The world was still broken when they left the noodle shop.
The Safe Zone stretched wider than Bob and Gabe expected, wrapping around most of the district. Meteor fragments glowed faintly from rooftops, streets, and even inside buildings. People had gathered around the larger ones, setting up makeshift camps and sharing food. Kids kicked rocks in the street. Old men sat on curbs, staring at the fog like it was some old neighbor who refused to leave.
"Feels weird," Gabe muttered as they walked. "Like… everyone's just pretending things are fine. Like if they stay close to the rocks, none of this is real."
Bob shrugged. "Maybe it's not."
Gabe sighed. "Only you could say that right now."
Gabe tugged his hoodie tighter around his face. "Man... I can't stop thinking about what that scientist said on the news yesterday."
Bob glanced over. "Which one?"
"You know. The one talking about Safe Zones and the fragments. Before the power cut out."
"Oh. Yeah. The lady with the big glasses."
"That's the one."
Gabe cleared his throat, doing his best impression. "'Based on our findings, meteor fragments are acting as natural fog repellents. We believe the outer material of these fragments contains properties that neutralize or push back the Pink Fog. The larger the fragment, the larger the radius of the Safe Zone. Think of them as... portable shelters. But they're not permanent solutions. If the fragments are moved, the zone moves. If stolen... well, the safety moves with the thief.'"
Bob scratched his head. "So... no fragment, no Safe Zone."
"Exactly." Gabe kicked a rock down the street. "And remember she said the fog's getting thicker every hour? One day, these Safe Zones won't even matter. Not unless we get more fragments or figure out how to stop the fog for good."
Bob nodded like he totally understood. "Should've brought some broth with us."
Gabe groaned. "Broth is not gonna stop the fog."
Bob shrugged. "Still would've tasted good."
For the next hour, they traveled deeper through the Safe Zone, passing people cooking over barrel fires and charging phones off makeshift batteries. Most just glanced at them as they walked by. Nobody cared where anyone was going anymore.
But as they reached the far edge of the district, the mood changed.
Panic.
People were running toward them from the other side of the Safe Zone.
"GO BACK!" someone yelled.
"They're coming!" shouted another.
Gabe grabbed Bob's arm. "This... feels bad."
Bob stopped in the middle of the road and held out his hand, stopping one of the fleeing men.
"Hey," Bob said, as calm as ever. "What's happening?"
The man was gasping for air, covered in sweat. "The fog... the people... they're changing! First they just looked weird. But now... now they're killing each other!"
Gabe leaned in. "Changing? Into what?"
"Monsters! Creatures! I don't know! First they act normal, but then they lose their minds. six hours. That's what they're saying. After six hours of breathing that stuff, you're done. And once you go insane, there's no coming back... unless you get one of those meteor fragments. Otherwise?" He pointed back behind him, toward the fog. "You're dead. Or worse."
The man took off running again without waiting for more questions.
Gabe looked at Bob. "Sooo... we're turning back, right?"
Bob just kept walking. "Nope. Grandpa's waiting."
And like that, they left the Safe Zone behind.
---
The fog was thicker up close. It swirled like cotton candy, glowing faintly under the streetlights that were no longer powered. Beyond the line where the meteor fragments stopped working, it was a wall of soft pink death.
Gabe stopped at the edge. "Man, this is insane. Like, fully, properly insane."
Bob stepped into the fog without hesitation.
The moment he crossed the line, his body cracked.
Grew.
Twisted.
Bones stretched. Muscles swelled. His skin darkened, hardening like stone. His arms were the size of tree trunks, and his back hunched slightly under the weight of his newfound strength.
A Goliath.
Not some myth. Not a legend. But real—a mountain of flesh and bone, standing nearly three meters tall, fists bigger than Gabe's head, with veins glowing faint pink under thick skin.
Gabe nearly tripped backward. "BOB?!"
Bob flexed his fingers, looking down at his own body like he'd just tried on a new jacket. "Huh. Feels nice."
Gabe nearly tripped backward. "BOB?! Do you... do you still know who I am? Are you... uh... still you?"
Bob flexed his massive fingers, looking down at his new giant hands like he'd just borrowed someone else's jacket. "Yeah. You're Gabe. My lunch break buddy."
Gabe blinked. "That's it? That's your confirmation of sanity?"
