Chapter I: Ash in the Veins
The air still stank of sulfur and burnt flesh. Even days after the shelling stopped, the smoke hung low over the cratered ruins of what once was a township. What once was a home.
He stepped over the remains of a door, boots grinding ash into the mud beneath. His breath was steady. His hands, scarred and calloused, rested at his sides. One gripped the hilt of his blade. The other flexed, as if remembering the weight of something he hadn’t carried in years.
He had no name here. Not anymore. The White Salt Reign had seen to that. Burned records. Erased bloodlines. Their war wasn’t just for control—it was for memory. And where memory once lived, he carried the weight.
Locals called him The Last Light now. Some said it like a curse. Others, like a prayer.
But to him, it was just the last thing they hadn’t taken.
A comm signal buzzed faintly from his belt. He tapped it.
"Survivors?"
Static. Then a voice—cracked, tired, scared.
"North tunnel... five of us... Hollow Guard mark... please."
He turned, eyes cold. The blade hissed from its sheath like it knew.
He moved.
The tunnel was rot and echoes.
He descended with no light but the faint pulse of the emergency strip along the wall—red, blinking, like a dying heartbeat. The ceiling dripped. The ground crunched. The air was thick with moisture and memory.
He moved low, blade drawn, not because he feared being seen, but because instinct demanded silence. The Reign had a way of planting things in the dark—things that didn’t breathe, didn’t think, only obeyed. Traps. Crawlers. Listeners.
A scuff behind a pipe. A breath held too long.
He raised two fingers. Waited. Nothing.
Then a voice, brittle and raw: “Please... we’re here.”
He turned the corner.
Five figures—shadows wrapped in soot and armor half-eaten by flame. One of them, barely more than a teen, bore the brand of the Hollow Guard across their neck, crudely inked, likely by trembling hands.
He scanned them. No Reign taggers. No false flags. One had a fractured leg. One held a knife like it had been an extension of her fingers since birth.
“We thought you were dead,” the teen said.
The Last Light didn’t answer.
They didn’t need him to.
He offered a nod—more command than comfort.
“Can you walk?”
Two of them nodded. The one with the broken leg gritted their teeth.
“Then we move. Now. Before they smell the trail.”
“Who’s they?” the smallest asked.
He paused only once.
“The ones who clean up what the Reign leaves behind.”
Then he turned. And the Hollow Guard, or what was left of them, followed.
A tremor ran through the ground.
They froze.
Dust filtered from cracks in the ceiling, and far above, the muffled thud of Reign artillery rolled across the valley. It wasn't close—but it was moving. The Reign was sweeping.
The Last Light turned to the youth with the Hollow Guard brand. “Which route?”
The girl blinked, her eyes still red with smoke and sleep-deprivation. “South shaft… connects to the flood tunnels. We used it to move gear before the purge.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
He nodded. “It still clear?”
“I—”
A shriek cut her off.
Not human. Not Reign.
It echoed from deeper in the dark. High-pitched. Metallic. Clicking.
The smallest of the survivors whimpered. The wounded one gripped a steel rod with both hands.
The Last Light said nothing. Just turned toward the sound, slow and steady. Then he reached into the ash-smeared pouch at his side and drew a thin canister. Primed it with a twist. Rolled it down the corridor.
For two heartbeats, nothing.
Then—light. Heat. Screams that weren’t human.
He stepped forward, blade gleaming.
“They sent a crawler.”
The girl swallowed hard. “How many more?”
He didn’t look back.
“Enough to finish what they started.”
And with that, he walked into the smoke.
The corridor narrowed.
It wasn't a tunnel anymore—it was a throat. Choked with vapor and heat, lit only by flickers of dying flame along the wall’s old emergency conduits. He moved like a ghost, steel drawn, eyes sharp. Behind him, the others shuffled, clutching what weapons they had, or each other.
Then came the sound: metal on stone. A dragging, skittering noise, rhythmic and cold.
He held up a fist.
They froze. Even the air dared not move.
The Last Light slipped ahead alone. Rounding the corner, he saw it—
A Reign Crawler.
Taller than a man. Legs like broken swords. Its body was plated in white ceramic armor etched with Reign glyphs—pristine against the rot. Its eyes pulsed in sequence—two red, one gold.
And beneath it: bodies. Torn. Used. Burned.
He didn’t hesitate.
He moved low, fast. The blade came up, then down—into the joint where leg met core. Sparks exploded. The crawler shrieked—an unholy mix of machine and misery. It bucked sideways.
