Chapter 2: The Scavenger’s Scheme
The desolation of the old Valebreach groaned under the weight of a dying world, its shattered structures clawing at a sky scarred with violet sequence of destruction.
The air was thick with ash, the ground was littered with twisted metal and bones ravaged to ash-white by endless rift maelstrom. Kelvin hunched behind a crumbled wall, his breath was faint, and his fingers tightening around a makeshift spear, little more than a pipe sharpened against stone.
At nineteen, he was lean, hardened by hunger, his dark eyes scanning the rubble for threats. In the wastes, you didn’t survive by dreaming of heroes or gods. You survived by moving fast, striking hard, and trusting nothing but your own strength.
A deep snarl echoed across the valley, vibrating the broken concrete beneath his boots.
Kelvin froze, his heart was pounding. The mutated hounds had been stalking him since dawn, their electrified claws sparking against the ruins. Three of them, maybe four, Based on the mingled growls. He had scavenged too close to their territory, lured by rumors of pre-apocalypse tech buried in a bunker beneath the city’s heart.
Tech meant trade.
Trade meant food.
And food meant another day above ground.
The first torment lunged from the shadows, a blur of snarled fur and Veins lit like starlight beneath the skin.