The wasteland did not forgive.
Rubicon's skies hung forever in a haze of gray, like smoke from an endless fire that had long since burned the world hollow. The sun fought to pierce the shroud, but its rays bled weakly through the dust, casting the ground in sickly amber. To most children, the horizon might have promised adventure. For Talon Creed, barely ten years old, it meant another day of surviving on scraps, another night of wondering if he would wake to see his parents' faces again.
Their home was no home at all—just the gutted shell of a pre-Coral refinery, walls of rusting steel panels lashed together with salvage and cloth. Every gust of wind rattled the place like bones clattering in a grave. His father called it shelter. His mother whispered prayers inside it. Talon simply called it "the Shack," though he never said the word aloud. To name it felt dangerous, as if admitting permanence to something so fragile might make the wasteland decide to take it away.
It was evening now, and his mother was crouched by a fire made of scavenged plastics. The fumes made Talon's eyes sting, but the heat kept the chill at bay. His father returned with the day's haul—a dented canister of water, a cracked ration tin, and two pieces of wiring that might fetch trade at a distant settlement if they dared the journey.
"Not much," his father muttered, setting the items down. The man's shoulders sagged beneath the weight of years of hunger and ash. His hair, once black like Talon's, was already streaked with gray, though he was not yet forty. "But enough to last tonight."
Talon's stomach growled at the sight of the tin. He tried to hide it, pressing a hand over his shirt, but his mother noticed. She smiled faintly, reaching out to brush back his tangled hair.
"You eat first, Talon," she said softly. "Always."
"I can wait," Talon replied, though his throat tightened. He had learned to lie about hunger. He had learned to make himself small, to take less. His father said the world gave no mercy, so you had to carry your own.
That night passed like many others—too little food, too much silence, broken only by the occasional rumble of distant engines. Armored scavenger gangs prowled the wastes, hunting the weak. Every roar of machinery was a reminder that Rubicon belonged to no one, least of all to a family of three clinging to scraps of survival.
The storm came two nights later.
Talon had been dreaming—something rare, something precious. He dreamt of stars, bright and unshrouded, blazing in a sky free of ash. His mother's voice echoed in that dream, singing a lullaby of rivers and fields he had never seen. For a fleeting moment, he believed.
Then the world shook.
A deafening crack split the Shack as scavenger rockets slammed into the ridge nearby. Talon woke to smoke and screaming. His father shoved him hard, sending him rolling beneath a slab of collapsed plating.
"Stay down, Talon!" his father roared.
Men stormed in—scavengers, their armor cobbled from mismatched plating, faces hidden behind breathing masks. Their weapons were crude but deadly. Talon's mother screamed as one grabbed her arm. His father lunged, swinging a jagged piece of rebar, striking the scavenger across the head.
Chaos swallowed everything.
Talon couldn't move. His small hands clutched the rusted metal shielding him, knuckles white, as he watched his world unravel. His father fought like a cornered beast, but there were too many. Blades and gunfire cut him down. His mother tried to reach Talon, eyes wide with terror, lips forming his name—
A shot.
She collapsed in a heap.
Something inside Talon cracked, but no sound came out. He wanted to scream, to rush to her, to claw at the scavengers with bare hands. But his father's last command pinned him: Stay down.
The raiders tore through the Shack, looting scraps, cursing at the meager haul. One kicked his mother's body aside as though she were nothing. Then, as quickly as they came, they left, engines roaring into the night.
Silence returned, broken only by the crackle of fire.
Talon crawled out from the wreckage, trembling. His knees buckled as he stumbled to his mother's side. He shook her, whispering her name. No answer. His father lay nearby, still, eyes staring at nothing.
The boy knelt there for hours, rocking back and forth, unable to accept the stillness of their bodies. He begged them to wake. He promised he would be good, that he would eat less, that he would do whatever they asked. The wasteland gave him nothing in return.
When the fires burned out and the night grew cold, Talon realized he was alone.
And alone, he would have to survive.
The days that followed blurred into one another, stitched together by hunger, grief, and silence.
Talon buried his parents beneath the ridge behind the Shack, digging with his bare hands until his nails cracked and bled. The soil was rocky, resistant, as though the wasteland itself resented the idea of graves. Still, he clawed at it until shallow mounds rose above the bodies, wrapped in the torn fabric of his mother's shawl and his father's patched coat. He had no words for prayers, no ceremony, only the rasp of his breath and the trembling whisper:
"I'll survive. I promise."
The wind answered with a hollow moan through the wreckage.
By the third day, his throat was raw from thirst. The canister of water his father had left was nearly empty, and every swallow felt like swallowing glass. He scoured the Shack for scraps—half-burned rations, crumbs hidden in the folds of cloth. His body moved on instinct, even as his mind remained locked in the image of his parents falling.