Bob nodded. "Yep."
Then he kept walking like nothing happened.
Gabe groaned. "We're so dead."
---
The fog got thicker as they moved through the abandoned streets. The only sounds were their own footsteps and the distant screeches of something very not human.
They hadn't been walking long when the first real threat lumbered out of the fog.
An orc.
Big. Ugly. Mean.
Its greenish skin was thick like leather, stretched tight over bulging muscles. Two jagged tusks jutted out from its lower jaw, and in its hands was a rusted, two-handed axe that looked like it had been ripped from the wreckage of a hardware store. Standing nearly two and a half meters tall, the beast snarled as it spotted them, saliva dripping from its crooked teeth.
Gabe froze. "Okay. Nope. No. I'm out. Bob... Bob... that thing's looking at me."
And it was.
The orc roared and charged, the ground trembling under its heavy steps.
Gabe ducked behind Bob without shame. "Save me, big guy!"
The orc swung its axe down with both hands, aiming right where Gabe had been standing seconds earlier. The blade missed, slamming into the street with so much force that the cement cracked open like brittle glass, chunks of pavement spraying into the air.
Gabe gulped. "I... I think that was supposed to be me."
Before the orc could yank the axe free, Bob moved.
A full swing of his left hand, backhanded and casual, like he was swatting away a fly.
The orc, surprisingly quick, twisted its body just enough to dodge to the backwards to the right.
A near miss.
It snarled in triumph, thinking it had slipped the blow.
But the moment it looked back, there was a boulder coming at its face.
A second ago, without missing a beat, Bob's left hand dropped to the ground, grabbing a chunk of broken road the size of a microwave.
Before the orc could recover, Bob hurled the slab of asphalt straight at its face.
The orc tried to dodge again, twisting to the side—but as soon as it moved, it ran right into Bob's waiting right fist.
A punch, full force, straight to its face.
CRACK.
Bob's right fist came straight from the side, faster than something that size should have been able to move. The orc had no time to react as the punch landed dead center on its face.
The sound was like a melon meeting a wall.
The orc's head exploded into a pink mist, bits of skull and teeth scattering across the cracked street.
A pink fragment tumbled from the remains, clinking as it hit the pavement.
Bob scooped it up and tossed it into his mouth without missing a beat.
"Crunchy," he said, wiping his hand on his pants.
Gabe just blinked. "Remind me never to make you mad."
But there was no time to rest.
From above, wings flapped.
A harpy.
Thin and wiry, with sharp claws where human feet should've been and filthy feathers covering its skeletal frame. Its face was part woman, part bird, and all nightmare. Beady eyes locked onto Gabe as it dove from the sky, talons stretched wide, screeching loud enough to make Gabe cover his ears.
"IT'S COMING FOR ME!" Gabe shouted, stumbling backward as the harpy swooped down, its claws reaching out but still meters away.
But before Bob could swat the harpy, a flash of movement darted from the side.
A goblin.
Small, no taller than Gabe's chest, with skin the color of swamp water and long, pointed ears that twitched as it ran. Its eyes were sharp and yellow, and in its clawed hand was a jagged knife, already dripping with something dark.
Fast. Too fast.
It dashed in, leaping from nearly three meters away, knife raised high.
For a second, Gabe thought this was it. "Oh, come on! Why is it always me?!" Gabe yelled, scrambling backward as the goblin launched itself, blade aimed right at his chest.
Then Bob moved.
With his right hand already lifted to block the harpy's dive, he adjusted in mid-air.
A left-to-right sweep, catching the harpy's leg.
In one motion, he spun his massive arm back the other way, swinging the harpy like a club.
The goblin, mid-leap, couldn't stop.
Couldn't dodge.
Couldn't even blink.
The harpy's head collided with the goblin's skull with a sickening crunch.
Both creatures exploded on impact, gore splattering across the street as two more fragments dropped to the ground.
Gabe stared in silence, wiping flecks of something off his jacket.
Bob casually picked up a fragment.
"You want one?"
Gabe picked one up, curious. It shimmered like candy. He sniffed it. Licked it. Then popped it in his mouth.
And immediately threw up.
Blood splattered on the ground as the pink fragment clinked onto the street, rejected like a bad joke.
