When the Sky Falls: Hunters and Protectors

The first scream came at 9:17 p.m.

A soft rain had been falling over downtown Bellingham, mist rising from the pavement in thin, ghostly curls. Streetlights flickered through the fog, and the smell of wet pine drifted in from the bay. On Holly Street, a man locked up his bakery, humming quietly as he turned off the lights.

Children raced through puddles on the sidewalk. A couple argued softly beneath an umbrella.

The night felt ordinary—peaceful even.

Then the air split open.

At first it looked like a crack in glass, hanging in the sky thirty feet above the old theater. A thin violet line pulsing with dim light. People stopped walking. Phones lifted. A curious crowd gathered.

“Is it… lightning?” someone whispered.

The crack widened.

Light bent inward, as if the sky were being pulled apart by invisible hands. A tear opened—ragged, swirling with dark purple and black. The temperature dropped. The mist froze midair.

And something crawled out.

A stony claw gripped the edge of the portal. Then another. A shape heaved itself from the rift—massive, winged, its body made of rough stone and deep cracks glowing from within. Its eyes snapped open, burning red like coals pulled from a furnace.

A gargoyle is what emerged from the newly opened portal.

People scattered, gasps turning to shrieks as three more creatures pushed through the tear.

Their wings unfurled with a thunderous crack, scattering mist and shaking nearby windows.

One swooped low and snatched a man from his balcony.

His scream cut off midair.

Chaos erupted.

Car alarms blared. Glass shattered. Gargoyles dove through windows, ripping through walls as if they were paper. Fires sparked across rooftops. People shoved each other trying to flee down clogged streets.

A police cruiser screeched around the corner, sirens wailing. Officers jumped out and unloaded their rifles—bullets sparking harmlessly off stone skin.

A gargoyle lunged, grabbed an officer by the throat, and hurled him across the street. His body struck a lamppost with a sickening crack.

A group of teenagers tried to barricade themselves inside a convenience store.

A creature slammed into the wall, claws carving through metal.

Their screams didn’t last long.

Parents sprinted with their children.

Elderly people collapsed in the chaos.

A bus overturned, spilling passengers onto the pavement like dolls.

Within minutes, the city was burning.

A mother ran barefoot across broken glass carrying her daughter, tears streaming down her face as a gargoyle crashed behind her and roared. She slipped, fell, crawled—begging for help that wouldn’t arrive.

A teenage boy stood in the street holding a baseball bat, hands trembling. He swung

once—bravely, stupidly—and the creature tore him apart.

Fire alarms screamed across the waterfront.

Smoke rolled over the bay.

The rift above pulsed with more dark shapes trying to push through.

Bellingham was collapsing.

By 1 a.m., the power grid failed.

By sunrise, the city was a graveyard.

Wind blew ash across empty streets.

Cars smoldered in the intersections.

Shattered glass glittered like frost.

And above the cracked rooftops, the only sound remaining…

was the slow, rhythmic beat of stone wings drifting south.

News of Bellingham spread like wildfire—across social media, emergency broadcasts, frantic

late-night anchors trying to explain the impossible. But within weeks, power grids failed around the world. Entire regions fell dark. Seeming to be back in the stone age.

And then the portals multiplied.

Small tears in reality began appearing everywhere—at first innocuous, like shimmering mirages.

Scientists were baffled. Civilians recorded them. Governments worried about the current and future threats.

Then larger rifts opened near cities, forests, deserts, oceans—some positioned with eerie

strategy, others tearing through towns that had no chance of defending themselves.

From these rifts came monsters.

Not the kind from movies.

The kind from nightmares older than written history.

Some had wings.

Some had horns.

Some came from ancient myths.

And some were twisted versions of normal animals—massive, mutated, lethal.

Entire nations fell in days as portals ripped open across the globe, unleashing creatures and forces from other realms. Cities that once stood as the heart of civilization crumbled to ruins, their populations scattered, hunted, or lost. In the chaos that followed, the military’s initial response — closing borders and securing major cities — quickly shifted to a desperate struggle for survival. Amid the madness, entire populations were overwhelmed, not just by monsters, but by starvation, disease, and the collapse of every system that had once held society together.

Millions perished in the wake of this destruction. Some were claimed in the first hours, when the portals first tore through the earth, while others fell in the weeks that followed, as cities became battlefields. Panic spread faster than the creatures themselves, leaving countless lives destroyed by both the attacks and the chaos that erupted in their wake. And even for those who survived the onslaught, the costs were steep — with every lost life, the world seemed to fracture further.

In the aftermath, what remained of humanity retreated behind the walls of fortified cities. These once-thriving centers of culture and commerce had become mere refuges, offering safety but at a high price. The walls were built not just to keep the monsters out, but to protect the remnants of society from itself. Within these walls, resources were scarce, life was hard, and the world outside was a distant memory. As people huddled together in isolation, the whispers of the world that had been — the world before the portals — seemed like little more than a fading dream.

Yet in the darkness, something extraordinary happened.

A fraction of the population—barely two percent—manifested abilities.

Some could manipulate elements.

Some gained extraordinary strength or speed.

Some could bend their bodies like shadows or move through air.

No one understood why or how these abilities emerged.

Some believed the portals changed people giving them the power to fight back.

Others said it was divine intervention.

Some argued it was evolution adapting to extinction.

The truth didn’t matter.

Only the results did.

These gifted few became humanity’s last line of defense.

After 120 years, Tacoma remains one of the last cities standing against the extinction of the human race. Once a bustling metropolis, now a bastion of survival, the city sits like a jewel beneath a dome of reinforced glass, surrounded by towering concrete walls that stretch higher than the tallest trees. These walls, built not only to protect but to remind those within that the world beyond is unforgiving, hold the last remnants of humanity’s fight.

Life inside Tacoma has become a rhythm of endurance. Teenagers, at the age of sixteen, begin their training for one of the few roles available to them: Protectors or Hunters. The Protectors are the city’s defenders—standing guard, keeping watch, ensuring no harm crosses the line. The Hunters are a different breed. They are the brave, the skilled, the chosen few who venture beyond the walls. Their mission is simple yet deadly: escort the caravans, gather the resources humanity still needs, and face down the growing number of dangers lurking outside. Their world is one of tension, adrenaline, and survival.

Day-to-day life is dictated by scarcity. Families live on rationed food, and power grids stretch thin, shared across the various neighborhoods. The government has kept things running, but there are always sacrifices. Despite the passing of decades since the worst of the attacks, the sirens still wail at night. A constant reminder that their safety is never assured, merely borrowed time. The sound echoes through the streets, a warning that peace is fragile. Everyone within the walls has a scar—whether physical, emotional, or both. Everyone has lost someone they loved, someone they fought for. No one forgets. They can’t afford to.

Within these walls lives Justice Miller, a young man caught between the weight of his lineage and the fires of his own ambition. He’s spent his life dreaming of becoming a Hunter, of stepping into the shoes of those who defend the city, and of standing in the face of the dangers that others fear. But Tacoma, with all its security, is not the same city it once was. Beneath its orderly exterior, something stirs. Something old. Something powerful. Deep in the forests beyond the dome, in the shadow of towering trees and forgotten places, something has awoken.

It moves silently in the dark, watching. Its eyes are on the glowing city, its senses attuned to the pulse within the walls. And it feels it—a presence. A power unlike anything it has known. It calls to it, as if drawing it near. For the first time in years, the quiet of the wilderness is broken. Something begins to stir, something that was once lost, now slowly creeping back into the world.

The awakening has begun.