The perpetual twilight of Limbo City was the only sky eighteen-year-old Max had ever known. It wasn't a true darkness, but a deep, bruised purple, streaked with slow-moving, blood-orange clouds that never yielded rain. The air was a physical presence, hot and dry, carrying the scent of ozone, rust, and something older, something faintly and unpleasantly organic, like brimstone and decay.
From his perch on a corroded fire escape, twelve stories above the grimy street, Max watched the city breathe. In the distance, the jagged silhouettes of the Baronies—the fortified territories of the city's five ruling monsters—pierced the hellish haze. Closer, the streets teemed with the desperate and the dangerous. It was a symphony of scuffles, distant screams, and the ever-present, low hum of a city eating itself alive.
"Penny for your thoughts?" a voice whispered beside him.
He didn't startle. He knew the sound of her breathing. Stella slid onto the rusted platform beside him, her shoulder brushing his. Her eyes, the colour of polished silver in the gloom, reflected the city's false light. She was all sharp angles and fierce grace, a sparrow raised among vultures.
"A penny's not enough," Max replied, a faint smile touching his lips. "My thoughts are at least a half-coin today. Dark stuff."
"Ooh, a half-coin," Stella grinned, nudging him. "Must be brooding about the philosophical implications of our existence again. Or is it just the gnawing hunger?"
"Both. It's a package deal."
He pulled a small, cloth-wrapped parcel from his pocket. Inside were two crumbling pieces of hardtack and a single, desiccated strip of something that might have been jerky. He broke the hardtack in half and gave her the larger piece along with the jerky.
She took it without thanks; thanks were a currency they didn't use. Their economy was built on shared silence, on stolen moments, on the unshakeable knowledge that in all of Limbo, they only had each other.
"They're showing *The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly* at the Oasis Viewing Pit tonight," Stella said around a mouthful of hardtack. "The sound's supposed to be working. Mostly."
Max's heart gave a familiar, treacherous leap. The Oasis was a dangerous trek, cutting close to the fringes of Baron Krazor's territory. But the thought of seeing the vast, sun-drenched deserts of a world that couldn't possibly exist, of hearing the iconic whistle and gunfire... it was a siren's call.
"That's a two-coin entry," he murmured. "And we're flat broke."
Stella's eyes gleamed with that particular light that always preceded mischief or mayhem. "Which is why we're not paying. Old Man Hemlock is running it. He always posts a guard at the back ventilation shaft. A big one. But he never checks the roof access since the 'Gutter Rat Incident'."
Max chuckled. The "Gutter Rat Incident" had been them, six months ago, when they'd accidentally flooded the pit with a nest of irritated, six-legged rodents. They'd barely escaped with their hides.
"So we play Outlaws and Sheriff?" Max asked, the old game already forming in his mind.
"Always," Stella said, her grin widening. "You're the outlaw. I'm the sheriff. And the prize is a front-row seat to Tuco running through the cemetery."
It was their code, their ritual. The city of Limbo, with its labyrinthine alleyways, its vertical stacks of crumbling architecture, and its network of rusting pipes and conduits, was their frontier. Parkour wasn't a sport; it was their language. They moved through the city not as residents, but as ghosts, using routes no one else saw.
They dropped from the fire escape, their movements a synchronized dance of practiced precision. Max led, his body lean and wiry, finding purchase on a protruding beam, then swinging to a narrow ledge. Stella followed, her movements more fluid, almost silent. They were a contrast—Max was all controlled power and calculated risk, Stella was effortless flow and instinct.
They leaped across chasms that dropped into stinking, dark alleys. They shimmied along pipes that groaned under their weight. They moved through the city's veins, two healthy cells in a cancerous body. This was where they were truly alive. The fear of a missed grip, the thrill of a perfect landing, the shared, breathless laughter when they paused in a hidden alcove—this was their resistance against the crushing weight of Limbo.
Their destination, the Oasis Viewing Pit, was a repurposed industrial drainage basin. A massive, cracked viewscreen was mounted on one wall, and the basin itself was filled with a motley collection of scavenged chairs and cushions. The air was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and cheap, home-brewed liquor.
