THE LAST 100 DAYS

Thirteen Seconds

Chapter 1: Thirteen Seconds

"Ethan, listen to me. Don't hang up. Whatever happens, don't hang up."

"Lena, it's midnight. What's wrong?"

"I can't explain. Just stay on the—"

The phone went black in his hand.

So did the lamp, the fridge, the whole city. Ethan stood in the dark with his sister's voice still in his ear.

"Lena? Lena!"

Nothing. He counted because he had to do something. *One. Two. Three.* Horns erupted below. At *nine*, a woman screamed. At *thirteen*, the phone lit up in his palm.

Her name on the screen. NO SERVICE.

He called again. Again. Again.

"Pick up. Please, pick up."

Outside, people stood frozen in the road, faces tilted skyward. Ethan looked up too.

Something black covered the stars. No edges. No sound. Something *built*, hanging over Meridian City like a lid.

Then it vanished, and a blue window opened inches from his face.

**[NAME: ETHAN VALE]**

**[CLASS: UNAWAKENED]**

**[SURVIVAL TIME: 100 DAYS]**

**[NOTICE: THE COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN.]**

Beneath it, numbers ran. 99 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 59 MINUTES, 41 SECONDS. Then 40. Then 39.

He swung at it. His hand passed straight through.

"No. No, no. A hundred days until *what?*"

A new line burned in.

**[THE FIRST STAGE HAS BEGUN.]**

Then the screaming started, and it was not the sound of a blackout.

Ethan bolted for the stairs. A man in a bathrobe blocked the fourth-floor landing, chanting, "It's only a blackout. It's only a blackout."

"Sir, look!" Ethan grabbed his shoulder. "The numbers. Do you see them?"

The man stared through him. "What numbers? Get off me."

Nobody else could see it. Only him. Cold crawled down his spine.

Calder Street was wreckage. A taxi was wrapped around a lamppost, its driver bleeding and shouting, "The wheel turned by itself! I swear it turned by itself!"

Ethan tried Lena again. Dead.

A man seized his jacket. "My daughter was right here. She was holding my hand!"

He opened his fist. Empty.

Half a block away, a pair of small shoes stood on the asphalt, side by side. Nobody was in them.

"Something took her," the man whispered. "Something just *took* her."

Under the delivery truck, something clicked.

Ethan saw it in the glow of a burning car. It was pale, wet, and dog-sized, with no eyes and a seam down its face that split open like a mouth.

"We have to run," Ethan breathed. "Sir. *Now.*"

The father didn't hear him. He was already walking toward it, screaming his daughter's name.

"No!"

The creature crossed the road in one bound. The scream stopped. When it lifted its head, the man was gone. His jacket lay in the road, still twitching.

Ethan ran.

Alleys. Garbage. His shoulder cracked against a dumpster. Behind him the clicking closed in, faster than he could move.

It had no eyes. It was hunting by sound.

He dropped behind a stack of crates and held his breath. Click. Scrape. A wet sniff, close enough to touch.

The only noise he could make was the phone clenched in his fist. Lena's number was still on the screen.

He stared at it. Then he hurled it across the street with everything he had.

It smashed into a windshield. A car alarm shrieked. The creature spun and tore toward the noise.

Ethan's chest split open. That phone was the last thread to his sister, and he had just thrown it away.

*Don't hang up,* she had begged. He'd hung up.

He didn't let himself stop. He ran until he reached the Daybreak Mart on the corner, its door already shattered.

A teenage clerk raised a baseball bat in shaking hands. "Stay back!"

"I'm human! Please!"

Behind the counter, a woman clutched a toddler. A man in a delivery uniform gripped a crowbar.

"My mom's two blocks from here," the clerk choked out. "She doesn't answer. Why doesn't she answer?"

Nobody had an answer.

Ethan dragged a metal shelf across the doorway and wedged it tight. Twice. His hands wouldn't hold still.

"Is it over?" the woman whispered. "Please. Tell me it's over."

Ethan looked at the blue numbers still burning in front of his eyes. 99 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 41 MINUTES.

"No," he said quietly. "I don't think it's even started."

The toddler began to whimper.

"Shh, baby, shh," the mother begged, pressing him to her chest.

"Keep him quiet," Ethan whispered. "They hunt by sound."

The delivery man rounded on him. "Says who?"

"I watched one kill a man ten seconds after he screamed."

"Then we leave!" the clerk hissed. "We can't sit in a glass box!"

"Outside is worse."

The clicking outside had stopped. The silence was worse.

The whimper swelled into a wail.

The mother clamped a hand over her son's mouth. "Please, please, please."

Too late.

*Click.* From the roof. *Click.* From the street.

Then a third click, from behind them.

The delivery man turned toward the stockroom, crowbar raised. "The back door's steel," the clerk breathed. "It's bolted from inside. Nothing can get through it."

The steel door bent inward, one slow inch at a time, and the clicking behind it was not one voice.

It was dozens.