At night, he dreamed of them. His mother's hand on his cheek. His father's voice, steady and certain: "Stay down, Talon." He woke from those dreams shaking, clutching at the rusted plating as though it might keep him tethered to the world.
But the wasteland did not allow stillness.
The engines returned. Not scavengers this time, but a convoy grinding its way across the flats. Talon crouched on the ridge, watching the silhouettes of armored trucks kicking up clouds of dust. Their banners bore the sigil of one of Rubicon's corporate scavenger-puppet gangs—white paint smeared into the crude likeness of a serpent devouring its tail.
His stomach knotted. If they found the Shack, they would strip it bare. Maybe they would strip him bare, too.
Talon ran.
He left the Shack, left the graves, left everything behind. His small legs carried him across the jagged wastes, over rusted pipelines that stretched like the bones of giants. His breaths came in ragged bursts, chest burning. He didn't stop until the convoy was only a smear of dust on the horizon.
When he finally collapsed, the world spun around him. Heat shimmered off the rocks. His lips cracked, bleeding. The ache of hunger hollowed him out.
He lay there, sprawled beneath the sun's dying glow, and for the first time, he wondered if survival was even possible.
Night fell like a curtain of iron.
The stars he once dreamed of were veiled behind Rubicon's eternal haze. The cold gnawed at his thin frame. Talon huddled in the shadow of a broken transmission tower, its skeletal frame looming like the fingers of a corpse clawing at the sky.
That was when he heard it.
A sound, faint but distinct: coughing.
His head jerked up. His eyes darted into the gloom. At first, he thought it was a scavenger, and terror locked his body in place. But then the cough came again—weak, desperate, and unmistakably young.
Someone else was out there.
Talon's instincts warred with one another. His father had taught him to avoid strangers. The wasteland was full of liars and killers. Trust was a luxury. Yet something in that frail sound pulled at him, the way his mother's voice used to.
Cautiously, he crept toward the source.
Beneath a collapsed section of roadway, half-hidden in shadow, he found her. A girl, no older than him, her clothes torn and caked in ash. Her face was smudged with soot, but her eyes—wide, dark, and fierce—met his with startling clarity even as her body trembled.
She tried to sit up but failed.
"Water…" she rasped.
Talon froze. He had almost nothing left. Only a small flask, the last drops from his father's canister. His throat screamed for it, his lips cracked with need. But he looked at her—really looked. She was smaller than him, thinner, her hands shaking as she clutched at the dirt. If he walked away, she would die before morning.
And something inside Talon refused to let death win again.
Wordlessly, he pulled the flask from his belt and held it out.
The girl's hands fumbled as she drank, coughing half of it back up, but she managed to swallow enough to steady herself. Her breathing slowed. She lowered the flask and blinked at him.
"…Why?" she whispered.
Talon opened his mouth, but no words came. Why had he done it? He didn't know. He only knew that, in giving her that water, he didn't feel quite so hollow anymore.
Finally, he said the only truth he had:
"Because I don't want to be alone."
Her eyes softened, though suspicion lingered in her gaze. She nodded faintly, as if acknowledging a pact neither of them fully understood yet.
"My name's Mira," she said, voice rough but steady.
Talon hesitated, then answered: "Talon."
The wasteland howled around them, but for the first time since the Shack burned, Talon felt the faint ember of something other than grief. Not hope—not yet—but the possibility of it.
The night pressed close around them.
The broken roadway overhead shielded them from the cold wind, but it also swallowed the last traces of moonlight, leaving them in a cave of shadow. Talon sat with his back against the concrete, clutching his knees to his chest. Mira lay curled a few feet away, her breaths shallow but steady.
Neither of them spoke at first. Silence was safer—it kept the ghosts at bay. But silence also left room for memory, and memory was cruel.
Talon found himself staring at the cracked earth beneath his feet, tracing lines in the dust with his finger. Every so often, his eyes flicked to Mira, half-expecting her to vanish like a dream. But she didn't. She was real, fragile but real.
When her voice finally broke the quiet, it startled him.
"Where are your parents?"
The question stabbed deeper than she could have known. His chest tightened. He wanted to look away, but her eyes—dark, intent, searching—held him in place.
"They're gone," he said at last. His voice was flat, but the words carried weight enough to bow his shoulders.
Mira didn't press. She simply nodded, her gaze drifting to the ceiling of rubble above. A long pause stretched, filled only by the hiss of wind through the broken steel. Then she whispered:
"Mine too."
The confession lingered between them, a quiet bond born from loss. Talon felt the tension in his chest loosen slightly. They didn't need to explain further. Rubicon had taken from them both.
Sleep came reluctantly. Talon dozed in snatches, waking at every sound—the groan of settling metal, the distant growl of engines, the cry of some unseen carrion beast. Each time, he reached instinctively for the shard of rebar tucked at his side, his father's last weapon.
