The violent, deafening roar of spatial collapse faded into a heavy, suffocating silence.
Erin Volter lay on her hands and knees in the dirt, her lungs gasping for the crisp, familiar air of Earth. Her body trembled violently, not merely from the lingering chill biting through her skin, but from an existential dread that turned every drop of blood in her veins to ice.
Panic surged through her mind. Still, Erin forced her trembling legs under her and stood up, her green eyes wide as she scanned the immediate surroundings in frantic, erratic circles.
She was standing at the bottom of a colossal, earth-carved depression—the massive Dead Zone crater in Sector 4 on the Central Continent. Ten months ago, when she had illegally trespassed here to chase the Reverse One-Way Gate, the crater had been a wild, desolate trench surrounded only by overgrown trees and yellow government warning tape.
