Rain hit the neon streets of Neo-Sanctuary like shattered glass, washing blood and oil into the gutters. The city was alive with static — flickering billboards, drone patrols humming overhead, whispers of riots in the lower sectors.
Damien Kael didn't care about any of it. Not anymore.
His hands were raw from working salvage — alien tech, scraps of weapons from wars no one remembered, and broken relics from occult disasters corporations had tried to bury. He did it because someone had to. Someone had to find the pieces and sell them before gangs or worse found them first. Someone had to feed his sister back in the ruins outside the city walls.
But mostly?
Because riding was the only thing that still felt like living.
The chopper growled beneath him, its engine coughing like an old beast. Rusted frame, mismatched tires, held together by tape and spite — but on nights like this, it was freedom. Damien cut through the industrial ruins, wind tearing at his jacket, the weight of the world silent behind the roar.
---
The Sin He Couldn't Forget
He tried not to think about the raid. About the people he couldn't save.
About how his decision cost them their lives.
The faces always came back at night. Screaming. Burning. Blaming him.
And lately… voices.
Not just memory.
Something whispering in the static of the city.
> "…jury…"
Damien shook it off, gripping the handlebars tighter. Sleep deprivation. That's all it was. Just stress and guilt playing tricks on him.
---
The Job
Tonight's haul was big — rumors of a sealed lab in the outskirts. Tech from a failed corporate project.
Nobody knew what they were building. Nobody wanted to know.
All Damien knew was the buyer paid double for anything with bio-metal signatures. Which meant more meds. More food. More time.
He rolled the chopper into the ruins — shattered steel towers, twisted like bones reaching for the stars. The rain hissed against exposed wires. The air smelled like ozone and ash.
At the heart of the ruins: a blast crater, ringed with strange symbols scorched into the concrete.
The whispers got louder.
> "…verdict…"
"…feed…"
---
The Find
The lab door was half-buried under rubble, its logo eaten away by fire. Damien pried it open with a crowbar, stepped inside.
Darkness.
Walls slick with something not quite metal, not quite flesh.
Broken containment pods lined the corridor — some shattered, some melted from the inside out.
At the center of the lab was a sphere — a mass of liquid metal frozen mid-drip, suspended in the air by invisible force. Red cracks pulsed across its surface like veins.
Damien stared.
The thing stared back.
---
The First Whisper
> "…jury… you finally came…"
Damien stumbled back, crowbar raised. "Who's there?!"
> "…judge waits… sins must burn… feed us…"
His head pounded — flashes of strangers' sins burned into his mind. Murder. Lies. Betrayal. His own face reflected in their crimes.
The sphere pulsed, heat radiating through the room.
The floor cracked. The air screamed.
---
Damien reached out —
not to touch it,
but to stop himself from falling.
The nanites leapt.