The last of them were children.
Twelve orphaned wolf pups crossed through the portal into the waiting arms of the Black River pack—small bodies rigid with shock, eyes too wide, too knowing. Each clutched a book from Alina's library against their chest. Not toys. Not blankets. Stories. History. The fragile architecture of survival.
Alina had knelt before every one of them. Touched their hair. Whispered promises she prayed someone else would keep.
Behind them came the mothers, infants bundled tight, faces wet with tears they couldn't stop to wipe. Then the disabled, leaning on one another. The elderly went last, as they always insisted—spines stooped, steps slow, bearing witness to the end of an age.
And now, silence.
Only Alina remained.
And the dying world at her back.
A star collap
