Sanctuary Zero

The world had begun to rot at the edges.

Where skies once shimmered in dusky gold and cobalt, now hung a cracked canvas of violet clouds split by twitching lightning. The sun, pale and occluded, cast fractured light across the barren plans. Ash drifted in the wind like lazy snowfall, clinging to collapsed rooftops and the hollowed skeletons of vehicles left in permanent gridlock. Trees twisted into blackened husks, clawed at the sky like mourners frozen in time.

Whispers filled the streets. Man and women clutching portable radios, their eyes dull and desperate. “Only a few days left.”

The words had become a mantra.

Everywhere from underground bunkers to half-drowned suburbs, people murmured it under their breath. Not out of disbelief, but in grim acceptance. Only seven days remained until what was simply being called the “calamity.”

Some still prayed. Other rioted. But most had simply stopped moving, accepting their fate at the hands of the breach that had long since begun to devour the entire world.

And at the center of it all, deep beneath the remains of a forgotten research dome cloaked in atmospheric veils was a place lost to the world: Sanctuary Zero, the site of the first rupture.

Yume’s wrists were raw from the restraints.

She sat slumped against the old corner of a containment room. Her legs were curled to one side as her eyes flickered between the dim light above and the boy beside her. Ren hadn’t spoken in hours. Not that he ever did much. But this silence was heavier. Sharper.

He clutched a small object close to his chest.

The room smelled of rust. The walls buzzed faintly. Something about the metal felt alive. Yume tried not to think about it.

One moment, she had been sitting peacefully at having found a group of people who accepted her. The next, the very people she trusted, Jiro and Mei, had betrayed them.

Now she was here. And everyone else was gone. Except Ren.

Though heavily sedated, she could make out how everything proceeded.

Haruto had been dragged away first.

He didn’t resist. He didn’t even speak. There was something eerie about how calm he had been. Asahi, too, hadn’t said a word as he was taken down a separate corridor. Yume remembered feeling a dull pang of something like betrayal. Or perhaps confusion.

Ren clung to her side.

She had tried to stay strong for him. But the questions had begun to crack through. What was this place? Why did the guards look terrified when Asahi passed by? Why did Haruto whisper something she couldn’t hear just before he vanished into the corridor.

Every passing minute aroused her suspicion.

She finally broke the silence and leaned closer. “Ren,” she whispered.

“Can you do it?”

The boy didn’t reply. Instead, his eyes fluttered open and he slowly raised one hand. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the restraints around his ankles shimmered, as though phasing out of sync with reality, and dissolved into dust.

Yume sucked in a breath.

“Thank you,” she murmured. She didn’t know how he did it – none of them ever really did – but she was learning not to question the impossible when it stared right at her face.

Ren rose silently. Together, they crept to the reinforced door. Yume pressed her ear against it – faint footsteps. A distant, echoing clang. No alarms yet. That was a good sign. Maybe.

She tapped Ren’s shoulder. “We go now. Stay close, okay?”

He nodded once.

The door opened with a sharp hiss. The hallway beyond was a ghost of a corridor – flickering lights, cracked floor tiles, pipes that wept condensation. Sanctuary Zero wasn’t just old – it was wrong. A place warped by something deeper than time.

Yume pulled Ren along, boots crunching ever so slightly. The facility stretched endlessly in every direction – shattered observation decks, hallways that branched and twisted like a maze.

They moved fast.

At one point, the sound of shifting gears above made them freeze. Yume grabbed Ren and ducked into a maintenance shaft just as two figures passed – a pair of guards in black hazard suits, muttering to each other.

“Subject 0’s containment failed again. He’s slipping.”

“That’s impossible. We won’t be able to complete the ritual!”

“We only have 7 days left till the rupture. We have to do something as soon as possible…”

Yume held her breath until they were gone.

They emerged carefully, then kept going. They turned a final corner – and froze. The corridor ahead had no end. Or rather, its end had been torn away. The walls gave way to open air, but not the sky. Not entirely. Before them loomed a yawning fracture in space itself. Light and darkness bled into one another at its edges, pulsing with a sick rhythm. Yume staggered backwards. The Veil – this was it. The actual breach.

The air bent towards it like gravity had changed. Yume stumbled forward as her boots slid against the smooth floor, and for a moment, she saw a reflection of herself in the fracture – older, broken, screaming. Ren grabber her wrist with surprising strength, anchoring her just in time. Dust lifted into the air.

They took a careful step back. Then another.

And that’s when they saw. On the far side of the fracture, half-shrouded by flickering shadows, stood a man. The flow of the Veil backlit his silhouette, which seemed like one of a man in his middle ages. But Yume recognized his calm and weary eyes.

Her heart lurched as she called out. “Asahi?”