At one point, he stirred to find Mira watching him. Her eyes reflected the faint glow of a dying ember from the fire he'd tried to build.
"You're not going to leave me, are you?" she asked softly.
The question struck him harder than the night's chill. No one had ever asked him that before—not even his parents, who had always assumed survival was a duty, not a choice.
Talon swallowed, throat dry. "No. I won't."
Her gaze lingered on him for a moment longer, then she turned away, satisfied. Within minutes, she drifted into sleep again.
But Talon stayed awake, staring at the ember until it crumbled into ash. He repeated the words in his head like a vow. I won't leave her.
By dawn, hunger had become an ache so sharp it nearly doubled him over. He scavenged the area with Mira trailing behind, her steps unsteady but determined. They found little—bits of scrap metal, shards of plastic, a broken mask. Nothing to eat.
Finally, they came across a dead carrion beast, its body half-picked by scavenger birds. Talon grimaced at the stench, but desperation drowned his disgust. He tore a strip of meat from the carcass, charred it over a meager fire, and handed it to Mira first.
She wrinkled her nose but ate. Survival did not allow choice.
When she finished, she looked at him curiously. "Why did you give me the first bite?"
Talon hesitated. "Because… my mother always said I should."
The memory of her voice tightened his chest, but Mira didn't pry. She simply nodded, as though the answer made perfect sense.
That day, they traveled together. Neither spoke of where they were going—there was no destination, only forward. The ruins stretched endlessly, jagged skeletons of a world that once thrived. Mira limped often, her body weakened by days without food. Talon slowed his pace to match hers, even though impatience gnawed at him.
More than once, he caught himself reaching to steady her when she stumbled. She never thanked him aloud, but the faintest smile tugged at her lips each time.
By evening, when the sky burned with the orange haze of sunset, they had built something fragile but undeniable. Not trust—not yet—but reliance.
And in Rubicon's wastelands, reliance was the first step toward survival.
That night, under the shadow of a crumbling spire, Talon lay awake again. Mira slept close by, her breathing rhythmic. He stared up at the sky, the faint outline of stars struggling against the ash clouds.
For the first time since the Shack burned, he allowed himself to whisper a thought into the dark:
Maybe I don't have to survive alone.
The wind answered with silence, but his chest felt lighter all the same.
The wasteland never stayed quiet for long.
By their second day together, Talon and Mira had learned the rhythm of moving as one—silent hand signals, pauses when the wind shifted, the instinct to drop low at the distant thrum of engines. But instincts could only carry them so far.
They were crouched among the rusted ribs of a collapsed refinery when the scavenger patrol appeared. Four of them, armored in mismatched plating, weapons slung carelessly but eyes sharp. Their laughter carried on the wind, harsh and mocking, like jackals circling a carcass.
Talon's stomach clenched. He motioned for Mira to stay low.
But scavengers were predators by habit, and predators always sniffed out the weak. One of them spotted movement in the rubble.
"Oi! Over there!"
Talon's blood turned to ice.
The scavengers advanced, boots crunching over debris. Mira's hand found Talon's wrist, her grip surprisingly strong for someone so small. He could feel her trembling, but her eyes held steady on his, waiting for him to decide.
Run? Fight? Hide?
His father's voice echoed in his skull: Stay down. But another voice—his own, sharper, harder—rose against it: If we hide, we die.
Talon's hand closed around the rebar shard at his side.
When the first scavenger rounded the rubble, grinning behind his cracked visor, Talon lunged. The rebar drove upward, wild but fueled by desperation. It scraped across the man's armor, biting into the soft joint beneath the arm. The scavenger howled, staggering back.
Mira didn't freeze. She snatched a rock from the ground and hurled it with all her strength, striking another raider square in the faceplate. The man cursed, stumbling.
The sudden resistance shocked them. Children were supposed to cower, not fight.
But Talon wasn't just a child anymore.
The fight was brief, chaotic, filled with shouts and the clash of metal. Talon's arms ached as he swung again and again, every strike a cry for the parents he had lost. Mira darted behind him, throwing debris, distracting, never letting the scavengers focus solely on him.
At last, a distant engine roared—a larger patrol approaching. The raiders cursed, unwilling to waste more time. One spat blood, glaring at Talon with a promise of vengeance.
"We'll remember you, boy," he snarled, clutching his wounded arm. Then they fled into the haze, their laughter gone, replaced by curses.
Talon collapsed against the rubble, chest heaving, arms trembling. His knuckles were raw, the rebar slick with rust and blood.
Mira crouched beside him, her face pale but fierce. "You… you didn't run."
He shook his head, unable to speak. His whole body buzzed with the aftermath of violence—fear, rage, triumph all tangled together.