Another cut—this time across the optic cluster. Blinded, it flailed, slammed the wall, shattered piping.
The corridor lit up. Boiling steam hissed from a ruptured conduit. Screams echoed from the survivors behind.
He planted one boot on the machine’s back and drove his blade into its spine. The crawler twitched once, twice, then stilled.
Silence.
Then he spoke.
“They’re upgrading.”
He yanked the blade free. “We move now.”
The girl stepped forward, wide-eyed. “You killed it... alone.”
“No,” he said. “I ended it. Killing it was something the Reign did long ago.”
They followed.
He never looked back.
The path twisted.
Further down, the tunnel walls closed in. No emergency lights here—just pitch. He led with one hand on the wall, the other gripping the blade, still slick with crawler blood. Every few steps, he paused to listen.
Behind him, breathless silence.
The girl from the Hollow Guard whispered, "Why do they send those things?"
He didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched like wire.
"Because they don’t have to feel. And the Reign doesn’t want soldiers who think."
A shape darted past in the dark—a trick of the steam. Or not.
He raised his blade. The others stopped.
Then, a hiss. Subtle. Mechanical. From the ceiling.
He reached up, quick. Dragged something down.
A listener.
Small. Spiderlike. Its body shivered in his palm. One blinking eye. No voice. Just a silent transmission beacon, constantly recording.
He crushed it in his fist.
“Too slow,” he muttered.
“What was it?” another voice asked, older, wounded.
He looked ahead. “The first whisper. The scream comes next.”
He picked up the pace.
Around the next bend, the tunnel widened into a junction—old logistics hub. Vents creaked. Shadows danced from a distant flame. There was a narrow breach in the far wall—just wide enough to squeeze through. Just enough to be a trap.
He motioned for the others to stay.
He crouched low, crept forward—then froze.
Bootprints. Fresh. Too fresh.
He rose slowly. Not Reign. Not Hollow Guard.
Something else.
He turned back to the survivors. “Get ready to run.”
The breach hissed with stale air.
The Last Light moved first, sliding through the narrow gap sideways. The stone scraped his shoulder armor. Behind him, the survivors waited in tense silence.
On the other side, the chamber widened—barely. It looked like an old storage cell or service post, long-abandoned. Rusted racks. Empty crates. A scorched banner from some forgotten campaign.
And in the center: a body.
He approached slow, blade raised—not from fear, but respect.
It was a man. Or what used to be. Hollow Guard insignia half-melted into the shoulder. Skin gray with chemical burn. Cybernetic lines etched beneath the flesh like veins made of wire. He was breathing—but only barely.
The Last Light knelt.
The man’s eyes flicked open. One was human. The other glowed soft green.
“…Light,” the man rasped.
He recognized him.
“Daryn.”
“Reign… tried to break me.” A cough, wet and full of blood. “Didn’t take.”
“What happened here?”
“Listening post. Sabotaged it. Killed two officers.” Another cough. “Third one… ran. Left me to the machine.”
The others emerged slowly, eyes wide.
The man’s hand shook as it reached to his side. Pulled something out. A data core—cracked, sparking.
“Give this to the Hollow Guard. Coordinates… names. Proof. The Reign’s next purge. Bigger than before.”
He coughed again. Harder. Blood painted his lips.
“I kept it hidden. Inside me.”
The Last Light took it. Nodded once.
Daryn met his eyes. “Burn them.”
Then he stopped breathing.
No one spoke.
The Last Light rose. The others followed.
“We move.”
The corridor ahead sloped downward—steep, uneven.
The wounded limped. One collapsed. The Last Light picked them up without a word, slinging them over his shoulder like a pack. The others didn’t gasp or cheer. They just kept walking.
The air thickened with engine dust and old rot. Pipes hissed above. Somewhere beneath, water rushed.
He stopped.
A sealed hatch. Old tech. Dented, scored by claws—or tools. A keypad blinked red, then static.
He crouched, examining the edge.
“Back,” he said.
The others moved. One held the youngest close.
The Last Light drove his blade into the seam—angled, not brute force. Twisted. There was a groan of metal. Then a pop. Then hiss.
The hatch opened. Cold air bled out.
He turned. “Flood tunnels. Old evac line.”
“Where does it go?” the girl asked.
He stepped in.
“Where we need to be.”
The dark swallowed them again.
And behind them, somewhere high above, the Reign’s artillery began to fall.
