Cold concrete pressed against Lucen’s cheek.
Dust clogged his throat, dry and bitter.
Lucen forced his heavy eyelids open.
A masked man loomed directly above him, blocking out the dim overhead light.
The stranger’s presence felt suffocating, heavy with an unnatural pressure that made the air hard to breathe.
“You woke up.” The man let out a sharp, erratic laugh.
It bounced off the basement walls.
“You’re the key we were looking for.
And we will put you to much better use than you ever could yourself.” A hand reached into a dark coat.
The man drew a small dagger.
The metal didn’t reflect the flickering light of the room.
It drank it in.
Jagged lines scarred the flat of the blade, forming unfamiliar runic letters.
The symbols possessed sharp, chaotic angles that didn’t match any modern language.
They looked ancient.
“Recovered from the rifts,” the man whispered.
He turned the weapon, admiring the dark edge.
“Standard resonance won’t activate it.
Dead tech, they called it.
But the unique energy you possess?
That’s exactly the food it craves.” A heavy boot planted onto the floor beside Lucen’s face.
Before he could twitch a muscle, rough hands grabbed his shoulder and shoved him over.
He hit the dirt on his stomach.
“Don’t worry.” Steel broke skin.
The blade drove straight into the base of his spine, severing his connection to his own legs in an instant.
The world went perfectly silent.
Agony locked his jaw and crushed his chest, trapping his scream behind his teeth.
“You won’t die.
I won’t let you,” the man added.
A wicked smile stretched the bottom half of his visible face.
Beneath the skin, something pulled.
The dagger acted like a vacuum, latching onto the dormant energy inside Lucen’s core.
The ancient runes etched into the metal flared to life, burning with a sickly, corrupt light as they gorged on his essence.
“Yes,” the man breathed.
“Yes…” Static hissed loudly in the cramped room.
The man’s earpiece crackled.
“Don’t kill the specimen.” The rest of the basement ceased to exist.
The cold concrete, the dim light, the masked man, all of it washed away beneath a blinding tide of white-hot pain.
His vision splintered into dark, useless shadows.
Then, the fire in his nerves just…
snapped.
The agonizing pressure in his spine vanished.
The damp smell of blood and dirt was gone.
He wasn’t lying on his stomach anymore.
He was standing.
A flickering, static haze bled through the darkness.
It was a dead world.
Grey light filtered through a shattered ceiling overhead.
A ruined workshop stretched out around him, absolutely silent.
Dust hung completely frozen in the still air.
Shattered tools and rusted metal littered the floor of the destroyed rooms.
In the corner, a single workbench flickered.
It hummed.
A low, heavy vibration rattled his teeth.
The station pulsed with a frantic rhythm, like an engine trying to sync with his own heartbeat.
Lucen stared at the pale glow.
The foreign signal just scraped against his mind, making absolutely no sense.
Before he could take a single step, the dead world shattered like glass.
The explosion hit without warning.
Sound ceased to exist, replaced by a physical shockwave that punched through the basement walls.
The ceiling caved in.
Concrete shattered into jagged shrapnel.
Twisted rebar screamed as tons of rubble crashed down from the floor above.
The blast wave picked the masked man up like a ragdoll.
It slammed him hard against the far concrete wall.
Dust choked out the remaining light.
Lucen lay buried under a layer of powdered cement and plaster.
His eyes snapped open.
They didn’t see the dark.
They emitted a blinding, brilliant white light.
Searing heat pumped through his cardiovascular system.
Thick, glowing veins bulged violently against his pale skin, straining so hard they looked ready to burst straight out of his flesh.
Across the ruined room, rubble shifted.
Groaning, the masked man pushed a chunk of cinderblock off his chest and stood up.
Dirt coated his dark clothes.
His earpiece whined with a tiny, frantic voice over the ringing silence.
“Agent, do you copy?
What happened?
Is the specimen alright?” The man swatted dust from his shoulder.
“It’s fine now, would you shut up!” He turned his masked face toward the floor.
His gaze locked onto the glowing veins pulsing beneath Lucen’s skin.
“Persistent little shit, aren’t you?” “Still have some tricks left, huh?” Lucen tried to drag himself backward.
His body refused to obey.
A lingering, agonizing burn radiated from the puncture wound in his spine, paralyzing his lower half.
He could only whimper, coughing up chalky dust as tears streaked through the grime on his face.
Heavy footsteps closed the distance.
The man stood over him again.
A steel-toed boot raised high.
It came down hard on Lucen’s right hand.
A sickening crack snapped through the air.
Lucen’s mouth tore open.
A raw, bloody scream ripped through his throat.
