The city was dead. Concrete skeletons of skyscrapers clawed at the ash-choked sky, their broken windows reflecting nothing but darkness. Streets stretched like scarred veins across the ruins, littered with the remnants of lives long abandoned, rusted cars, shattered signs, tattered banners fluttering in the wind like ghosts of a forgotten world. Silence ruled here, broken only by the occasional whisper of the wind, carrying the faint, acrid stench of smoke and decay.
Kael Veyron crouched in the shadow of a collapsed overpass, eyes scanning the horizon. Hunger gnawed at his ribs, sharp and relentless, but it wasn't food alone that kept him alert, it was the quiet threat of those who still walked the ruins.
Humans had changed since the cataclysm. Some had awakened. Powers, they called them. Powers that could bend steel, burn flesh, or twist reality itself. He had never seen one in person. Not yet.
The weight of the scavenged supplies on his back was a cold reminder of what little he had to survive with, water, a few scraps of protein, a battered knife, a small first aid kit. Even these paltry belongings had to be hidden from the others, the desperate, the dangerous. Life had become a constant negotiation with death, each day a gamble.
Kael's eyes drifted across the shattered landscape. The city had once been full of noise, life, ambition. Now it was a graveyard. Rusted billboards flapped like tattered
wings, their bright advertisements faded into meaningless streaks of color.
Cars were stacked like toys in twisted heaps, their glass shattered. The occasional journal or notebook lay open on the ground, pages smeared with ink,
recounting the mundane life of someone who had long since perished. Kael had
read a few of them in passing, unable to find solace, only the bitter reminder that life had once been ordinary here.
A distant groan echoed from the ruins, a sound that set his nerves on edge. He tightened his grip on the knife strapped to his belt. His pulse thumped in his ears. This was no ordinary city; this was a hunting ground. And in the shadows, prey and predator were often one and the same.
He adjusted his satchel and moved cautiously toward a fallen building that had once been a small grocery store. The skeleton of a metal door frame groaned in the wind as he ducked inside. Inside, dust and debris choked the dim light that filtered
through shattered windows. Kael moved silently, scavenging, small cans of
preserved food, a few bottles of water, a broken flashlight. Every find was a
lifeline, every sound a warning.
Kael paused, as a memory surged unbidden: the day it all began.
The first tremors had shaken the city like a warning drumbeat. At first, everyone thought It was another earthquake. But the ground had cracked open, swallowing cars,
people, whole streets. The sky had turned an angry red, and from the fissures
emerged shadows—humans, twisted and strange, with eyes that glowed like embers.
And then the powers had appeared.
He remembered his family. His sister, laughing as she chased him through the empty streets, oblivious to the danger. His mother, holding him close as the world
broke apart. They hadn't survived. Kael had been left alone, scraping through
the ruins, learning to move silently, to survive.
A movement caught his eye. Shadows twisting unnaturally along the cracked asphalt outside the grocery store. Kael froze. At first, he didn't recognize the figure—then he saw her.
Lyra Solis.
She stepped from behind the ruins of a collapsed billboard, calm, almost serene, despite the chaos of the world around her. Black tendrils of shadow clung to her,
curling and shifting like living smoke. Kael's instincts screamed to run, yet
something in her gaze stopped him.
"You shouldn't be here," she said, voice low, almost a whisper, yet it cut through
the silence like a blade.
Kael's fingers tightened around the knife. "Neither should you."
Her lipscurved into a faint, knowing smile. "Then perhaps we're both survivors. For
now."
A sudden roar split the air. From the end of the street, a pack of twisted figures, humans, but not quite, rushed toward them. Their eyes glowed faintly red, movements jerky and unnatural, like puppets cut from their strings. Kael's stomach dropped. These weren't scavengers or desperate survivors, they were predators.
Adrenaline surged. He raised his knife, swinging at the nearest figure. But it passed
through its chest as if it were smoke. Panic clenched his chest. Then something deeper awakened. A spark of energy flared inside him, hot and wild. The air around his hands shimmered, bending with invisible force. The figures recoiled, confused, their jerky movements faltering. Kael's breath caught.
Lyra's eyes widened slightly, shadow coiling faster around her. "You've awakened," she
said, almost reverently. "And not by accident."
Kael stared at his trembling hands. The world around him felt different, edges sharper, sounds louder, shadows darker. Something had shifted. Something dangerous.
The pack regained momentum, rushing forward with hunger in their glowing eyes.
Kael stepped back, fear clawing at him, yet the power inside him pulsed and
responded. He felt it flowing through his veins, like a tethered storm
desperate to break free. With a surge of instinct he did not yet understand, the energy burst outward. The
nearest figure was thrown back, smoke curling from its body. Kael stumbled,
heart pounding, mind racing.
Lyra stepped closer, shadows swirling protectively. "You're not safe here, Kael. But
if you survive tonight, I'll teach you control. And then… we might have a chance."
Kael swallowed hard, the city's ruins pressing in on all sides. Survival had always
been simple, hide, scavenge, stay alive. But tonight, the rules had changed.
The night stretched ahead, dark and endless, as the whispers of the awakened—both ally
and enemy, lingered in the shadows. And in the ruins of the apocalypse, a new
kind of power had emerged.