The man Yu Ren cauterized was still breathing by morning.
Barely.
The heat-scorched wound ran down his thigh like molten glass, bubbling against torn flesh. The whole room smelled like cooked meat and desperation.
Yu Ren sat by the barrel, arms wrapped around his knees. His hands shook, stained with smoke and blood.
Kai placed a tattered blanket over him and sat down silently.
"Did I do it right?" Yu Ren whispered.
Kai studied him. "He's alive."
"That doesn't mean I did it right."
"Out here? That's exactly what it means."
---
Rye entered carrying a battered water flask. She knelt and offered it to Yu Ren.
He hesitated. "Do I owe you for this?"
Rye snorted. "You saved one of ours. Consider it change."
He drank slowly, savoring the metallic taste. It wasn't clean, but it wasn't poison either.
"I didn't know you had a system," she said, eyeing him.
Yu Ren blinked. "You… saw it?"
"When you were working on Lorn—that flash of blue over your skin. Like an overlay glitch. Saw it before."
Kai tensed. "Where?"
Rye sat back. "Before the Fall. Three cities over. We ran a safehouse for dissenters. Someone came in—said they'd escaped a 'tiered evaluation program' in the northern bio labs. Same kind of glow when she used her hands."
Yu Ren's pulse picked up. "What happened to her?"
"Gone two weeks later. Some said her spine cracked like it couldn't hold the upgrades. Others say she burned through the air like a missile."
Yu Ren was quiet.
"So," Rye continued, "what tier are you?"
Yu Ren shook his head. "I… don't know. It's all fragmented."
She tilted her head. "How convenient."
Kai's fingers flexed.
Yu Ren looked between them. "Can we not do the power-stare thing right now? I just learned how to keep someone from bleeding out with a cooking blade."
Rye smirked. "Fair."
---
The camp held a quick council by noon.
Resources were low.
Food was down to moldy grain bars and dried insect protein.
Clean water was a day's walk west. But the nearby scavenging teams hadn't returned.
Everyone was tired of waiting.
Rye stood by a makeshift chalkboard.
"New plan," she said. "We send two pairs out tomorrow. East and north. We need food, batteries, salvageable meds. Water if you're lucky."
Someone raised a hand. "Who's going?"
"I am," Rye said. "And I want Yu Ren with me."
That drew murmurs.
Kai spoke quietly. "He's not ready."
Yu Ren stood up. "I can go."
Kai frowned. "You can die."
Yu Ren looked at him, eyes steady. "I already did, remember? In a lab. In a glass cell. This is just... the rest of it."
Rye gave a sharp nod. "We leave at dawn."
---
That night, Yu Ren checked on Lorn—the wounded man.
His breathing was shallow, but less ragged.
A girl sat beside him, maybe seventeen, skin pale from sun deficiency.
"You saved him," she said softly.
Yu Ren shrugged. "He's not dead yet. That's different."
"He's my brother," she said. "We had to sell our shoes to buy a rat trap in the last camp."
Yu Ren raised an eyebrow.
"Shoes go for two silver if they're intact. One and a half if the soles are rotting."
He absorbed that.
"Traps are ten silver minimum. Unless it's rigged with scent glands. Then it's fifteen."
Yu Ren looked at his beat-up boots.
"…So I'm walking around with, what, a three-silver fortune on my feet?"
She snorted. "Depends on the rot."
---
After she left, Yu Ren stared at the flickering fire.
Then the system pinged.
---
New Sub-Quest: "Ascension Fragments"
Objective: Retrieve lost memory shards from sites connected to Project Dawnkeep
Progress: 2/15
Tip: Memory Fragments may manifest through triggers—locations, keywords, or emotional stress.
System Stability: 53%
Reward for Next Fragment: +1 Trait Upgrade / Memory Integration
---
Yu Ren blinked.
Fifteen?
He exhaled slowly. "Figures."
Kai appeared beside him, quietly.
Yu Ren didn't speak for a while. Then:
"I'm going with her. You okay with that?"
"No."
Yu Ren looked at him. "Will you stop me?"
Kai paused.
"No."
"Why?"
Kai looked at the firelight in his eyes. "Because the world broke you early—and you're still standing. That's more than most."
Yu Ren smiled faintly.
"Don't wait for me," he said. "If I'm not back in two days—"
"You'll be back."
Yu Ren stared at him. "How do you know?"
Kai's voice was low.
"Because I've seen what happens when you don't return."
Yu Ren didn't ask what he meant.
He didn't need to.
---
Dawn broke like an apology.
Rye handed Yu Ren a salvage rifle and a bandolier of mismatched bullets. "Don't trust the scope. It shifts. Use your gut."
He slung it on his back and checked his pack: water canister, half a protein bar, firestarter, and a torn map scribbled with warnings.
They crossed what was once a school zone. The rusted-out sign still stood:
"Be Kind. Be Curious. Be Brave."
Yu Ren tilted his head. "Should've added 'Be Armed.'"
Rye grunted. "Kids today."
They passed a burned-out playground. The melted skeleton of a swing groaned in the wind.
"So," Rye said after a while. "Kai's... attached to you."
Yu Ren shrugged. "We've survived some things."
Rye chuckled. "He looks at you like he owes you his spine."
Yu Ren glanced at her. "And you? What's your angle?"
She shrugged. "I see something useful in you. Maybe dangerous. Maybe dumb. But you jumped into fire to save a man you'd never met. That's either heroic or suicidal."
"Probably both."
She handed him a small vial.
"Water-thinner. Stretch one sip into three. Don't waste it."
He tucked it away.
They walked in silence again.
Then they reached a collapsed metro bridge—partially buried. A cracked sign overhead read:
DAWNKEEP REGIONAL STAGING HUB – ACCESS RESTRICTED
Yu Ren froze.
Memory Fragment Detected.
He stepped closer—his head throbbed.
---
And suddenly—
He was inside.
The walls were dark, reinforced with tungsten. A voice echoed through the comms:
"Subject 14 has displayed emotional resistance. Inject batch C."
Yu Ren screamed against restraints.
Someone entered. A boy.
Kai.
Younger. Blood on his collar. A syringe in hand.
He hesitated.
"Don't," Yu Ren whispered.
"I have to," younger Kai said. "If I don't—"
A voice over the speaker: "Inject, or we move to spinal override."
Yu Ren watched in horror as Kai stabbed the needle into his own arm instead.
And then the lights burst.
---
Back in the present, Yu Ren stumbled, gasping.
Rye caught him. "What the hell was that?"
"I remembered," Yu Ren choked. "He saved me. He lied to them."
---
Memory Fragment Retrieved: 3/15
Trait Upgrade Unlocked: [Pain Delay – Tier 1]
Temporarily suppresses minor to moderate pain response for up to 45 seconds.
Cooldown: 30 minutes.
System Stability: 56%
---
Rye steadied him. "That was one hell of a flashback."
Yu Ren nodded. "Let's keep moving."
Because now, the more pieces he gathered, the clearer the truth became.
He wasn't just an experiment.
He was the contingency.
And the world's end?
Might have been the beginning of his true purpose.
---
To be continued.