The fresh wave of pure torment spiked through his nervous system, completely overriding the glow in his veins.
His vision blurred into a soupy, useless mess of grey and black shadows.
The man didn’t care about the screaming.
He grabbed Lucen by the collar, threw the boy over his shoulder, and climbed the mountain of collapsed concrete.
They emerged through the jagged hole in the ceiling.
Rain poured into the ruined ground floor.
Smashed ceramic pots and crushed lilies littered the cracked tiles, churning into a thick, muddy sludge beneath the agent’s boots.
A low vibration started.
The remaining shards of glass in the shop’s shattered display windows rattled in their frames.
The shaking intensified rapidly.
Dust began to fall from the cracked rafters overhead.
BOOM.
The rest of the flower shop’s roof caved in.
Massive wooden beams and slabs of roofing slammed down into the tight space, kicking up a thick, blinding cloud of grey mist.
The masked man stumbled back, tightening his grip on Lucen’s legs.
From within the swirling dust, a heavy thud shook the ground.
A massive crimson claw slammed onto the broken tiles, crushing a terracotta pot to powder.
The mist parted.
A Mawback stood in the center of the ruined shop.
But this wasn’t standard urban vermin.
Blood-red scales armored its thick hide, overlapping like steel plates.
Its build was horribly streamlined, all coiled muscle and jagged edges.
A hunter.
Specially bred for tracking and killing.
Saliva dripped from jaws lined with teeth the size of combat knives.
It’s red eyes locked onto the glowing veins still faintly pulsing on Lucen’s neck.
The monstrous beast lunged.
It didn’t roar.
It moved with terrifying, silent speed.
The masked man swore, throwing Lucen roughly to the muddy floor.
He shifted his stance and stepped directly into the Mawback’s path.
A claw swiped through the air.
The man ducked, but the sheer size of the beast clipped his shoulder.
Fabric ripped.
Blood sprayed as the glancing blow tore his right arm open.
The impact shoved the man back half a step.
He didn’t flinch.
He just planted his boot, tilted his head, and stared up at the towering monster.
“Fuck off.” His jaw locked.
“The rat belongs to me.” His left hand snapped out.
He drew the runic dagger again.
This time, the ancient weapon wasn’t dark.
It glowed fiercely, radiating the stolen, pristine white light of Lucen’s origin energy.
The Mawback didn’t care about the glowing blade.
It cared about the meal bleeding on the floor.
It snapped its jaws and charged again.
The fight broke out in the cramped ruins of the flower shop.
Shelves and display stands boxed them in, leaving barely ten feet of combat space.
The masked man moved first.
He was fast.
He sidestepped a brutal bite, using the tight space to his advantage.
He planted his boot against the load-bearing pillar.
The hard shove spun his weight perfectly.
The glowing dagger lashed out, carving a clean, burning line across the beast’s thick neck scales.
White light hissed against crimson armor.
The beast flinched, slamming its heavy tail into a row of metal shelving.
The structure crumpled like foil.
The man pressed the attack.
His footwork was a masterclass in tight-quarters combat.
He ducked under a wild swipe, stepped inside the monster’s guard, and drove the the dagger into the Mawback’s knee joint.
The beast buckled.
The man followed up with a vicious slash across its chest, carving a smoking line through the red scales.
For a brief, moment, the human held the upper hand.
The burning cut didn’t slow the beast.
Instead of pulling away, the Mawback leaned into the blade.
It snapped its massive jaws, using the momentum to lunge straight for the man’s throat.
It drove a massive claw straight into the man’s chest.
Ribs cracked.
The agent flew backward, crashing through a rotten wooden counter.
Dust and splinters filled the air.
The man scrambled up, gasping for breath.
The beast didn’t give him a second.
It battered him back with sheer, relentless power.
Claws tore chunks of concrete from the walls.
The tight space became a death trap.
The man parried desperately, but the raw strength of the red Mawback overwhelmed his practiced precision.
On the floor, Lucen dragged his chin through the mud.
His blurred eyes scanned the scattered debris.
A familiar metallic shape poked out from under a crushed flower pot.
The baton.
His right hand was a shattered mess.
Useless.
Digging his left elbow into the mud, Lucen dragged his weight forward.
Every breath shot fire up his spine.
Trembling fingers finally brushed cold metal.
Please.
He pulled the baton close.
A bloody thumb pressed down on the trigger.
“Just give me one spark.
Come on, you piece of junk.
Work.” Nothing.
The casing remained dead.
A massive shadow swallowed the remaining light.
The Mawback loomed directly over him, completely ignoring the bleeding agent.
Rusted teeth parted.
Hot, rotting breath slammed into his face.
