Meanwhile, Mira was in a different place entirely, separated from Jelo by what could have been hundreds of meters or several kilometers, she had no way of knowing. The sun beat down harshly from that same diseased red sky, its heat oppressive and unrelenting despite the desolation surrounding her.
The environment was just as brutal as what Jelo was experiencing, crumbling buildings, cracked earth, the pervasive sense of wrongness that came from walking through a place poisoned by radiation and abandoned by humanity.
But unlike Jelo, who had been forced to fight for his life multiple times since emerging from the portal, she had faced no Dabba attacks whatsoever. Not a single one. The area she was currently traversing was completely devoid of Dabba presence, showing no signs of the mutated creatures that supposedly infested this entire region. No growls in the distance, no shadows moving between ruins, no tracks in the dust, nothing.
This complete absence of threats would have pleased anyone else. Most people would have been grateful for the reprieve, thankful that they didn’t have to face down mutated monsters while lost in a hostile environment. Most people would have used the opportunity to find shelter, to rest, to formulate a plan for survival and escape.
But it annoyed Mira tremendously. In fact, it was driving her absolutely crazy with frustration. The irritation showed in every line of her body language, in the tight set of her jaw and the way her hands kept clenching into fists at her sides.
Because the main reason she had come on this hunt in the first place, the entire point of risking her life by sneaking into the portal room was specifically to find Dabba. To observe them. To study them. To finally see in person what she’d only been able to examine through books and secondhand accounts.
And here she was, in a place that should be crawling with the creatures, and there wasn’t a single one to be found.
Mira scanned her surroundings constantly as she walked, her eyes moving systematically across the landscape, hoping to spot even one Dabba hiding among the ruins. She checked every shadow that might conceal a lurking predator, every pile of rubble that could serve as a den, every darkened doorway that might harbor something waiting to ambush unwary prey.
Her gaze was methodical, thorough, the product of someone who had spent countless hours studying search patterns and observation techniques.
But when she still did not spot any sign of Dabba after minutes of careful scanning, Mira’s frustration reached a breaking point. She started stomping harder as she walked, deliberately making noise where before she’d been trying to move quietly. Her boots crunched loudly against the sand and debris covering the ground, each step producing an echoing sound that carried across the empty streets.
She was actively trying to attract attention now, attempting to draw at least one Dabba out from wherever they were hiding.
"Come on," she muttered under her breath, her voice tight with irritation. "There have to be some of you around here somewhere. This is supposed to be a contaminated zone. You’re supposed to be everywhere."
But the ruins remained silent except for the sound of her own footsteps and the occasional groan of unstable structures settling. No growls answered her noise. No creatures emerged to investigate the potential prey making such a racket. Nothing.
The reason she wanted to see Dabba so badly wasn’t because she was suicidal or reckless, Mira was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. She knew the creatures were dangerous, knew that encountering one without proper protection could easily result in her death. But her fascination with them, her burning need to understand them, outweighed the rational fear that should have kept her away from such monsters.
She wanted to study their anatomy in detail, to see how the mutations had restructured their skeletal systems, how their musculature had adapted to support their increased size and strength. She wanted to examine their physiology, to understand how their organs functioned under the stress of mutation, how their metabolisms processed energy differently than their pre-mutation counterparts.
She wanted to analyze their biochemistry, to discover what exactly the radiation and whatever other factors had done at a cellular level to transform normal animals into these aggressive, powerful creatures.
Books and academic papers could only tell her so much. Secondhand accounts from hunters and soldiers who’d fought Dabbas were useful but limited by the observers’ lack of scientific training. What Mira really needed was direct, hands-on examination of actual specimens.
Mira closed her eyes for a moment as she continued walking, her feet finding their way automatically while her mind drifted elsewhere. A memory surfaced, vivid and bittersweet, pulling her away from the present moment and into the past.
She saw herself, younger by several years, sitting at a large wooden table covered in papers and books. The room around her was warm and comfortable, filled with the kind of casual clutter that came from people who valued learning over tidiness.
Sunlight, real sunlight, not the sickly red light of this contaminated zone, streamed through windows, illuminating dust motes floating in the air.
Sitting across from her at the same table was a slightly older-looking guy, perhaps in his early twenties where she’d been in her mid-teens. He had the same eyes as her, the same determined set to his features, the same way of tilting his head when considering something interesting. They were both deeply engaged in discussion, their voices animated as they analyzed Dabba characteristics and behaviors.
The guy had a giant book open in front of him, its pages filled with detailed Dabba pictures and anatomical sketches. Some of the illustrations were professionally done, taken from academic texts, but many were hand-drawn, his own work, created from careful observation and meticulous attention to detail. His finger traced across one particular diagram as he explained something about muscular attachment points and how they’d been altered by mutation.