RISE FROM THE VOID

The mahogany desk fell like a dying star.

Xander kicked off the platform, rope singing behind him as he swung through the air. Three hundred feet below, the under-rings sprawled in perpetual twilight. Three thousand feet above, Celestara glittered,the sky-city where the elite threw away everything they didn't want.

Including people.

His fingers locked around the desk's cracked leg. The impact nearly tore his arm from its socket, but he held on. The seventh day was the best day for scavenging, when Celestara's highborn purged their mansions of last season's furniture. This desk was worth seventy scrip, maybe more.

"Nice catch!" 

Ryn's voice crackled through his comm-link.

Xander grinned, landing on his platform. 

"Harlan's going to love this."

Except Harlan wasn't on the observation deck. The old man always watched Xander work the drop-zone, rain or shine. For three years, he'd stood there with his battered spyglass, offering advice.

Today, the deck was empty.

Xander hoisted the desk onto his shoulders and climbed toward home, unease prickling his spine.

The workshop door hung open.

Xander's blood went cold. Harlan never left the door open,too many thieves in Under-Ring Seven, too much worth stealing.

"Harlan?"

The desk slipped from his grip.

Harlan lay sprawled across the floor, eyes vacant, a dark pool spreading from the wound in his chest. His workbench was overturned, tools scattered like broken teeth.

"No." 

Xander dropped beside him, hands pressing against the wound even though he knew it was too late. The blood was still warm. 

"Harlan, please…"

"Touching."

A figure stood in the doorway. They wore a smooth white mask,porcelain, featureless and held a blade dripping red.

Harlan's blood.

"Who are you?"

 Xander's voice cracked.

"The old man asked too many questions." 

The masked figure tilted their head. 

"Saw things he shouldn't have. And now, so have you."

Xander lunged for a wrench. The figure moved like smoke, blade flashing. Pain exploded across Xander's ribs,shallow, a warning.

"The Void takes everyone eventually." 

The figure whispered. 

"Today is your day."

Xander ran.

He crashed through the window, glass shattering around him. Hit the catwalk rolling, came up sprinting. Behind him, soft footsteps followed, patient and inevitable.

The under-rings were a maze, and Xander knew every shortcut. He vaulted gaps, swung around pillars, dropped through maintenance hatches. His side burned where the blade had cut him, but he didn't slow.

The figure stayed on his heels like a shadow.

Xander burst into the market district, screaming for help. The crowd scattered, uncaring. Down here, you solved your own problems or died with them.

He ran for the Guard Station, hope flaring in his chest.

The guards were waiting.

Six of them, shock-sticks crackling. Their leader, Kessa, raised her hand.

"Xander Cray, you're under arrest for murdering Harlan Vex."

The world tilted. 

"What? No! There was someone else,they killed him, I saw…”

"We have a witness. Says you were standing over the body, screaming about how Harlan cheated you."

"That's insane!"

"Surrender peacefully." 

Kessa said, something like pity in her eyes. 

"We'll give you a fair trial."

Xander turned. The masked figure stood at the catwalk's far end, blade sheathed, casual. They'd already won.

A witness. A planted lie. And no one would believe a scavenger's word.

The trial would be a joke. Then they'd throw him into the Void,the toxic chasm where Celestara's trash went to die. Where the fallen never returned.

Xander looked down. Seven hundred feet below, the Collector's Basin yawned. And beyond that, the Void itself.

"I'm sorry, Harlan." 

He whispered and jumped.

Wind screamed past as the under-rings blurred. Xander grabbed a dangling power cable, jerked to a halt, shoulder screaming. The cable held. He climbed down to a maintenance ladder, then dropped onto a service platform.

One thousand feet of infrastructure above him. Guards who thought him a murderer.

Below, the Void.

Darkness so complete it devoured light. Toxic fumes rising in greenish coils. The graveyard of everyone Celestara had ever thrown away.

Xander's hands became fists. Harlan was dead. The killer walked free.

He would not die here.

He would survive. Climb back up if he had to. Make them pay.

A maintenance hatch led down into the Void. Xander forced it open, revealing a shaft descending into blackness.

He took one last look at the under-rings.

Then began to climb.

Hours passed in darkness. Grip, release, grip, release. Memories swam through his mind,Harlan teaching him to read, the first time he'd caught something from the drop-zone, quiet evenings in the workshop.

All gone.

The air grew thick, chemical-laden. His lungs burned. The shaft ended at a slick platform.

A sound echoed below. Metal scraping metal. Then something worse,wet, squelching rot.

A shape emerged from the darkness.

Eight feet tall, constructed from garbage. Rusted car parts, rotting fabric, pistons wrapped in human hair. Its head was dozens of mannequin faces melted together, a mouth full of broken glass.

A junkwraith.

It screamed,metal tearing, wind through broken windows and charged.

Xander ran for the platform's edge. The wraith's claw caught his jacket, yanked him back. He smashed his wrench against it, rolled free.

His heel slipped over the edge.

The wraith lunged.

Xander jumped into absolute darkness.

For the second time that day, he fell. But this time, there was nothing to catch him. Just the Void, rushing up to swallow him whole.

Harlan's face flashed through his mind.

Then black.

Pain woke him.

Xander lay half-buried in garbage, every bone aching. Blood crusted his eyes. He forced them open.

The Void stretched forever,mountains of trash, pools of glowing sludge, shapes moving in the chemical haze.

He'd fallen into hell and survived.

"Well, you're not dead." 

A woman's voice cut through the toxic air. 

"Surprising."

She stood atop a garbage mountain,tall, scarred, wearing real armor. In her hand, a sword that flickered between states, symbols glowing along its edge.

A Remnant Blade.

She leaped down, landing nearby. "Fresh meat doesn't usually last this long. You're either tough or lucky."

"Who are you?" 

Xander rasped.

"Veyra. Your welcoming committee." 

She nodded toward prowling wraiths.

 "You've got two options. Die slowly or follow me and learn to survive."

Xander thought of Harlan. The masked killer. Celestara, gleaming above.

"Option two."

Veyra extended her hand, hauled him up.

 "Good. Because if you want revenge, if you want to make them pay,you'll need a Remnant of your own."

"A Remnant?"

Her eyes blazed with fierce hope.

 "A weapon born from what you've lost. Forged from memory. Powered by regret." 

She started walking across the wasteland.

 "It's how we survive. How we become more than trash."

Xander stumbled after her, mind racing with questions, burning with purpose…