The Soul Curse was a force of nature, a phenomenon that could occur to the soul of any mortal human. Winter had just become 16 years old, meaning that he was now susceptible to the Soul Curse. The Soul Curse was a blessing... or a curse to anyone who was infected.
Winter lacked the basic education that was provided to people in the impregnable Bastions, and was not very well informed about the world outside the Ruins and its surroundings, however...
He had heard rumors about the Soul Curse and the Soul realm. He knew it was not some made up bullshit since there were mystical beasts that wandered around.
They came from rifts in space, that created gateways for creatures from the Soul realm to descend into the living realm. He had seen one while hunting...
He only escaped alive because the damned wolf-like creature was wounded in the leg and was unable to pursue him.
People who were chosen by the Soul Curse would leave their body behind and ascend to a higher level of being, thus being transported to the Soul realm. When ascending they would be brought to the Soul realm, gaining powerful abilities related to their innate soul's affinities. But the Soul realm was dangerous, containing a myriad of lethal threats.
That was all Winter knew about it.
'If I was infected, would I survive?' Winter thought, but he quickly banished that thought out of his mind.
It was useless to think about anyway. only an incredibly small fraction of humans get the chance to ascend.
***
After aimlessly daydreaming about the good life and the Soul Curse, Winter arrived at the square. It used to serve as the center of the city, long ago.
But now it was just a big pile of stone.
It had taken Winter some time to travel from his place to the square. Looking up at the sky, the sun was at its highest and was starting to descend.
'Past noon, better get this over with.'
Winter climbed over a few especially large pieces of debris to get a good look at his surroundings.
But before he reached the top he heard something.
Footsteps...
Judging from the sound, Winter could tell how many of them there were.
'Three, four... no wait, five.'
There were approximately five people behind the debris. After a while, the noise of footsteps started fading out, giving Winter a chance to peek over the stones and take a look at the situation.
He stuck his head out just barely enough to get a clear view of the square.
There was a large building with granite pillars, the entrance to the building was barricaded by medium-sized boulders and he saw traces of habitation from the narrow openings in the barricade.
The bandits were now barely visible in the distance, but Winter caught a glimpse of them before dissipating into the fog.
After he looked around and determined that no one was home, he was ready to make his move. The square was filled with a dead silence, the only sound he heard was the beating of his heart.
'Come on, no backing out now.'
After lingering for a few moments he dashed forward and started descending from the large pieces of debris, causing some pebbles to fall and hit the stone pavement. Their impact echoed in the square filling Winter with an inexplicable feeling of dread.
Running to the barricade and jumping over a tripwire on the ground, serving as an alarm system of some sorts, Winter couldn't help but think:
'This is too easy.'
'I didn't even need to distract those fools.'
Before making his move, Winter had caught a glimpse of the bandit gang walking away from the square.
They were fitted in hunting gear, meaning that they would not come back for a while.
But his instincts would not allow him to just sit back and wait for them so he had to make this quick.
After running through the halls of the giant building and finding nothing but empty rooms he started thinking that there was no food to begin with.
Until...
He arrived at the end of the hall and behind large pieces of rubble, almost perfectly hidden, there was a doorframe leading to a small storage room.
'There!'
He wormed his way through the tiny openings and found himself in a considerably well-preserved room. It had chests and tall shelves, but no food in sight yet...
He glanced at the biggest chest located at the middle end of the room, there was a large trunk lock hanging at the mouth of the chest.
Winter stared at it for a moment and let out a groan.
'Are you serious right now!?'
He could not believe his luck. Chests with functioning locks, where the hell did they get those? And since when?
Winter had stolen from this particular gang a few times before when his food supply was low, so he would have never expected this.
After looking around and noticing a lone piece of moldy bread on a plank, he sighed and grabbed it with a gloomy expression written on his face.
'This will do... I guess.'
At the same time, outside the building, a figure of people could be seen slowly emerging from the hazy mist permeating the Ruins...