The first thing I tasted was the floor.It wasn’t the polished marble of the Celestial Palace, nor was it the soft, grassy weaving of the Nebula Gardens. It tasted like vinegar mixed with old pennies. It tasted like a battery had corroded inside my mouth.I spat.Whatever came out was black, gritty, and burned my tongue.I opened my eyes.Usually, my mornings began with a view of the cosmos, a live feed of swirling galaxies and birthing stars painted across my ceiling. The light would be gentle, golden, and smelling faintly of jasmine.Today, my view was a plastic bag.It was blue, partially torn, and slick with moisture. It was inches from my nose. Through the tear, I could see something rotting inside. Grey slime. Or maybe it was just old noodles. The smell hit me a second later. A thick, physical wall of stench that shoved its way up my nose and sat heavy in my throat. Rot. Chemicals. Stale water.I tried to inhale, but the air was wet and heavy. It felt like breathing soup."Valet,

The skewer in my hand felt heavier than a planet.It was a thin, rusted rod of iron, bowing slightly under the weight of the charred rodent, but my arm was trembling. The heat radiating from the meat seeped into my cold, wet palm. It was a greasy, aggressive warmth that made my stomach contract in a violent spasm of anticipation.Eat it, my body screamed. Tear it apart. Swallow the bones.I clamped my jaw shut. The saliva flooding my mouth tasted acidic."Not yet," I whispered to myself, my voice lost in the roar of the Sector Z rain. "We are civilized. We pay for services rendered."I looked at the vendor, Old Man Jori.He was watching me with a mixture of boredom and predatory amusement. His cybernetic eye whirred, the aperture contracting and expanding like the breathing of a tiny, mechanical insect. He held out his hand—a palm that looked like cracked leather stained with engine oil and soot."Five credits," Jori grunted. He spat to the side, a glob of something black hitting the m

I walked away from the crowd, chewing on a mistake.The rat meat was a rubbery, charred lump of regret. It tasted of sulfur, burnt hair, and the distinct, metallic tang of fear. Every time I clamped my jaw down, a pocket of rancid grease exploded in my mouth, coating my tongue in a film that refused to be swallowed."Texture is... challenging," I muttered to the rain.I kept my head down. My white hoodie was the only bright thing in Sector Z. It glowed with a soft, ethereal luminescence that seemed to irritate the shadows. I felt like a flare drifting through a dark room full of people who had adjusted to the blackness.I could feel their eyes.Back at the stall, the silence had been heavy. Now, as I moved away from Jori’s unconscious body, the silence broke. It shattered into a thousand whispers that skittered along the pavement behind me like dry leaves.I walked faster.My legs felt heavy. My knees popped with every step, a wet, grinding sound that vibrated up my thighs. I wasn't us

"Move," Anya hissed, tugging at the sleeve of my hoodie. "We have to get off the main grid. Now."I stumbled after her, my feet heavy and clumsy in the sludge. The mud in this alley wasn't just dirt and water; it was a living, sucking entity that wanted to pull my sneakers off. Shhh-luck. Shhh-luck."We have a contract," I reminded her, wiping rain from my eyes. "I provided the capital and you provide the logistics. Currently, the logistics involve a lot of walking in sewage.""Quiet," she snapped. Her voice was tight, vibrating with a frequency that set my teeth on edge. She kept looking over her shoulder, her eyes darting to the rooftops, the shadows, the mouth of the alley.I was still chewing on the memory of the rat.The flavor was clinging to the roof of my mouth, a stubborn film of burnt fur and rancid grease. I tried to generate some saliva to wash it down, but my mouth was dry. My stomach, while no longer screaming in agony, was sitting heavy and hot, pulsing with the effort o

The claw was coming.It was a slow-motion disaster, a rusted iron bird of prey descending to eat my face.I stood in the mud, my feet heavy as lead anchors, watching the hydraulic arm swing toward me. Time didn't stop but my perception stretched. I could see everything with an agonizing, high-definition clarity that made my head hurt.I saw the individual flakes of orange rust peeling off the metal knuckles of the claw. I saw the black grease weeping from the loose piston, hanging in the air like a drop of crude oil tears. I saw the duct tape flapping in the wind of the swing.And I saw Spike’s eyes behind the mesh of his skull mask.They were wide. Bloodshot. Filled with the ecstatic, drooling anticipation of violence. He wasn't just trying to hurt me. He was trying to erase me. He wanted to turn the man in the white hoodie into a red smear on the alley wall, just to prove that cleanliness was a lie in Sector Z.My body screamed at me to move.Dodge, my instincts whispered. Duck. Weav