Just as Stella had predicted, a hulking brute with a face like a smashed fist stood guard by the rattling ventilation grate. But the roof access, a loose panel of corrugated metal, was unguarded. They slipped inside as the opening credits began to roll, the iconic, lonely music swelling from crackling speakers.
For two hours, they were lost. They weren't orphans in a hellscape; they were in the wild west, squinting against a real sun, feeling the dust of a real desert on their skin. Max watched Stella more than the screen. He saw the flickering light illuminate the wonder on her face, the way her lips moved silently with the famous lines. In this stolen light, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
When the film ended and the crowd began to disperse, grumbling back to their grim realities, the spell was broken. The descent back into the city's gutters was always the hardest part.
They took a different route home, hoping to scavenge something—anything—from the less-picked-through refuse heaps on the western edge. It was in a derelict plaza, once a town square, now a graveyard for broken statues and forgotten gods, that their luck ran out.
"Well, well. Look what the Scab-Hound dragged in."
The voice was a sneer, laced with a confidence that only power could provide. From behind the decapitated stone head of some forgotten hero, five figures emerged. They were older, bigger, and better fed than Max and Stella. And at their center was Rake.
Rake, the son of Baron Malakor. He was handsome in a way that was too sharp, too severe to be trustworthy, with a face that seemed carved from marble and malice. But it was the two polished, curved ram horns that swept back from his temples that marked him as something other. A Nephilim. Half-demon. His bloodline granted him strength and speed that a human could never match. His gaze, a piercing, sulphurous yellow, was fixed on Stella with a possessive hunger that made Max's skin crawl.
"If it isn't the gutter rats," Rake said, his lips curling into a smile that was all teeth and no warmth. "Out for an evening stroll? How... quaint."
Max instinctively stepped slightly in front of Stella. "We're just passing through, Rake. We don't want any trouble."
"Trouble?" Rake chuckled, a sound like grinding gravel. "This isn't trouble, human. This is a conversation." His eyes flicked back to Stella. "I've made my offer, Stella. A place in my father's house. Real food. A soft bed. Protection. All you have to do is walk away from this... *rubble*."
Stella's voice was cold steel. "I'd rather sleep in the gutter with the rats than in a palace with a snake. The answer is no. It will always be no."
Rake's smile vanished. The air around him seemed to grow colder, pulling the heat from the very stones. "You disrespect me. In front of my crew." He took a step forward. "That's a mistake people don't get to make twice."
Max clenched his fists. "She said no. Leave it."
Rake's gaze shifted to Max, and the raw, undiluted hatred in it was a physical blow. "You. You're the pebble in my shoe. The stink on her that I can't wash out. You think because you can jump across a few roofs, you're somebody? You're nothing. You're less than nothing. You're a smear waiting to be wiped clean."
He moved with supernatural speed. One moment he was ten feet away, the next his fist was buried in Max's gut. The air exploded from Max's lungs in a whoosh of agony. He doubled over, gasping, the world swimming in and out of focus.
"Max!" Stella screamed.
She launched herself at Rake, a whirlwind of fury, but two of his lackeys caught her, pinning her arms back. She fought like a wildcat, kicking and spitting.
Rake backhanded Max across the face. The sound was a sickening crack. Max stumbled back, tasting blood. The other two boys moved in, their fists and boots becoming a storm of pain. He tried to cover up, tried to fight back, but he was a child against thugs, a human against a demigod.
Rake watched for a moment, his expression bored, before he grabbed a handful of Max's hair and forced his head up. "You see this, Stella? This is what happens to things I don't want. They get broken. And then they get thrown away."
He leaned close, his breath hot in Max's ear. "She will be mine. But you... you will be a lesson."
With a final, contemptuous shove, he sent Max sprawling. "Take him," Rake ordered his two lackeys. "To the Whispering Caves. Make sure he doesn't come back."
"No! Rake, you bastard! Let him go!" Stella's screams were muffled as one of the boys holding her clamped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes, wide with terror and fury, locked with Max's.
Then, with a surge of desperate strength she broke one arm free, elbowing her captor hard in the throat. He gagged and released her. For a glorious, heart-stopping second, she was free. She lunged, not to run, but to attack Rake directly, her fingers aimed for his eyes.
She was a flash of glorious, hopeless defiance. But it was hopeless. Rake caught her wrist effortlessly, his grip like iron. He looked more amused than angry.
