[T-minus 33 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

The light changed the moment they stepped through.

The silence struck first – unnatural, weightless, perfect.

They had emerged into a city park. But not one warped by demon rot or psychic warping. This looked real. Preserved. Untouched.

Sunlight filtered through rows of sweetgum and ginkgo trees, their autumn leaves catching the gold like dying embers. The asphalt path underfoot was clean but weathered – no cracks, no blood, no bones. Just moss clinging gently at the edges. A child's tricycle sat abandoned near a flowerbed, its red paint sun-faded, handlebar streamers drifting in the breeze. The grass was impossibly green.

To their left, a bronze statue of a panda in a straw hat stood mid-dance near a bed of low chrysanthemums. The placard at its base read: "For the Children of Chengdu – Let Them Always Laugh."

They were near the river – the Jin River, probably. He could smell faint moisture, hear distant water moving over stones. Tall bamboo flanked the trail in narrow groves, rustling softly in the breeze like paper whispered by ghosts.

Benches lined the walk, the old cast-iron kind. Flaking paint. Wrought curlicues. Some sat beneath climbing trellises tangled in flowering jasmine. There were no sounds of traffic. No hum of the city. Only the chirp of magpies and the low, constant gurgle of a fountain ahead.

It stood at the centre of the park's main circle – carved grey stone, circular, waist-high. The water bubbled gently, utterly pristine. Brass piping gleamed. Four stone lions framed the base, mouths open in permanent vigil.

Everything was too intact. No ash. No gunfire. No fear.

It was beautiful. That was the danger.

Victor squinted up. "No fog. No fire. No traps." He sniffed. "Doesn't smell like rot, either."

Dan exhaled slowly. "It's… pleasant."

Max didn't answer. His senses, always on edge, felt dulled here. Not numb. Just… quieter. He couldn't tell if that was good or not. His hand hovered over Ferron's chain out of habit.

Chloe let out a soft sound, something between a laugh and a sigh. "It's a real park. Grass. Trees. Is that – birds?"

There were birds. Warbling lazily. Somewhere ahead, water trickled.

A fountain.

It stood at the centre of a cobbled clearing – tall and old-fashioned, with brass piping and a smooth stone basin. Water gurgled from the spout. Crystal-clear.

Alyssa made a beeline toward it, one hand on her belt. "If this is a trap, it's better dressed than the others."

Max watched her lean in and drink. One hand braced against the fountain's cool lip. She didn't flinch.

"Cold," she said, wiping her mouth. "Clean."

Chloe followed. Then Dan. Even Alpha knelt – analysing it with her blank efficiency before sipping once, then standing again.

Max hesitated. The heat in his chest – the ever-burning cinder of Liz, of fire, of rage – had faded slightly. Still there. But distant. Like a memory of warmth, not the thing itself.

He stepped up and drank.

The water slid down his throat smooth as silk. No metallic bite. No sulphur. For the first time in weeks, he didn't feel the dull ache in his ribs. The pain behind his eyes eased. He exhaled.

"Guess it's safe," Victor muttered, already scouting the benches nearby. "Weird."

Max wiped his mouth, blinking slowly. The taste was... nothing. Not just clean – blank. It didn't satisfy. It erased.

His heart had been pounding when they arrived. Now? It beat with the rhythm of still water. Calm. Controlled. Content.

He hated it.

He glanced down at Ferron's chain around his wrist. The metal felt heavy. Not in a comforting way. Just... dull.

The fire inside his chest – the low flicker of fire he had come to live with – hadn't gone out. But it was receding. Banked. Like coals left too long in a cold hearth.

Ferron didn't drink. He stared at the basin for a long moment, then looked up at Max.

"We need to be careful," he said quietly.

Max nodded.

But no one moved.

Chloe sank onto the grass with her back to a tree. Alyssa leaned against the fountain and tilted her face to the sky. Dan sat cross-legged, eyes closed.

Max found himself lowering into a crouch beside the path. Just for a moment.

The sun was warm. The wind was soft. The world wasn't burning here.

For the first time in weeks, no one screamed. For the first time in months, Max felt… calm.

