**Chapter 3 – Ashes of the New World**
Silence.
It was the loudest thing Clara could hear. Not the rustle of leaves, not the cries of birds, not even the growls of those twisted beasts she had just escaped. Just silence, broken only by her shallow breathing and the crunch of boots—his boots—beside her.
She kept glancing at the boy who saved her, unsure of what to say. Who was he? Why did the shadows obey him?
The world had changed, but this… this was something else entirely.
---
Before all this, Earth was a vibrant sphere of chaos and life, teeming with people, cities, and ambition. In Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, life pulsed through the streets. Yellow taxis fought for space among honking buses, and vendors shouted over each other in the markets. Like most major cities, Yaoundé had once been a place where dreams collided with reality.
Until the rifts came.
No warning. No buildup.
Just portals—black, swirling maws tearing open the sky. The first emerged over major cities: New York, Tokyo, London, Beijing, Johannesburg, Paris, Lagos. One by one, they crumbled into screaming pits of fire and chaos. The creatures that poured through were indescribable: some resembled wolves of bone and flame, others floating, many-eyed things that devoured buildings like sugar cubes.
Small countries were hit even harder. Lacking defenses, organization, or global attention, they were swallowed whole in days. Communications failed. Satellites blinked out. The world map was redrawn in blood and fire.
Then the System appeared.
It branded survivors with strange blue windows floating in their vision, prompting them to accept or reject something called a "Class." Many died before deciding. But those who accepted… changed. Players, they were called. With powers straight out of fantasy games—magic, stats, leveling up.
Clara had been one of them.
But she wasn't ready. Not when she got her Class. Not when she lost her entire family. And not when those goblins swarmed her safehouse.
She would have died if he hadn't shown up.
Andrew.
That was his name. He hadn't told her, but the System had marked him in her party list after he saved her. And there was something terrifying about him. Not his eyes. Not his voice. But the way the shadows bent when he walked.
---
Andrew didn't speak much. Just nodded when she asked simple things, and occasionally helped her walk when her wounds reopened.
They moved through the ruins of Yaoundé like ghosts. Rubble, collapsed highways, burnt vehicles. Every now and then, they'd see movement in the distance—too far to be sure if it was human or monster.
The world had gone quiet, but it wasn't empty.
Clara knew this was just the beginning.
And something told her the boy beside her—Andrew—wasn't just a survivor.
He was a harbinger.