The nosebleed was the first sign. Ryu wiped away the trickle of blood with the back of his hand, staring at the dark crimson stain on his skin with a sense of dread. He tried to tell himself it was nothing—the dry air, the exhaustion. But he knew it was a lie. The strange, volatile energy that had surged through him had left a mark, an internal wound that was now beginning to fester.
Over the next few days, the symptoms worsened. He suffered from splitting headaches that came and went without warning. His vision would occasionally blur, the world dissolving into a smear of light and color. At the docks, a crate that he should have been able to lift felt impossibly heavy, his muscles refusing to obey. His body, already pushed to its limits, was beginning to fail him in new and terrifying ways.
He was becoming a liability. The foreman, seeing him struggle, cut his shifts. The other workers, once indifferent, now looked at him with a mixture of pity and contempt. He was a broken tool, no longer fit for even the most menial labor. His meager income dwindled to almost nothing, and the gnawing hunger returned with a vengeance.
His deteriorating condition did not go unnoticed. One evening, as he was making his way through the market, a man in a medic's coat stopped him. "You don't look well," the man said, his eyes scanning Ryu with a professional, yet unsettling, intensity. "Unstable energy signatures can be dangerous. We have clinics that can help. For a small fee, of course."
Ryu flinched away. 'Unstable energy signatures.' The medic had seen something, some aura or trace that the power surge had left behind. He was marked. He stammered an excuse and hurried away, the medic's knowing gaze burning into his back. The Vanguard wasn't the only group that preyed on the desperate. There were also the scavengers, the black-market doctors who would dissect someone like him to study, bottle, and sell whatever strange energy he possessed.
The final straw came when he saw Silas, the Coyote. Ryu was huddled in an alley, trying to escape a sudden, dizzying headache, when Silas and two other Vanguard recruits walked past. They were no longer the ragged dust-rats Ryu knew. They wore clean, dark uniforms and carried themselves with a disciplined arrogance. They were Vex's new enforcers.
Silas happened to glance into the alley, and his eyes locked onto Ryu. For a moment, there was a flicker of recognition, a hint of their shared, powerless past. Then, it was gone, replaced by a cold, predatory focus. Silas's eyes narrowed, not with contempt, but with a sudden, sharp interest. He tilted his head, as if sensing the same instability the medic had. He saw not a rival he had beaten, but something new—an anomaly, a prize.
"Wait," Silas said to his companions, his gaze fixed on Ryu. He took a step toward the alley.
Panic, cold and absolute, seized Ryu. He couldn't fight. He couldn't reason. All he could do was run. He scrambled to his feet and bolted, deeper into the labyrinth of alleys and tunnels. He didn't look back, but he could hear the sound of footsteps behind him, faster and more determined than his own. He was no longer just a victim of the system. He was a target. Hunted by the Vanguard for a power he didn't want and couldn't control, and hunted by scavengers who saw him as a resource to be harvested. His life, already a prison, had just become a cage with the lions circling outside.