"Okay. Nope. Only you," Gabe groaned, wiping his mouth.
A little further on, just past the splattered remains of the goblin, something caught Bob's eye. There was another fragment but It wasn't the usual soft pink glow he'd gotten used to seeing after a fight.
Near the headless goblin's twitching body, resting quietly in a pool of thick, dark blood, was a white fragment. Smaller than most, but glowing faintly like a tiny, frozen star. Its light pulsed steadily, colder and sharper than the gentle warmth of the pink ones.
Bob crouched down, squinting. "Huh. This one's different."
Gabe leaned in, wiping goblin goo off his sleeve. "Yeah... that's not pink. That's... definitely new."
The fragment almost looked clean in the middle of the filth, untouched by the chaos around it, like it didn't belong there at all.
Bob tried eating it. He gagged, spat it out, and wiped his tongue.
"Tastes awful."
"Maybe don't eat everything you find," Gabe suggested.
"Can't help it."
Gabe picked up the white fragment, slipping it into his pocket. "Feels... different. Maybe these are important."
And with the fog swirling around them, they kept walking, deeper into the chaos.
---
Hours passed.
Somewhere along the way, Gabe started coughing. His skin itched. His bones ached.
And then he changed.
Feathers sprouted from his arms. Wings unfolded from his back. His eyes sharpened, and his body shifted into something faster, lighter.
A griffin.
Part lion. Part eagle. All ridiculous.
But they kept moving, the dense pink mist curling around them as if watching from every angle.
Along the way, they fought. Again and again. Creatures leapt from the fog—twisted beasts hungry for anything that moved. Bob crushed them with fists, stones, whatever he could grab. Gabe swooped in from above, talons slashing, dropping enemies mid-flight like a claw machine on overdrive.
By the time the next Safe Zone shimmered in the distance, they'd collected a small pile of pink fragments. Gabe even found another white one, though he knew better than to try eating it after what happened last time.
They were scratched, bruised, and covered in streaks of fog-stained blood, but alive.
And as the soft glow of the Safe Zone came into view, Gabe exhaled a shaky breath.
"At least tell me I'm not walking like a lost pet back here."
Bob shrugged. "A little."
The fog stopped at the border, as if slamming into an invisible wall. Larger white fragments were embedded into buildings and street corners, glowing faintly and casting a soft, steady light over the entire Safe Zone.
As they approached, Gabe felt the white fragment in his hand give a faint pulse.
He slowed, glancing down. "Bob... I think this thing's reacting."
The closer they got, the stronger the vibration became, like the fragment was being quietly pulled toward the Safe Zone itself.
Somehow, Gabe just knew. This is the key. This is why we can go back.
Without a word, they crossed the line.
And just like that—bodies shifting, wings folding away, muscles shrinking—they were human again.
Gabe stared at his hands, flexing his fingers, almost surprised they were still there. "Okay... that worked."
People inside the zone stared at them like ghosts. Some gasped. Others whispered.
Bob ignored them all.
"Where's the hospital?" he asked the first person he saw.
They pointed, wide-eyed.
Bob and Gabe made their way straight there, up the steps, through the front doors.
Inside, the power was still on. Bright lights. Clean hallways. Doctors moving like it was just another day.
They found Grandpa's room easily.
The old man sat in bed, wearing a hospital gown, watching the news on a small TV.
Bob knocked lightly on the doorframe. "Hey."
Grandpa looked up from his bed and grinned. "Took you long enough. Thought you ditched your old man for the end of the world."
Gabe stepped inside, glancing around the room, his eyes lingering on the glowing lights and humming machines. "This place still has power…"
Grandpa shrugged. "Big hospital. Important people. Guess they keep the lights on when it counts."
Bob walked over, hands in his pockets. "You good?"
"Eh. Just some extra tests. Nothing I haven't handled before." Grandpa gave him a tired smile. "Hope you two stayed out of trouble getting here."
Gabe and Bob exchanged a quick look.
"Yeah, of course," Gabe lied smoothly. "Nice and quiet trip."
Bob nodded. "Uneventful."
Grandpa chuckled. "For once. Maybe the world's not ending after all."
Bob smirked. "We'll see. But... worth it."
And for a little while, sitting there in that small, flickering hospital room, it almost felt like things might be okay.