Move.
His brain screamed the command.
The broken body underneath didn’t listen.
The jaws clamped down.
Bone crunched.
The beast jerked its massive head, violently ripping the boy right off the pavement.
Suffocating pressure crushed his midsection.
Teeth sheared through his ribs.
Half his body dangled helplessly outside the monster’s maw, but his mangled right arm was pinned deep inside its throat.
His fingers were still wrapped around the dead baton.
“I am not dying in the dark.
Not like this.
Not for nothing.” Panic completely drowned out the agony.
Forcing his shattered hand to close, he squeezed the metal grip.
Tendons snapped.
Broken bones grated against each other.
His thumb jammed the trigger one last time.
“Fire, damn it!” Then the time stopped.
The wet, suffocating darkness vanished.
Static ripped across his vision.
Glimpses of the dead, silent world he had just seen flashed across his mind’s eye.
The floating debris.
The endless void.
And that ruined stone table, its strange ancient runes suddenly flaring with a blinding, furious light.
Click.
The baton activated.
A blinding surge of raw, superheated plasma erupted directly inside the Mawback’s mouth.
The sound was deafening.
The confined blast had nowhere to go but outward.
The searing energy tore violently through the beast’s internal organs, incinerating tissue in a fraction of a second.
The plasma sought the path of least resistance.
It found the deep, smoking gash the masked man had carved into the creature’s chest moments before.
A beam of blue-white fire burst out from the creature’s chest cavity, vaporizing the red scales.
The beast unleashed a gurgling, tortured shriek that rattled the remaining glass in the street.
In its death throes, pure animal reflex took over.
The massive jaw muscles convulsed in a violent spasm.
The rusted iron teeth sank agonizingly deep into Lucen’s torso.
Blood flooded his mouth.
His vision went completely white.
Driven by the frenzied, mindless agony of its burning insides, the dying Mawback coiled its powerful legs.
It took one final, titanic leap upward.
The beast smashed through the remaining ruined framework of the ceiling.
Wood splintered.
Metal screamed.
They launched into the sky.
The sudden, violent rush of altitude ripped the remaining breath right from Lucen’s lungs.
Gravity inverted.
The ground fell away.
As he hung limply from the locked jaws of the airborne monster, he forced his fading eyes open.
He saw the true sky for the very first time.
Vast, endless grey clouds stretched out in every direction.
The icy, untainted air of the outside world whipped against his bruised face.
It smelled like rain.
No dust.
No concrete.
Just open, beautiful space.
Gravity caught them at the peak of the jump.
Lucen looked down.
The ruined cityscape stretched out below him in a jagged maze of broken streets and collapsed buildings.
Directly below, amidst the rubble of the street, he saw Kai.
His brother was covered in dirt and blood, fighting desperately.
Kai swung his baton, tearing through a pack of smaller scavengers, pushing wildly toward the flower shop.
Toward Lucen’s last known position.
As the massive red Mawback soared overhead, casting a large shadow over the street, Kai froze.
He stood perfectly still in the midst of the carnage.
His weapon dropped a few inches.
He stared up at the sky in pure, unadulterated shock.
“Run,” Lucen thought.
Behind Kai, a pile of concrete debris shifted.
Another shadow emerged from the wreckage.
A second Mawback, slightly smaller but just as vicious, climbed silently onto a wrecked car.
It coiled its legs.
It lunged straight at Kai’s unprotected back.
Lucen opened his mouth to scream.
To yell a warning.
To scream his brother’s name.
Nothing came out.
His throat was full of thick, warm blood.
His voice failed him completely.
Only a wet gurgle escaped his lips.
Life finally abandoned the burning beast carrying him.
The massive red creature went totally limp in midair.
Its momentum died.
The heavy corpse began to plummet back toward the earth at a terrifying speed.
Wind roared in Lucen’s ears.
The ground rushed up to meet them.
Without the beast’s active muscle tension holding it shut, the rigid lock of its jaws loosened just enough.
A split second before impact, Lucen slipped free from the dead mouth.
He hit the ground hard.
His body skidded brutally across the broken pavement of the street, tearing his clothes and shredding his skin.
He rolled three times before finally coming to a dead stop against the rusted tire of an abandoned car.
He lay there on his back, utterly shattered and bleeding out onto the asphalt.
He couldn’t turn his head.
He couldn’t check on Kai.
He could only stare straight up at the vast expanse above him.
The first heavy drops of rain fell.
The cold water hit his face, washing the dirt and blood from his cheeks.
He watched the heavy, grey clouds move in, closing the gap in the atmosphere, slowly hiding the beautiful sky once more.