Just a moment.

Then they'd get up.

Then they'd move.

Probably.

…………………

[T-minus 29 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

It had been four days. Maybe five.

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Alyssa wasn't sure.

The sun kept rising. The birds kept chirping. The breeze smelled like cut grass and rain-soaked soil. But time… blurred.

She sat on the bench across from the fountain, watching Chloe nap in the shade of a ginkgo tree. Her sister's face was peaceful. That should've felt comforting. It didn't. It didn't feel like anything.

Alyssa rolled a pebble between her fingers, smooth and cold. She hadn't sharpened her knife since they arrived. She kept meaning to. Every time she looked at her pack, she thought: Soon. Then she didn't.

The blade was still there. That should've mattered.

Jack's face came to mind—softly, distantly. The outline of his laugh, the shape of his hand when he passed her that paper crane.

She tried to picture the crane. The way he folded it. What color it had been.

It drifted away.

She looked down at her boots. Mud flecked the sides. She should clean them. Should move. Should check the perimeter.

Instead, she stayed seated, arms heavy. Muscles slack. Thoughts slow.

She didn't feel tired. Just… still.

Chloe stirred nearby, rubbing her eyes, blinking at the blue sky.

"We should move soon," she mumbled.

Alyssa nodded. She meant it. Then she leaned back on the bench and closed her eyes.

Just a little longer.

…………………

[T-minus 27 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

Dan stared at his notebook and realized he hadn't written a single word in three days.

The pen sat between his fingers, uncapped. The ink at the tip had gone dry. Pages fluttered softly in the breeze – his own handwriting, now half-faded: treatment notes, soulfield readings, circle resonance theories. It might as well have belonged to someone else.

Across the grass, Max lay under a tree, unmoving. Not asleep. Just... still. The others sat scattered through the park like forgotten statues. No one groaned. No one called out.

No one bled anymore.

Dan closed the notebook and laid it beside him on the bench.

He couldn't remember the last time he checked someone's pulse, adjusted a bandage, whispered a calming word. He couldn't remember the last time someone needed him to.

And that thought – once terrifying – now brought him a strange, hollow comfort.

No emergencies. No pressure. No burden.

His martyr's instinct, once so loud, so automatic, was barely a flicker now. There was no fire to stand in. No one to pull from the wreckage. Nothing left to fix.

And without pain – who needed healing?

He rubbed his hand slowly over his chest, where his golden aura used to burn the brightest. It was faint now. A soft thrum, barely there. Like an old scar, not a source of light.

Maybe that was all it had ever been.

He had told himself for years that healing people gave him purpose. That their pain was his to carry. But now… what if it wasn't? What if he didn't need to be the good man? What if no one needed saving?

Wasn't this better?

He let his head lean back. Sunlight filtered through the canopy, warm against his skin. He thought of April – his sister, long gone – and for the first time in weeks, the memory didn't hurt. It didn't feel like anything at all.

Time heals all wounds, someone had told him once.

Maybe they were right.

He stood and walked to the fountain, not because anyone needed him to – just to move. His hands brushed the stone rim. Cold. Smooth.

He looked down at the water. Clear. Quiet.

Dan didn't drink. He just watched.

And in the stillness, he felt himself forgetting what it ever meant to care.

…………………

[T-minus 24 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

Ferron sat cross-legged beneath a stand of bamboo, his kusarigama across his lap.

He hadn't touched the fountain. Not once. The others had, and they moved less with each passing day. Or was it the same day, over and over?

He had anchored himself in mantras – sutras his father taught him, invocations meant to bind spirits and resist temptation.

At first, they held.

But now? The words fell flat in his mouth. Foreign. He recited them anyway.

Om vajra satva hum... om... vajra...

No meaning. No pulse.

He reached out to the soulfield – and felt nothing.

That frightened him more than the demons. The soulfield had always been there. Even in the darkest hellscapes, it whispered to him. Now it was silent.

He stared at his weapon. Once it had a name – Kagutsuchi's Curse. He couldn't remember if that was myth or memory. Or if it mattered.