"Spirited. I like that," he murmured, then shoved her back into the arms of his recovering thugs. "Hold her. Make sure she watches this part."
The two lackeys dragged Max away, his feet scraping through the dust. He fought, he struggled, but the beating had sapped his strength. He could only watch as the distance between him and Stella grew, her struggling form getting smaller and smaller, her muffled screams the only thing he could hear.
They took him to the edge of the city, to a place where the buildings gave way to raw, weeping rock. The entrance to the Whispering Caves was a gaping maw in the cliffside, a place forbidden by every unspoken law of Limbo. It was said that the caves were old, older than the city, and that they led down to places where even the Barons feared to tread. A river was said to flow through them, the Styx, a waterway of death that consumed all it touched.
Inside, the air grew cold and damp. The only light came from patches of faintly glowing moss that cast long, dancing shadows. The caves did whisper—the sound of the underground river, the drip of water, the wind through fissures, all combining into a soft, sibilant chorus that sounded like dead names.
They reached a cavern where the sound of rushing water was a roar. An underground river, wide and black, churned through the center of the space, its waters looking thick as oil.
"This is far enough," one of them grunted.
They threw him to the ground at the river's edge. The final beating was brutal and efficient. They weren't angry anymore; this was just business. A job to be done. Fists and boots connected with his ribs, his back, his head. The world dissolved into a red haze of pain. He felt something crack in his chest. He coughed, spraying blood onto the dark stone.
Through swollen eyes, he saw Rake enter the cavern, holding a struggling Stella by the arm. Her face was pale, tear-streaked, her eyes pools of utter horror.
"Any last words for your pet, Stella?" Rake asked, his voice echoing in the vast space.
"Max..." Stella whispered, her voice breaking. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Max tried to speak, to tell her it wasn't her fault, to tell her to run, but only a gurgle escaped his bloody lips.
Rake nodded to his lackeys. "Do it."
Strong hands grabbed him, lifting him. For a moment, he was suspended over the churning, black water. He saw Stella's face, a final, perfect image of anguish and love.
Then, he was plunged into the river.
The cold was absolute, a shock that stole what little breath he had left. The water wasn't water; it was liquid ice and darkness. It pulled at him, filling his mouth, his nose, his lungs. He fought, his body screaming for air, his instincts demanding he swim. But the current was too strong, the pain too great. He was a rag doll in the grip of a giant.
His struggles grew weaker. The world darkened at the edges. The roaring in his ears faded to a dull hum. The last of his air escaped his lips in a stream of silver bubbles, rising towards a surface that was now an impossible distance away.
*Stella...* The thought was a final, fading ember.
Then, nothing.
Darkness. Silence. Peace.
His body, limp and lifeless, was carried by the relentless current, sinking deeper into the abyssal black. The river had taken him. It was over.
But then, a sensation of falling. A slow, weightless tumble through a void. The crushing pressure of the water was gone, replaced by a strange, gentle buoyancy.
And a voice. It was not a sound that traveled through the air, but one that resonated directly in the core of his being. It was smooth, soft, ancient, and impossibly kind. It was the voice of a forgotten angel, the sound of the first sunrise on a world without pain.
***"Welcome, Child of Nothing. Vessel of Vengeance. Welcome... to me."***
His eyes, against all reason, against all laws of life and death, fluttered open.
The sight that greeted him would be seared into his soul for eternity. He was floating in a vast, empty space, a cavern so immense its ceiling and walls were lost in gloom. And there, in the center of it all, was a being.
It was a giant, a titan of obsidian flesh and shadow, seated on a throne of what looked like fused bone and despair. It was impossibly, terrifyingly magnificent. Its form was humanoid but wrought on a scale that defied comprehension. And it was bound. Massive chains, each link glowing with intricate, pulsating runes of silver and gold, coiled around its limbs, its torso, its throat, anchoring it to the throne and the very floor of the cavern. The chains hummed with a power that made the air vibrate.
Max's gaze, hazy and unfocused, traveled up the colossal form to the being's face. He could not make out its features, but he felt its attention upon him, a weight as tangible as the world he had left behind.
His eyes, unable to process the magnitude of the vision, fluttered shut again. The soft, dark embrace of unconsciousness took him, the angelic voice still echoing in the silence of his mind.