The air tasted like death. Burnt sulfur, dust, and scorched metal; every breath tore at his throat. The landscape around him was no longer a city, but a concrete graveyard. Gutted buildings stood like giant carcasses, twisted, deformed, swallowed by time.
The sky, tinted with a sickly ochre, was streaked with lightning without thunder. As if the storm had broken long ago… and refused to die.
He moved alone along a shattered road, his steps kicking up fragments of asphalt. Burned-out cars littered the ground, doors hanging open, frozen in their final escape.
Something was wrong. The air vibrated. Everything was too quiet.
Danger…
His instinct screamed before thought could even form.
He froze, muscles tense, eyes searching every crack in the surroundings. The silence wasn't natural. It didn't soothe — it threatened. He quickened his pace, his heart already pounding too hard in his chest.
Too quiet… this stinks.
He started running. His strides hammered the road, his body protesting, still battered from his previous fights. But instinct dominated everything.
I need to get out of here fast.
A heavy rumble tore through the silence behind him. Not a cry. Not an animal roar. No… something bigger. Older.
The ground vibrated beneath his feet. A presence was approaching.
"Fuck."
He veered between two gutted buildings and dove behind a rusted container.
His breath cut short. His muscles refused to move.
Cold sweat slid down the back of his neck.
He cast a quick glance through the gap in a crumpled sheet of metal.
What he saw froze his insides.
A gigantic mass crossed the street, crushing the ground beneath its weight. An armored creature, taller than two men, covered in thick, black bony plates. Its skin looked carved from raw stone, its shoulders bristling with chitinous blades ready to pierce anything.
Its split jaw snapped slowly, grinding the remains of another monster it was still dragging between its teeth.
Each step made the ground tremble. Not fast. Not nervous. No. Slow. Calculated. Like an apex predator, utterly confident.
Shit… this kind of monster is never here by accident.
If it spotted him, he was dead. No doubt. No escape. That thing wasn't a simple mutant. It was a living destroyer.
He held his breath, trying to silence even the pounding of his heart. The creature stopped. Its head slowly turned… in his direction.
It sniffed the air.
He felt his blood freeze.
His body was pressed flat against the wall.
He didn't dare move.
A fly circled him.
Its buzzing was unbearable.
He waved a hand to chase it away.
The movement was too wide.
His foot sank into something.
He slowly lowered his gaze.
A carcass.
Decomposed.
Impossible to identify.
The beast sniffed again… then suddenly roared, a monstrous sound that shook the ruins down to their foundations. The roar shattered the air, broke distant windows, and hurled dust everywhere.
He flinched. No time to think.
Now!
He burst out of hiding.
Sprint. Pure instinct. No plan, no strategy. Just run.
He glanced back.
Eyes wide open.
A cloud of dust rushed forward at full speed.
Chunks of concrete flew behind him, pulverized by the colossus's charge. The ground shook, the air vibrated with the impact. Every second separated him from death.
But the beast didn't follow him into the ruins — too massive to slip through the narrow corridors of collapsed concrete.
He gulped down a mouthful of burning air.
Still alive.
Fuck… what was that?
He kept running, refusing to stop. Because he knew it: in this world, stopping meant dying.
But another sound cut through the air. Not a rumble this time. A growl. Two of them.
He skidded to a halt.
Two shapes emerged from a cloud of dust.
Mutant dogs. Split jaws, protruding bones, dry skin stretched tight over their ribs. Beasts that lived only to track… and devour.
Seriously… you again?
They lunged without warning.
The first came straight at him, claws out. He raised his forearms to absorb the impact and was thrown to the ground by the sheer force. His head slammed against a slab of concrete, a white flash tearing through his vision.
He tried to get up — too late.
The second mutant circled and clamped its jaws around his thigh.
"GAAAH!"
Pain exploded. Pure. Sharp. A shock that surged up his leg, pierced his spine, and twisted his skull. The fangs sank deep, searching for bone. Blood sprayed in thick jets, splattering the dust.
