The Bonnet"Get him out."
The voice didn't announce itself—it detonated. A thunderclap that bypassed Racer01's ears entirely and went straight through him, rattling his ribs like a cage full of panicked birds. His heart lurched. His breath caught.
Then: the click.
The bonnet opening.
Cold air rushed in, carrying the stench of oil, rust, and something else—something organic and rotten that made his stomach convulse. He'd been breathing his own recycled fear for hours in that suffocating metal tomb, and now the outside world invaded with all its terrible promise.
Why?
The question had been circling his mind like a vulture since they'd thrown the bag over his head outside his uncle's garage.
Why would anyone hold me hostage when I have nothing of worth? I'm just a mechanic. A nobody. I have no enemies.
He'd lived quietly. Kept his head down. Fixed engines and stayed out of trouble in a city where trouble found you whether you invited it or not.
His mind clawed desperately through his memories, searching for the moment he'd wronged someone—anyone—badly enough to deserve this. His life had been simple, predictable even. It drifted between two worlds: his grease-stained garage in the Rust Quarter, and the pristine halls of the Elite Academy where he was pursuing his mechanical engineering degree.
His family—just the three of them now—were leagues away from wealthy. But they'd had enough. A roof that didn't leak too badly. Food on the table most nights. His uncle's rough hands and his sister's bright laugh. It had been enough.
Sure, he'd been bullied at the Academy. The rich kids had made sure he knew he didn't belong, that his clothes smelled like motor oil, that his calloused hands marked him as different. But he'd never fought back. Not once. He'd swallowed every insult, every shove, every cruel laugh, and kept his eyes on his work.
So why this?
"GET OUT, Racer01."
The voice was closer now, accompanied by hands—massive, iron-grip hands—that seized him by the shoulders. The man who dragged him from the bonnet was built like an industrial machine, all bulk and brutal efficiency. A thick mustache obscured his upper lip, and his breath reeked of tobacco and something medicinal.
Racer01's hands and feet were bound so tightly that the rope had rubbed his skin raw. He could feel the warm stickiness of blood where the fibers had cut into his wrists. They'd tied him like livestock. Like a goat being led to slaughter.
His body hit the ground hard, and he gasped as pain shot through his shoulder. The surface beneath him was rough—concrete, maybe, or packed dirt. Cold. Everything was cold.
The darkness outside the bonnet was just as complete as the darkness within it had been. For a moment, he thought he'd gone blind.
Then the light hit him.
It wasn't gradual. It was violent—a wall of white-hot brilliance that slammed into his face like a physical blow. He cried out, squeezing his eyes shut so hard that colors exploded behind his eyelids. His head jerked back instinctively, but there was nowhere to go. The light followed him, pinned him, dissected him.
He could feel the heat of it on his skin. Industrial floodlights, maybe, or something even more powerful. The kind of torch that could illuminate a stadium or blind a man permanently if held too close for too long.
He tried to open his eyes—just a sliver, just enough to see who stood behind that merciless glare—but the rays were too intense. They burned through his eyelids, turned his vision into a sea of red and white static. He gritted his teeth, tasting blood where he'd bitten the inside of his cheek.
His body wouldn't stop shaking. The tremors started in his core and radiated outward, making his bound hands twitch and his legs spasm uselessly. He couldn't tell if it was the cold or the fear or both, but he couldn't make it stop.
This is how I die.
The thought arrived with strange clarity. People disappeared in Lost City every day. Vanished like smoke. Their families never found bodies, never got answers. Just empty chairs at dinner tables and photographs that gathered dust.
His uncle would wait up for him tonight. His sister would make jokes about him working too late again. And then, slowly, the jokes would stop. The waiting would turn to worry. Worry would turn to dread. And eventually, they'd have to accept that he was just another ghost in a city full of them.
How will they survive without me?
The question carved through his terror like a knife. His uncle's arthritis was getting worse—his hands seized up on cold mornings, and he couldn't grip tools the way he used to. And his sister, brilliant and fierce as she was, was only sixteen. Too young to carry the weight of their small, fragile world alone.
Lost City didn't forgive weakness. It was a place built on speed, strength, and ruthlessness. The fast devoured the slow. The strong crushed the weak. And the tough? They used everyone else as stepping stones on their way to the top.
His family was none of those things. They were just... surviving. Barely.
And now he was going to leave them to face it alone.