Something was wrong. Not just the pain, but the buzz. A silent thrum at the base of his skull, pulsing down his spine like a ghost's heartbeat. It wasn't natural. Cold metal, fused to nerve and bone, whispered beneath his skin, a violation branding him Subject R-21 in the dark.
Beep.
That sound clawed him awake.
Beep.
He tilted his head, eyes catching a machine beside the neat white bed. A wire snaked from the Brotherhood med rig, recognised as the haze cleared, down his arm, piercing his palm. The room was blindingly white, too white, like a dream that refused to let go. His body was coated in salve, thick and faintly glowing, soothing burns that screamed beneath. Upprisa's gaze flicked to a flask on the bedside table, its contents meant to burn off the drugs, painkillers, sedatives, dulling his mind. He grabbed it, drank deep, and memories crashed in.
Burns.
Ichor.
Monster.
Worm.
Katana.
The tunnel. The worm's teeth. His blade was tearing through its flesh. Each memory was a hammer blow, threatening to drag him under. But Upprisa gritted his teeth. No rest. No failure. The Lost Kin were on the line. Betrayal would ruin them. He sat up, pain slicing his abdomen like a slow knife. He grunted, undeterred. Clarity bloomed, fire tearing through fog.
No time to waste.
He rolled out of bed, nerves flaring like struck wires. His body screamed, but he stumbled to the door, pushed it open. The corridor was sterile, suffocating, white as bone. Leaning on the wall, he dragged himself forward, breath hitching. Left turn. Door. Physician's office. His fingers tapped a rhythm, old habit, counting seconds till pain faded. "Doc, stims. Now," he rasped, voice dry. "Unless you want me crawlin' to your desk."
Silence. Empty.
Fuck. Upprisa scanned the room, spotting the Brotherhood's emblem on a supply bundle. Crawling, he reached the back wall, yanking it down, tearing fabric. Meds spilled. His eyes, wild, found them.
Stims. Three. Perfect.
"Move it, hero," a nurse called from behind.
"Save it, I'm walkin'," he snapped, tapping the wall.
The nurse sighed, heels clacking as she left.
Upprisa administered the stims one by one. Seconds passed. Relief. Tingling numbness. Then fire — controlled, roaring through his veins like a beast unshackled. He bolted through the door, turning right, left, right again. The Brotherhood's maze was etched in his mind, implants lighting a map in his vision. But a wave of pain crashed through his skull, and he collapsed, gasping. Too much. Should've taken one. Firecrackers burst behind his eyes, and memories surged, unbidden, cruel…
Vital levels: ERROR. Stabiliser protocol engaged… halted. A voltage spike shot through his spine, convulsing him. The machine couldn't save him, it watched. In the blackness, a voice, not the tunnel, 's-called him Subject R-21. He was on a table, wires in his spine, screaming without a mouth.
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Before the Lost Kin found him, Upprisa wandered city ruins with Ayla and Marten, scavenging to survive, dodging monsters and madmen. The world was grey, a nightmare of rot and rubble. No undergrowth, just decay, overturned cars, corpses, rats. His mother's death haunted him, her voice beckoning from nightmares: Keep them safe, Upp. He'd failed her, a boy watching her fade. The Kin were his redemption, but sorrow clung like damp rot.
One day, scavenging, they chatted, laughed, clinging to joy in a dead world. Ayla sang soft melodies to ward off fear, her voice a light in the dark. She danced as she moved, a ray of sunshine. "Jumpy as a spark, aren't you?" she teased, nudging Upprisa. "What's next, hiding under rubble?"
"Laugh all you want, Ay," Upprisa grinned, heart warm. "I'm savin' my speed for when you trip." Gods, she makes this hell feel like home.
Marten joined in, eyes on Ayla. "He's a turtle, Ay. Bet I'd outrun him!" Always trying to shine for her, his crush laughably clear.
"Ease off, Marten," Upprisa growled, protective. Gotta keep her safe.
They turned onto a street, and the world turned predator. Corpses and rubble festered under a sky bruised black, air thickening like blood clotting. A low hum pulsed through the earth, not machine but beast, a heartbeat of malice that shook their bones. Shadows writhed, coiling like serpents, their edges sharp as flayed skin. Upprisa's flesh crawled, instincts howling, run, run, RUN. A sulphurous reek burned his lungs, and a faint click… click… slithered through the silence, bone grinding against bone. The ground quaked, slow, deliberate, as if a titan stalked closer. A guttural chant wove through the air, syllables that curdled his blood, promising slaughter. Ayla's song died, her eyes wide as moons. "Upp… you feel that?" she whispered, voice fracturing.
"Stay close," Upprisa hissed, knife trembling in his grip. Marten froze, staring into the dark. It's here. The sky collapsed inward, not clouds but a presence, a god of ruin, crushing their hope. The click… click… became a bone-shattering CRACK… CRACK…, a rhythm of annihilation. Upprisa's heart thundered, every nerve screaming to flee, but the promise of survival held him. A rotting mass caught Marten's eyes, a corpse, flesh pulped, limbs twisted into mockeries, ichor oozing fresh, as if the killer's claws still dripped. A monster was near, too near.
Another body sprawled in a Shatteredborn's nest, shredded to ribbons, bones gleaming wet. Beside it, a bag, cans, water, and weapons. A cruel lure. The chant swelled, a dirge of doom, and the air screamed, a wail that flayed their souls. "We need it," Upprisa muttered, but his voice shook, drowned by the hum now a roar, a vow of extinction.