He screamed and struck the beast's head, but it tightened its grip, growling with pleasure.
The first mutant charged again, jaws wide, ready to bite. He raised his forearm and barely blocked it. Teeth tore into his flesh, grazing his jugular vein. One more inch and it was over.
His back slammed brutally against a concrete wall.
Trapped. Crushed.
Move… move, damn it!
He fought with animal fury. His free arm groped blindly across the ground, searching for a weapon. Anything. His fingers hit cold metal. A rusted blade, broken, eaten away by time.
But a weapon was still a weapon.
He grabbed it and drove it with all his strength into the eye of the mutant clamped onto his leg.
CRACK.
The blade sank in with a dry, repulsive sound. The mutant howled and recoiled, tearing away chunks of flesh as it released its grip.
No time to hesitate. He turned and struck the second mutant with a furious backhand. The blow wasn't precise or elegant. It was desperate. Brutal.
He leapt onto the stunned beast and brought the rusted blade down again and again, like a hammer on a nail. Once. Twice. Three times. Until the skull gave way with a wet crack.
Blood splashed across his face. He didn't stop. Not until the body stopped moving.
Silence.
A heavy silence, saturated with the stench of opened flesh and rusted metal.
He panted, fingers clenched around the blood-soaked handle. His heart was racing. His leg was pouring blood.
But he was alive.
I got too confident… fighting with a piece of scrap… what a stupid mistake.
He staggered, breath ragged, vision blurred. Each heartbeat sent a burning pulse through his torn thigh. The pain was no longer a warning — it was a scream.
His legs threatened to give out, but he refused to fall.
Not now… not here…
He leaned against a wall, a trail of blood running down his leg to the ground.
The bite had torn away more than flesh — it had opened his leg wide enough to expose bone. The sight made him want to vomit.
Fuck…
He tore a piece of fabric from his cloak and wrapped his thigh. Not for the pain.
To survive.
His fingers trembled. His skin was cold. He was losing too much blood. Far too much.
He clenched his teeth and tied a makeshift tourniquet around his leg. The fabric immediately soaked red. It burned. It throbbed. It hurt enough to rip involuntary groans from his throat.
But he pulled again. Harder.
The bleeding slowed… then stopped.
A dull pain surged violently up to his pelvis.
Enough to stop the hemorrhage.
Breathe… tighten… hold…
His vision wavered. The world swayed around him. Black spots gnawed at the edges of his sight.
He slapped himself. Once. Twice.
Just enough to stay conscious.
You sleep, you die. You keep moving, you've got a chance.
He moved. One step. Then another. Slowly.
Every step was agony. His mangled leg threatened to give way at any moment.
Survival had never given him a choice.
Between two ruins, a metallic glint caught his eye.
A hatch.
Discreet. Almost deliberately hidden beneath the rubble.
What is this…?
He limped closer and placed a hand on it. Cold. Solid. Real.
An option. Maybe a chance. Maybe a trap.
I don't have the luxury to hesitate.
He cleared away the debris, opened the hatch with a shrill creak, and descended.
Darkness swallowed him immediately.
The air was different down here: heavy, damp, thick with the smell of stone and stagnant dust. Drops of water fell somewhere in the darkness, marking his descent.
Ploc. Ploc. Ploc.
As he moved forward, the surface world seemed to fade away behind him.
He entered a tunnel carved beneath the ruins, reinforced with metal plates. Not a makeshift shelter. Not coincidence.
Someone had built this.
He inhaled, despite the pain. A thought crossed his mind. Absurd. Irrational.
Maybe… maybe someone is still alive here.
A dry, tired laugh escaped him.
"Survivors… or something else."
But it was too late to turn back.
He moved forward, drawn toward the unknown by an invisible pull.
Something was waiting for him here.
Someone had dug this place.
And no one digs beneath hell for nothing.