"Damn rat."

  he muttered, kicking the limp body of a rat into the gutter.

  It skidded across the cracked stones with a wet slap, joining the rot and ruin that choked the veins of the city.

  The young man — if one could still call him that — pulled his coat tighter around his frame, though the cold had long ago ceased to bother him.

  His name didn’t matter anymore. Names were things of the old world, like prayers, dreams, and gods who answered them.

  The street he walked was a skeleton of what it had once been.

  Towers of rusted metal leaned against one another like dying trees. Ash rained from the black clouds above, turning everything into a smear of gray. On the broken walls,

  the faded graffiti of another, more hopeful time still clung like desperate hands — promises of salvation, of rebirth. Lies, all of it.

  He passed a woman cradling a bundle too still to be alive. Her eyes were hollow, mouth moving silently, lost to a madness he understood all too well.

  He didn’t stop. Nobody stopped. Compassion was a currency long spent.

  Somewhere down the alley, a fight broke out — two gaunt figures tearing into each other over a scrap of moldy bread. He didn’t look. He didn’t care. Mercy was weakness. Weakness was death.

  That was the only truth now. The only truth they knew.

  As he wandered deeper into the ruins, the memory of the tales he had been told clawed at the edges of his mind:

  green fields, blue skies, laughter. "They" had walked among men then, or so the old tales said. Guardians, protectors, saviors.

  Heroes.

  But when the skies cracked, the earth split, and the great seas that once hold life dried up. "They" had turned their faces away.

  "They" had abandoned them.

  And humanity, in turn, abandoned "them".

  Well, time after time. there are mad men who believe in the impossible.

  There are mad men who still believe in the lies told by "Them", men who follow "Their" path. A path of "chivalry",

  Fools.

  The boy — no, the man — stopped at the edge of a dry fountain,

  its statues shattered, their faces eroded into featureless sorrow. He stared into the cracked basin, seeing not his reflection but the thin, scarred thing he had become.

  "What a joke"

  The man sat down on the lip of the fountain, feeling the cold creep up through the stone.

  His hand brushed something beneath the grime — a small, rusted emblem. A sigil of an old god, perhaps, forgotten by all but the dust.

  He picked it up without thinking, turning it over in his hand.

  It meant nothing.

  Just another lie in a world built on ruins. Another lie told by "Them"

  He clenched his fist around it in anger or perhaps despair until the jagged edges bit into his skin. The blood that welled up was warm, real.

  At least pain was honest.

  Above him, the sky rumbled — not with the voice of birds nor children playing blissfully, but the groan of a dying world.

  The man smiled, a thin, bitter thing.

  'Maybe tomorrow'

  he thought,

  'the sky would finally fall. Maybe tomorrow, it would all end and i wouldn’t have to keep walking.'

  But until then, he would.

  Not out of hope. Not out of faith.

  Only because there was nothing else to do.

  The man stood, tucked the bloodied emblem into his pocket, and turned to move on —

  — and then he saw it.

  Across the street, a small, ash-caked pup was cornered by a group of ragged men and a singular woman who stood ahead of them, eyes sharp and cold.

  They were laughing, eager, driven by that hollow hunger that stripped men down to beasts. The pup whimpered, its legs shaking, too weak to even run.

  "Thin or not, it'll still cook," one of the men said, raising a broken pipe.

  The man felt a twitch in his jaw. He thought of the stories — the ones his mother used to tell, about heroes with shining swords and gods who blessed their courage.

  He made a face like he’d just swallowed poison, or was trying desperately not to crap himself.

  "It's only a goddamn animal," he growled under his breath, walking past the group, fingers digging into the inside of his coat. The pain returned — a freezing bite to his palm.

  The emblem.

  He pulled it out, stared at it.

  "...Why?" he whispered to no one.

  Without thinking — without wanting to — he moved.

  He ran. Back to where the young pup was

  "WHY?!"

  he screamed, hurling himself at the group.

  His attempt at a flying kick missed gloriously, sailing wide and landing him flat on the cracked pavement with a meaty thud.

  For a second, everyone just stared — the woman, the men, even the damn pup.

  "...?" the woman tilted her head, confused.

  Groaning, the man scrambled up in one motion, scooped the young pup into his arms, and bolted, sprinting into the ashen fog of the dead city.

  "This is NOT what... *huff* i had in mind!!" he raged throughout the city as the shouts of pursuit echoed behind him.

  He cut through alleys, ducked under fallen scaffolding, leapt over broken cars. He didn’t know where he was going until he slammed shoulder-first into a rusted sign:

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  ST. ALDRICH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL.

  The place was a corpse — windows smashed, doors off their hinges.

  'Perfect.'

  He ducked inside.

  The rotted double doors of St. Aldrich Memorial Hospital groaned on their hinges as he shoved through. The air inside was colder, staler — thick with mold, ash, and the stench of old blood.

  The footsteps behind him were growing louder — heavy, fast, eager.

  He clutched the pup tighter under his coat, feeling its shivering body against his chest. His heart slammed against his ribs, and a voice in his head screamed at him to drop it, run faster, save yourself.

  But his legs moved anyway.

  The hospital was a broken labyrinth — halls collapsed, wires and pipes hanging like vines, shattered glass glittering under the faint light filtering through holes in the ceiling. His boots slipped on patches of ice where the weather had bled into the building.

  The first man caught sight of him down the corridor and howled like a wild dog.

  "THERE YOU ARE BRAT!"

  Without thinking, the man yanked a piece of pipe hanging from the ceiling. A light fixture, half-hanging by its cord, dangled above. With a desperate heave, he swung the pipe like a bat.

  The fixture snapped free, the cord whipping wild, and the entire metal thing crashed straight onto the pursuer's head with a sickening

  CRACK.

