Cold wasn’t the first thing he noticed. Instead, it was the weight. An impossibly heavy, suffocating pressure on every inch of his skin, like a second body wrapped around his own. Then came the cold, a thick, pulsing chill that slid into his lungs and refused to leave.His eyes opened underwater, or something close to it. The liquid he was currently immersed in was too viscous and too slow to be actual water. Pale blue light pulsed somewhere beyond the curved glass wall that surrounded him and shadows rippled at the edge of his vision.He tried to move but his limbs responded like they were receiving distant signals through fog. The moment his fingers brushed the interior of the glass, a sharp hiss split the silence. Multiple tubes detached from the container with a violent shudder, fluid rushed away from his face, and gravity slammed into him like a fist.He collapsed onto the metal floor, coughing up cold gel in wet bursts. Each breath fought its way through his throat like it was r

Cael’s heart pounded as he glanced at the control panel. The mechanism opening the door was slow, too slow. There was no way it would open before this thing turned him into a red smear on the ground.The warning lights above the final bulkhead pulsed in steady red flashes, painting the metallic corridor with stuttering veins of crimson. A grinding hum filled the space as the massive door began to slide open, inch by aching inch. The world beyond remained out of reach, close enough to see, but too far to touch.Cael’s bare feet scraped against the floor as he walked forward, his chest heaving and his breath ragged. The cold, recycled air tasted like dust and ozone. Behind him, freedom crept closer. In front of him, death walked without hurry.The Black Herald stepped through the crumbling corridor, frame too broad for the walls it passed. Its armor was seamless and obsidian-dark, parts shifting with unnatural grace. Every step it took carried the weight of certainty, reminding Cael of

The wasteland didn’t change much as Cael pressed forward. Everywhere he looked, it was the same gray horizon, the same broken skeletons of buildings reaching out like rusted fingers. He couldn’t tell how far he’d walked, only that the shadows had shifted again, and the sun, if that dim white orb behind the clouds could still be called a sun, had crept westward.His legs felt like they were moving automatically now. His grip on the Herald’s spear had loosened, but he didn’t let go. The ache in his arms was fading now, not because it had healed, but because everything else inside him was starting to go numb.He tried not to think but that didn’t work.Every corner he turned, every shattered ruin he passed, demanded he put the pieces together. The world was broken, yes, but so was he. And unlike the landscape, he didn’t even have the excuse of history. He had nothing, just fragments and pieces of lives that didn’t feel like his own.Cael paused beside a shattered transport vehicle half-b

The road didn’t feel like a road. Not the way Cael imagined one should, anyway. It was fractured in long, uneven slabs, the once-solid concrete now split by veins of creeping ash and buried cables that still hummed faintly if you stepped just right. The sky remained a constant shade of gray, soft and sunless, stretching like a ceiling too high to reach.Cael kept close to the group though he didn’t speak much. Arlen filled the silence with the occasional muttered instruction or offhand remark, pointing out signs Cael wouldn’t have noticed on his own; markers scratched into collapsed pillars, a trail of scorch marks, a broken satellite dish bent in a strange, deliberate angle.They meant something. All of it did. He filed all of them away. Memorizing patterns came easily. Understanding people didn’t.The girl with the circuit belt, her name was Malie, seemed to watch him more than the others. She had been the next to introduce herself to him, but she didn’t speak often either, though w

The Reclaimer’s attention turned sharply, full weight shifting as its servos reloaded for another charge. Its eyes pulsed with a dull blue glow, but Cael didn’t wait for it to come to him.He lunged forward, and for first time since he got the weapon, the spear in his grip felt at home in his grasp. Every movement felt anchored in something his body remembered better than his mind. He cut low and fast, aiming straight for the damaged seam he’d exposed earlier. The tip of the spear glanced off the Reclaimer’s outer plating but dug in just enough to catch.The machine twisted, fast and violent, forcing Cael to disengage. It struck back with its bladed arm, carving an arc through the space he had just moved out of. He pivoted left and planted his feet, slipping behind it as the spear came around for another strike.He slammed it into the back of its shoulder. Sparks lit up the air as the spear dragged through the join, but the Reclaimer adapted, shifting its stance and locking its arm to