He used to believe in holy purpose. In exorcism. In balance.

But here? No one needed him. Not even the dead.

…………………

[T-minus 22 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

They had stopped running system diagnostics three days ago.

Alpha sat cross-legged at the edge of the fountain, back straight, hands folded neatly in her lap. Her internal HUD blinked erratically – heartbeat monitor inactive, thermal scan returning static, environmental threat assessment locked at 0.0. No change. No movement. No mission.

Peace.

She hated that word.

Across the clearing, Omega leaned against a jacaranda tree, his bone plating half-retracted, one foot dragging lazy circles in the dirt. He had stopped pacing. Stopped growling. Stopped everything.

The hunger was gone. Not satisfied – just irrelevant.

"I think I forgot the last time I drew blood," Omega said, his voice quiet, almost polite. "That's not normal, is it?"

Alpha blinked. No answer came.

Her orders had been clear once: Protect Grimm. Neutralize demons. Monitor Jaeger. But those protocols had degraded without alert. She had not received a command ping in days. Time logs were desynced. The uplink to Site B was inactive. Her mission clock read 00:00:00, over and over.

A flicker in Alpha's HUD.

She focused on the mission clock.

[T-minus 24 Days]

She blinked.

[T-minus 22 Days]

No time had passed. No one had moved.

The countdown was falling faster than their breath. Still, no errors triggered. No alarms sounded. That was the worst part.

"I thought I'd miss the violence," Omega continued. His voice was too smooth. "But I don't. I don't miss anything."

Alpha turned her gaze toward him. Her posture perfect. Expression blank. Her voice, when it came, was not cold. Just still.

"Nothing requires us."

They fell into silence again. Not tactical stillness. Not waiting. Just... absence.

A bird landed on the bench between them. Peered at Alpha. Pecked the metal toe of her boot.

She didn't move.

Omega watched it fly away. "I think I could die here," he said. "Wouldn't even notice."

Alpha blinked once. Slowly.

"We are at peace."

She didn't know who she was saying it to.

And neither of them remembered what they were supposed to be.

…………………

[T-minus 17 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

Chloe sat cross-legged in the grass near the fountain, hands resting in her lap.

She didn't remember lying down. Or waking up. Or the last time she blinked.

The sunlight dappled across her arms. Warm. The breeze was soft. The birdsong pleasant. Everything was quiet. Perfectly, endlessly quiet.

She watched a butterfly land on her knee. Pale yellow wings, twitching delicately. She used to think things like that were beautiful.

Now she just watched it. And when it flew away, she didn't feel anything at all.

Alyssa lay nearby, stretched out under the trees. Eyes open, staring into the leaves. She hadn't spoken since yesterday. Maybe longer.

Chloe should say something. A joke. A question. A memory.

Her throat moved. No sound came out.

She tried to think of Liz – her laugh, her fury, her hand pressed against the glass of the hospital pod.

The image slipped like sand through her fingers. Not gone. Just faded.

Like everything else.

She turned her eyes toward the fountain. The water glittered in the sunlight, trickling endlessly in a soft rhythm. It was beautiful. Gentle. Safe.

She didn't remember why they had come here.

She didn't remember why they needed to leave.

She felt so… peaceful.

And for the first time since the apocalypse began, Chloe felt absolutely nothing at all.

She smiled faintly.

Then closed her eyes. And let herself drift.

…………………

[T-minus 15 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

Max lay flat on the grass, hands behind his head, staring up at the cloudless sky.

He hadn't moved in hours.

Or was it days?

April's name floated through his mind – distant, soft, like a note hummed underwater.

Liz… Who was Liz?

His hand moved to the chain around his wrist. He stared at it blankly. It should've meant something.

"I'm coming for you, Liz."

That's what he had said. Once. To someone.

He should feel something. Rage. Love. Fear. But there was just warmth.

Sunlight. Birds. Water trickling nearby.

He turned his head toward the fountain and smiled faintly. "We're safe now," he said aloud, to no one.

His eyes drifted closed. The Hellfire inside him didn't burn.

It slept.

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