"You fought," she whispered, as though the word carried power. Then, softer: "For me."
Talon looked at her, really looked. She wasn't just a burden he had chosen to keep alive. She was his reason now. His anchor against the wasteland's pull.
And in her eyes, he saw something he hadn't seen since his mother's smile: belief.
That night, they found shelter in the husk of an old transport truck, its frame twisted and half-buried in ash. They huddled inside, the air heavy with rust and old oil. The silence between them was different now—not empty, but full of unspoken understanding.
Mira broke it first.
"My brother… he didn't make it." Her voice cracked, but she forced the words out. "He told me to run. I ran. But I was too slow."
Talon didn't know what to say. The memory of his own father's last command cut through him like a blade. Stay down.
He reached out, hesitated, then placed a hand on her shoulder. "Then we'll run together. Next time."
Mira's eyes glistened in the dim light, but she nodded. "Together."
It was a word stronger than any vow.
The next morning, the world felt different. The wasteland was still the same—broken towers, choking dust, skies that refused to clear—but Talon's chest felt less hollow.
He was no longer surviving just for himself.
Morning broke in shades of dull red and gray, the sky stained as though the world itself bled. Talon stirred first, blinking against the thin light that filtered through cracks in the transport's hull. For the first time in days, he didn't wake to emptiness. Mira's quiet breathing filled the space beside him.
She looked smaller in sleep, curled tightly with her arms tucked beneath her chin, but her face held a stubborn calm. She had survived another night. They both had.
Talon sat up, stretching sore muscles. Every bruise and scrape throbbed in protest, but beneath the pain, a strange pride settled in his chest. He had fought. He had kept her alive. Maybe that was enough for now.
They scavenged what little the transport offered—frayed wiring, a shattered visor, a small shard of reflective glass Mira insisted on keeping. She held it up to the light, studying her face as if to confirm she was still there, still real.
"What's the point of that?" Talon asked, frowning.
Mira shrugged. "It reminds me I'm human. Not just another shadow in the ash."
Her answer lingered in his mind as they set out again, leaving the husk behind.
The wasteland stretched endlessly, jagged ridges rising in the distance like broken teeth. Every step kicked up dust that clung to their clothes, their hair, their skin. Talon carried the rebar across his back now, its weight both burden and promise. Mira walked beside him, silent but steady, her eyes scanning the horizon with a sharpness he hadn't noticed before.
They didn't talk much. Words felt too heavy to waste. But when the silence grew too deep, Mira broke it with simple questions.
"Do you think there's a place where people don't fight all the time?"
Talon thought of his mother's lullabies, the rivers and fields she had sung about. "Maybe. If there was, the scavengers would've ruined it by now."
Mira gave him a sidelong glance. "Then maybe we'll find it before they do."
Her certainty startled him. Hope sounded reckless in a world like this. But hearing it from her lips made it seem… possible.
By midday, they reached the crest of a ridge. From the top, the wasteland unfolded in all its bleak enormity—burned plains, rusted towers, the skeletal remains of machines too vast for Talon to comprehend. And far on the horizon, a faint shimmer of movement: another convoy.
Talon tensed, instinct urging him to turn back. But Mira's hand brushed his arm.
"Not every convoy is death," she murmured. "Some trade. Some protect. We can't keep running forever."
Her words rattled around inside him. She was right—they couldn't survive on scraps and luck alone. But approaching strangers felt like gambling with their lives.
He shook his head. "Not yet. We're not strong enough."
Mira studied him for a long moment, then nodded. "Then we get stronger."
The simple declaration planted itself like a seed. Talon didn't know how strength was measured in this broken world, but he knew he couldn't let her down. Not after giving her that water. Not after fighting for her. Not after hearing her say together.
That evening, as the sun sank into the haze, they found shelter in the hollow of a collapsed pipeline. They shared the last scraps of dried meat Talon had salvaged, splitting it evenly. Mira smiled faintly as she chewed, as though the meager meal was a feast.
"Today we didn't die," she said. "That's something."
Talon gave a short laugh—strange, raw, the first sound of its kind since before the Shack burned. He lay back against the cold steel and closed his eyes.
"Tomorrow we won't die either," he said firmly, surprising himself with the certainty in his voice.
Mira shifted closer, her warmth easing the chill. "That's a promise?"
Talon opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling of rust and shadow. His father's last words haunted him still, but now they were joined by something new—his own vow, forged not from fear but from determination.
"Yes," he said. "A promise."
The wasteland would test them. It would starve them, hunt them, break them down piece by piece. But as night fell and the first stars dared to pierce the ash, Talon Creed and Mira shared more than scraps of food or fleeting warmth.
They shared the first fragile ember of something stronger than survival.
And from that ember, a fire would one day rise.