Leo's POV

  The shift ended at 3 AM. With the extra pay, I had just enough for a partial energy payment. One thousand credits. Not enough to restore full service, but enough to keep the door functioning and basic lighting for another week.

  I thought about taking the shuttle, but even the night fare cost more than I had left. So I walked.

  The corridors were cold. The heating always dropped this te. My fingers were stiff by the time I reached Block D. I passed a few others along the way, moving slow, heads down, wrapped in thin coats or still in their work uniforms. They looked like people who didn't have much time left.

  I probably looked the same.

  My pce was dark when I returned. Emergency lights stretched long shadows across the small space. The door slid open on backup power. At least that still worked. Inside, it was colder than the hallway. The air didn't move.

  I fumbled through drawers until I found an old digital wristwatch. My grandfather's, from before. Before everything. Before the curtain, before the domes, before the portals. It was one of the only possessions returned to me after Dome City Twelve fell, salvaged from the ruins of my family's quarters by recovery teams and eventually handed to me at the orphan housing facility when I turned fifteen. The auto-charging still worked, and the initials JT—James Tanner—were faintly visible on the back.

  Looking at the time, I calcuted what little remained before the power completely shut down. Only nine hours left. I set the arm for 8 AM. Four hours of sleep, then pay the partial energy bill, then another shift. After that, the engineering exam.

  Something had to give. Eventually, something always gave.

  I colpsed onto my bed, not bothering to undress. Sleep came instantly, and with it, the same dream I always had. Running through a sunlit field, butterflies spinning around me. Warmth on my skin. Laughter came easy. A child's joy in a world that never existed for me. I'd never felt real sunlight, never seen an actual butterfly, never stood in a field of flowers. Those things were gone before I was born. But my mind conjured them anyway. Some leftover genetic memory of what Earth used to be.

  When I woke, the world was silent. Utterly silent. No hum of ventition systems, no distant voices from neighboring units, no announcements from dome authorities. Just a dead quiet deeper than the usual gloom, a stillness that felt wrong.

  The watch read 11:26 AM.

  I had overslept by hours.

  My stomach dropped. The door would lock soon. The exam had started an hour ago. Torres would mark me as a no-show and probably had already repced me on the shift rotation. Three months of perfect attendance gone. All those credits I'd scraped together for tuition wasted. And for what? Four hours of sleep that turned into seven?

  I jumped up, panic finally breaking through my usual indifference. I scrambled through the dark apartment, grabbing my backpack, ID card, and an extra shirt.

  A vibration rumbled through the floor as I stuffed my belongings into the bag. Like a heartbeat. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  I recognized that pattern immediately. I'd felt it once before, ten years ago in Dome City Twelve. The rhythmic tremors of massive footfalls, followed by that unnatural silence right before death arrived.

  I knew exactly what it meant. I should have stayed back.

  Ignoring it wouldn't make the danger disappear.

  I moved to the balcony door, my fingers trembling as I slid it open.

  At first, nothing made sense. A section of the dome's protective ceiling had caved in. The buildings I should have seen across the sector weren't there. Only empty spaces and jagged ruins where they used to stand.

  An enormous shape loomed in the distance, partially obscured by dust and debris.

  A Nephilim.

  Titan-css.

  Its eight-limbed body towered over the remaining structures, easily fifteen stories tall. Gray-blue skin stretched over an exoskeleton of bone-like ptes. Its head was a mess of sensory organs, with no eyes, just clusters of pulsing membranes that detected heat, motion, and electrical signals. Four massive primary arms ended in hooked cws that could tear through reinforced concrete like paper.

  Fighting it was our desperate solution after everything else failed. Conventional weapons like tanks, jets, and nukes barely scratched the first wave. So, someone decided we needed to be bigger. Fight monsters with monsters of our own making, and the Aegis Units were born.

  The massive mechas were designed for full neural integration. The pilot connected through a complete brain synapsis, becoming one with the machine. Arms, legs, and even the proportions were built to match the human form, a body shaped for a single mind.

  All that power, and it still might not be enough.

  Digital boards throughout the remaining structures fshed: IMMEDIATE EVACUATION.

  How long had those been going? How had I missed it? The power cut, my dead phone, the silence. I had literally slept through an apocalypse.

  Shock held me rooted to the spot. My breath shallowed. The battle unfolded before me, but I could only watch. I recognized the Aegis unit, Valkyrie. Caln Pierce's machine. It was one of only five Aegis units still operational.

  Everyone in the domes knew Caln Pierce. His missions and battles pyed on public boards for morale—the hero who never lost. Blond hair, square jaw, blue eyes that always looked too calm for someone fighting monsters. Broad shoulders, lean frame, all muscle. He had to be. Not everyone could pilot an Aegis unit. It took focus, speed, and a mind that wouldn't break under pressure.

  He looked like the kind of man the world wasn't meant to keep. Maybe that's why I hated watching him. Or why I always did.

  Valkyrie wasn't like the other units. Where most Aegis were bulky and uniform, Pierce's was streamlined. Its armor ptes resembled ancient Norse warrior gear, complete with a helmet-shaped head module and shield-like shoulder guards. Some idiot designer thought making our st defense look like mythological figures would boost morale. Waste of resources if you asked me.

  Blue energy conduits traced paths along its limbs, channeling power directly from the core. That core sucked energy from our st three fusion reactors, the same energy that could power entire dome sectors for a month. People starved in the dark while the Aegis units ate power like it was infinite, but the Resistance Nations called it "necessary sacrifice." As if we had a choice.

  Valkyrie ducked beneath the Nephilim's arm, spun behind it, and stabbed both bdes into its shoulder joints. The monster howled, its secondary arms now useless. I cmped my hands over my ears, teeth clenched. The sound was like metal tearing inside my head.

  I'd seen broadcasts of Pierce fighting before, but nothing compared to this. The ground shook with each step of the Aegis Unit. Valkyrie's energy core whined as it powered up for each strike. I tasted metal on my tongue as the air ionized around us. My skin prickled with static electricity.

  The monster roared and lunged forward. I ducked instinctively as debris scattered from nearby buildings. Valkyrie drove a bde through its center, piercing the core where Nephilim kept their life force. The bde fred with blue energy. A killing blow.

  The Nephilim's massive form went rigid. A high-pitched whine drilled into my skull as its core destabilized. I gripped the balcony railing, my knuckles white. The creature swayed, then pitched backward, directly toward my sector of the dome.

  The giant body began to fall. I watched its dark shape against the gray dome ceiling. It was falling right toward Block D. Toward my apartment. Right on top of me.

  My legs wouldn't move. It was the sound, that specific pitch of the destabilizing core, exactly like the one that had torn through Dome City Twelve. My breath caught in my throat as the shadow above grew rger. I should run inside, away from the balcony, but my muscles refused to cooperate. So much for staying numb. The fear came anyway. Ten years since Dome City Twelve, I was still that same terrified kid watching death approach.

  Old memories crashed into the present. The screams. The weight of debris. My parents pushing me onto the transport, their faces disappearing into chaos.

  It was happening again.

  Steel and concrete rained down around me.

  Ten years of surviving meant nothing now. The universe had a sense of humor. I'd live through one Nephilim attack only to die in another.

  Valkyrie pivoted toward my balcony. Had Pierce spotted me?

  It doesn't matter. My st thought was simple: At least I wouldn't have to worry about that energy bill.

  Then darkness.