The alarm bells of Bastion's outer wall cut through the pre-dawn darkness like rusted blades, their discordant clanging echoing across the cramped tenements and makeshift shelters that comprised the Outer Ring. Kael's eyes snapped open before the third toll, instinct dragging him from restless sleep.
'Another day in paradise.'
He rolled off the thin mattress, bare feet finding the cold concrete floor of what generously passed for an apartment. Two rooms, if you counted the closet-sized space where Lyra slept. The walls bore water stains like abstract art, and the single window offered a spectacular view of the neighboring building's brick facade, mere inches away.
A wet cough echoed from the smaller room. Kael's jaw tightened as he padded to the doorway, peering through the hanging cloth that served as a door. Lyra lay curled beneath their father's old coat, her thin shoulders shaking with each labored breath. Thirteen years old and already bearing the telltale pallor of the Outer Ring's perpetual dampness and poor air.
'Getting worse.'
The thought settled in his stomach like lead. Medicine cost more than most scavengers earned in a month. A clean room in the Middle Ring... that was a fantasy wrapped in copper coins he didn't have.
Moving quietly, Kael gathered his gear from the corner where it waited like a faithful hound. Reinforced pack, its straps worn smooth by countless runs. Climbing rope, frayed but functional. Basic tools wrapped in oil-stained cloth. Each piece essential, each piece irreplaceable.
The hand-drawn map spread across the small table bore the accumulated knowledge of a dozen failed expeditions. Red X's marked picked-clean sites. Question marks dotted areas too dangerous to approach alone. But there, circled in fading ink, lay possibility. The collapsed university district, three miles beyond the middle wall.
'Third time's the charm. Right.'
Kael folded the map carefully, tucking it into his jacket's inner pocket. His fingers found the small pouch containing their last handful of copper coins—enough for maybe two days of the cheapest food. He placed it beside Lyra's makeshift bed along with a hastily scrawled note.
*Gone scavenging. Back by sunset. Stay inside. -K*
The door's hinges protested softly as he slipped into the corridor, where dozens of other desperate souls were already stirring, preparing for their own daily gambles with fate and fortune.
Outside, the city's bone-deep cold embraced him like an old enemy.
The Middle Wall checkpoint rose from the city's bones like a steel and concrete monument to paranoia. Guard towers stretched toward the gray dawn sky, their searchlights cutting lazy arcs through the morning mist. Razor wire crowned the fortifications in gleaming spirals, and the massive gate—thick enough to stop a charging nightmare beast—remained sealed tight.
Kael approached the checkpoint as the first pale fingers of sunlight crept over Bastion's skyline. His breath misted in the cold air, and his boots crunched against frost-covered debris scattered across the approach.
"You're late."
Mira Blackwood emerged from the shadow of a concrete barrier, her dark hair pulled back in a practical braid. Combat boots, reinforced jacket, and a crossbow slung across her shoulder—she looked every inch the professional scavenger. The grin spreading across her scarred face, however, belonged to someone who'd been waiting to deliver a perfectly timed insult.
"Traffic was murder," Kael replied, adjusting his pack's straps. "Had to dodge three checkpoint bribes and a marriage proposal from Mrs. Chen."
"She's persistent. I'll give her that." Mira fell into step beside him as they approached the guard station. "Though at your age, you could do worse than a woman who owns her own noodle cart."
'Right. Because romance is exactly what my life needs right now.'
The checkpoint guards wore the Middle Ring's blue and gray uniforms, their weapons clean and well-maintained. Professional paranoia radiated from their posture as Kael and Mira approached the reinforced booth.
"Permits," the lead guard demanded, his hand resting on his sidearm.
Kael produced the worn documents, their official seals barely visible after multiple lamination attempts. The guard scrutinized each page with the intensity of a scholar examining ancient texts.
"Captain Torres wants to see you," another guard announced, emerging from the booth's interior.
Torres was a weathered man in his fifties, gray threading through his black hair. Scars marked his hands and neck—souvenirs from years of defending the walls. When he spoke, authority colored every syllable.
"Strange howls last night," Torres said without preamble. "Something new out there. Multiple contacts moving in coordinated patterns."
Mira's expression hardened. "Coordinated how?"
"Pack behavior. Maybe worse." Torres handed back their permits with visible reluctance. "Turn back if you see anything unusual. Anything at all."
The massive gate began its grinding ascent, revealing the ruins beyond.
'Too late to turn back now.'
The ruins stretched before them like the skeleton of a dead giant, twisted metal and shattered concrete creating a maze of shadows and hidden dangers. Kael activated his Thread Sight, watching the faint silver lines that connected every living thing shimmer into view. Most threads led back toward the city walls, but a few... a few stretched deeper into the wasteland.
'Nothing immediately hostile. Good enough.'
"There," Mira pointed toward a partially collapsed department store, its glass facade long since blown out by some forgotten catastrophe. "Upper floors look intact. Could be worth checking."
They picked their way through the debris field that had once been a shopping district. Kael stepped carefully around a rusted shopping cart, its metal frame twisted into an abstract sculpture of desperation. The Thread Sight revealed no immediate threats, but something felt wrong about the silence.
Too quiet. Even for the ruins.
"Watch the glass," Mira murmured, drawing her salvage knife. The blade's edge gleamed despite its age—she maintained her equipment like her life depended on it. Which, considering their profession, it did.
