT didn't shoot it down.

He closed the interface and turned to watch the stairwell.

The strangers had disappeared into the train station. They'd be at the roof access soon.

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