He sprinted in, snatched the bag, revolver gleaming in his hand. A grin flickered, he'd prove himself. But the shadows erupted, swallowing the street in a tide of black. A voice, not heard but carved into their minds, cold as a grave, intoned: "Foolish children, greed will be your death. It is an honour to die by Kharzith's hand." Eight red eyes blazed through the void, each a crucible of hate, searing their courage to ash. Claws, jagged, black, dripping ichor, gouged stone, sparking like hellfire. Pale flesh, stretched taut over a frame too vast, too profane, rippled with muscles that mocked life. Kharzith, the Shatteredborn, loomed, a titan of desecration, its presence a wound in reality, its hum a hymn of genocide.
Upprisa's heart stopped, lungs collapsing under the weight of its gaze. Ayla clutched her locket, silver glinting like a dying star. Marten's blade shook, a pitiful spark against the dark. Their souls begged to run, but Kharzith's eyes chained them, promising eternal agony. A Witherkin slunk from the shadows, a blasphemy sculpted from a man's corpse. Its legs quivered, flesh peeling like decayed cloth, black veins writhing like worms. Its skull, mummified in skin stretched to tearing, split into a maw vast enough to devour hope itself. Ichor wept from hollow sockets, each drop hissing as it burned stone.
Upprisa choked, sulfur and rot raping his lungs. Ayla's locket flashed, her voice a ghost: "You still dream of leavin' this pit, Upp? Us, free, somewhere green?"
"Dreams?" he'd rasped. "They're traps, Ay. Claws don't care what I want."
Upprisa raised his revolver. The revolver cracked, a perfect shot, dead-centre in the Witherkin's eye socket. It jerked, reeling, ichor spitting from the wound."'Got you," Upprisa whispered. The Witherkin screamed, a screech like metal rending bone, staggering back, ichor gushing. Ayla gasped. "You hit it! Upp, you, , " she broke off as the thing straightened, unbothered. The bullet sizzled, melting in its skull like snow on hellstone.
There! Upprisa spotted a tunnel entrance behind the Witherkin's nest. 'Ayla! That way!' She turned, ran fast, so fast. Marten pushed her forward. Hope lit her face.
The Witherkin ran, impossibly fast, limbs snapping like war drums, bones splintering with each grotesque stride. Ayla was just a few metres away. She was going to make it.
It lunged, maw unhinging to a cavern of jagged teeth. CRUNCH. Her skull vanished in a crimson explosion, blood and bone spraying like shrapnel, her locket clattering to stone, drowned in gore. No scream, just a wet gurgle, a life erased. Upprisa's soul shattered, his scream trapped in a throat gone dry.
Marten roared, rust-laced blade drawn, a boy defying gods. "You think you can take us? We've faced worse!" His voice cracked, fear and fury bleeding together, eyes wild with desperate courage.
The Witherkin's head tilted, a mockery of curiosity. Marten charged, blade slashing air. SNAP. Its claw ripped his arm from its socket, flesh tearing like wet parchment, blood jetting in arterial arcs. Marten's scream was a raw, animal wail, high and shattering, as his body crumpled, twitching in a pool of his ruin. The Witherkin's eyeless face grinned, lapping at the carnage with a tongue of shadow. Kharzith's eyes flared, claws flexing, its hum a crescendo of slaughter, savouring the feast.
Upprisa's rage ignited, a supernova of grief and hate. How dare they? He charged, knife flashing, vision red. The Witherkin's claw swept him aside, flaying his knee tothe bone, pain a white-hot scream. He hit the ground, skull cracking against stone, blood pooling warm. Kharzith loomed, its whisper a blade in his mind: "Boy, as you die, remember: The End Is Nigh." Its claws rose, poised to rend him into nothing.
A phantom erupted, a spectre flayed from the void, limbs fluid, bending in ways that broke reason, a blur of oil-slick black. It vaulted skyward, defying gravity, a nightmare given form. Kharzith pivoted, too slow, its bulk a mountain of profane flesh. A katana screamed, trailing ethereal flames, slashing through the air like a god's wrath. It struck Kharzith's mask with a CRACK that shook the earth, embedding deep, bone splintering like glass. The voice roared: "Foolish shadow… You will be put down!"
The mask detonated, a shockwave hurling bone shrapnel like daggers. Black ichor erupted, a geyser of liquid death, slamming a rusted car with a hiss that screamed, melting steel into bubbling slag. The stench, corpses rotting in acid, hair burning, flesh liquefying, raped the air, a violation of existence. Upprisa dove behind the car, but ichor splashed his leg, burrowing like molten parasites. Skin blistered, muscle dissolved, bone charred, pain a howling inferno that tore his mind apart. He screamed, rolling, clawing at the ground, fingers shredding in rubble.
Delirious, he touched his forehead, blood, thick, pulsing like a living thing. "Huh… how'd that get there?" he slurred, mind fracturing. The world spun, the sky shattered, the ground surged up like a grave sealing shut.
Two blue eyes glared, blinking sideways, not human, not merciful, a predator's promise.
He collapsed, ichor searing, a laugh cracking his throat, hollow as a crypt. A scream, not his, ripped through, sharp, summoned. The buzz in his skull cackled, too deep, too cruel to be his own.
Blackness devoured him.
A buzz stirred him…