The department store's entrance gaped open like a mouth frozen mid-scream. Inside, mannequins lay scattered among fallen ceiling tiles and water-damaged merchandise. Mira tested each step, listening for the telltale creak of unstable flooring.
"Electronics section should be toward the back," Kael whispered, following her lead. "Pre-Awakening stuff commands premium prices if it's intact."
They worked in practiced silence, Mira clearing debris while Kael searched through the rubble. His fingers found something promising—a sealed container marked with corporate logos he barely recognized. Inside, circuit boards and processors gleamed like technological treasure.
'This could feed the kids for a month.'
A groan echoed through the building. Not human. Structural.
Mira froze, her head tilted toward the ceiling. "Time to go."
Another groan, deeper this time. Dust rained down from above as something shifted in the building's wounded frame. Kael pocketed the electronics and moved toward their entry point, but Mira grabbed his arm.
"Not that way." She pointed toward a side exit partially blocked by fallen shelving. "Safer route."
The building shuddered around them, its death throes accelerating. Somewhere in the darkness above, metal screamed against concrete.
'We might have pushed our luck a little too far this time.'
The floor gave way without warning.
One moment Mira was stepping carefully around a fallen display case, the next she was plummeting through splintered boards and twisted metal into the basement level below. The crash echoed through the dying building like a gunshot.
"Mira!"
Kael rushed to the jagged hole, heart hammering against his ribs. Twenty feet down, she lay motionless beneath a slab of concrete that had pinned her legs. Blood trickled from a gash on her forehead, dark against her pale skin.
She stirred, gasping. "Can't... can't move my legs."
Without hesitation, Kael swung down through the opening, landing hard on the debris-strewn basement floor. The concrete slab was massive—easily three hundred pounds of reinforced material. He braced his hands against it, muscles straining.
'Come on, come on...'
The slab didn't budge.
Above them, more debris began to fall. Smaller pieces at first, then chunks of ceiling tile and metal fixtures. Dust filled the air like a choking fog.
"Kael." Mira's voice was growing weaker. "You need to go."
"Not happening." He threw his shoulder against the concrete, ignoring the fire spreading through his back. "I'm not leaving you."
That's when his vision... *changed*.
Threads of light suddenly filled his sight—gossamer strands weaving through the air like an invisible web. Most were dim, barely visible, but two blazed with impossible brightness. A golden thread connected his chest to Mira's, pulsing with warmth and desperate affection. Beautiful. Reassuring.
The red one around her throat was neither.
It coiled like a serpent, tightening with each labored breath she took. As he watched in horror, the crimson strand grew thicker, more solid. A noose of pure malevolence.
'What the hell...'
Instinct overrode confusion. Without understanding what he was doing or why, Kael reached out with his right hand—not toward the concrete, but toward that horrible red thread. His fingers found something that shouldn't exist, something between substance and shadow.
He *pulled*.
The thread snapped like an overstressed cable.
The concrete slab shifted immediately, rolling away from Mira's legs as if guided by invisible hands. She sucked in a desperate breath, color flooding back into her face.
A burning sensation flared in Kael's chest—brief but intense, like someone had pressed a hot iron against his sternum. He dismissed it as adrenaline, focusing instead on helping Mira sit up.
"How did you..." she began, then stopped, staring at him with an expression he couldn't read.
'Good question.'
Mira doubled over, violent coughs wracking her frame as dust and debris spilled from her lips. Each harsh sound scraped against her throat like broken glass, leaving her voice raw and barely functional.
"Easy," Kael murmured, one hand hovering uncertainly near her shoulder. His own hands trembled—whether from exertion or something else entirely, he couldn't say. "Take it slow."
She tried to speak, managed only a painful wheeze. Blood dotted the concrete where she'd coughed, dark spots against the gray rubble.
'That's not good.'
Kael crouched beside her, studying the bruises already forming around her throat. Purple fingerprints of crushed stone and twisted metal. She should have died under that slab. Should have been paste on the warehouse floor.
But she wasn't.
And he still didn't understand *why*.
"We need to get out of here," he said, forcing his voice to remain steady. "Can you stand?"
Mira nodded, though the motion made her wince. She accepted his help rising, her grip on his arm surprisingly strong despite everything. When she opened her mouth to protest—because of course she would—only a croak emerged.
"Don't even try," Kael cut her off. "Save your voice."
They gathered their salvaged goods in tense silence. Circuit boards, copper wire, a few intact power cells—hardly worth risking their lives for, but it would feed the kids for another week. Kael stuffed everything into his pack with mechanical efficiency, muscle memory taking over while his mind churned.
Those threads of light... had he imagined them? Some kind of stress-induced hallucination brought on by watching Mira nearly die?
'Then how did the slab move?'
He glanced at her again. Mira was examining her throat in a shard of broken mirror, her reflection fractured into a dozen painful angles. For just a moment, he could have sworn he saw something else in those reflections. A flicker of shadow that didn't match her movements.
A sound echoed across the ruins—low, mournful, distinctly inhuman. Too close to the city walls. Too close to *them*.
The howl was answered by another. Then another.
Mira's eyes met his in the broken mirror, wide with recognition. Whatever was making those sounds, it wasn't supposed to be here. The barrier kept the really dangerous things at bay.
Usually.
"Time to go," Kael whispered, shouldering his pack.
The howls were getting closer.