  The man toppled without a sound, blood pooling fast around his temple.

  The young man didn't even look back. His stomach twisted — not out of guilt, but out of terror.

  "Goddamn it, goddamn it..." dropping the pipe as it carried more weight than use

  Another turn. Another hallway.

  The second attacker came fast — a stick-thin man with a crowbar and wild, glassy eyes.

  The young man skidded around a corner, slipping on broken tiles and jumping over a gaping hole. His gaze darted — spotted a rusted gurney sagging against the wall.

  Teeth gritted, he turned, braced his back against it, and shoved with everything he had left. pulling his ankle in the wrong way in the process.

  The gurney screeched across the floor just as the crowbar-wielding man lunged to avoid the hole then...

  CRACK — it hit the man midair, making him avoid the other end of the floor.

  "FUC—!"

  He howled, his legs buckling — and then he pitched forwards, right through the gaping hole where the floor had collapsed.

  There was a long, wet, distant thud.

  The young man gasped for breath, pain blooming across his side from the exertion. His ankle throbbed — he must’ve twisted it back there somewhere. Every step now felt like walking on knives.

  The pup whimpered again.

  "Shut up, damn it," he hissed under his breath — but he cradled it closer anyway.

  He limped forward.

  The young man burst into a side room, chest heaving, vision swimming.

  The room was a dead end — a collapsed operating theater.

  Chunks of ceiling hung down in sharp, broken teeth.

  sharp Rebar and rusted metal spikes jutted out from the crumbling walls like bones through skin.

  The floor was slick with frozen puddles, scattered debris, and old bloodstains gone black with age.

  Not good.

  No way out.

  The brute barreled in after him, face twisted in fury.

  The young man backed away, limping badly.

  The pup barked from the crook of his arm, yapping frantically.

  "GIMME THAT GODDAMN DOG!!"

  He barreled toward him like a runaway truck.

  The young man’s courage broke completely.

  "NONONONO—!!"

  He turned to run — but too late.

  The brute caught him by the back of the coat and yanked hard, spinning him around. A meaty fist slammed into his ribs avoiding the dog in his arms by a little thread, knocking the breath from his lungs in a violent cough.

  The brute sneered.

  Without hesitation, he swung a massive fist.

  The blow caught the boy square in the bad shoulder — the one already torn and screaming from earlier.

  Agony lit up his body.

  The boy cried out, dropping the pup.

  The little creature hit the ground with a yelp and scrambled under a broken cabinet, still barking weakly.

  The boy staggered, barely staying on his feet.

  The brute came at him again, faster than someone his size should have been able to move.

  The boy swung wildly with his arms, but it glanced off the brute’s thick forearm harmlessly.

  A meaty hand caught him by the throat, lifting him clean off the ground.

  The young man kicked and struggled, nails digging into his neck.

  Spots danced in his vision.

  The brute laughed — a low, cruel sound — and slammed him against the wall.

  Pain exploded through his back.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  Somewhere nearby, the pup barked again — high-pitched, desperate.

  The brute leaned close, breath hot and rancid against his face.

  "Gonna break you slow" he growled.

  The boy, through sheer instinct, lashed out.

  One foot snapped up between the brute’s legs — not a clean hit, but enough to make the man grunt and loosen his grip for a fraction of a second.

  The boy dropped to the ground hard, rolling on instinct.

  The brute stumbled back a step and fell on his own weight.

  Right into the rebar.

  A sickening, wet sound filled the room.

  The brute's back arched unnaturally as a length of rusted metal punched through his ribs and out the front of his chest.

  He looked down, confused —

  then up at the boy, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth.

  He tried to step forward.

  The rebar held.

  The brute gave a final, shuddering jerk — and then sagged, impaled, dead.

  The boy stayed where he was, trembling violently, blood dripping from his split lips, his wounded shoulder throbbing.

  He didn’t move for a long moment.

  Didn’t breathe.

  He hadn't won.

  He had survived.

  And that was enough.

  The pup whined from under the cabinet, its tiny body shaking.

  The boy wiped the blood from his mouth with a shaking hand.

  Somewhere, deeper in the hospital, the sounds of pursuit echoed again.

  And so he staggered forward — still breathing, still bleeding, still dragging himself into the dark.

  The young man didn't wait. He fled deeper into the ruin, one hand clutching the pup, the other cradling his busted ribs.

  Every breath felt like a knife twisting in his side. His ankle was swelling fast. His shoulder was already going numb.

  He could barely run now — a limping, gasping, bloody mess.

  And he still wasn't safe.

  The woman was still out there.

  She caught him in the surgical wing, just as he tried to limp past a collapsed wall. She moved like a knife herself — quick, cold, and sure.

  The fight wasn’t a fight. It was slaughter.

  She slashed him across the arm almost immediately.

  He stumbled back, nearly falling.

  She lunged again — the rusted knife flashing toward his throat.

  He ducked wildly, more out of blind terror than skill, and caught her wrist with his injured arm — agony lanced up his side but he didn’t let go.

  He smashed the back of her hand against a broken countertop, forcing her to drop the blade.

  She headbutted him in the face in return.

  Stars exploded behind his eyes.

  Blindly, he groped behind him — his hand finding something cold and heavy.

  A broken fire extinguisher.

  He swung it up with a guttural yell, spraying foam into her face.

  She screamed, stumbling back, blinded.

  The young man, swearing like a lunatic, kicked her legs out from under her.

  She slipped hard — crashing backward, skull cracking against the corner of a rusted table.

  She didn’t get up.

  Panting, bleeding, half-blind with pain, he stared at her body for a long, ragged second — waiting, praying she wouldn’t move.

  The hospital fell silent again, except for the pup's faint whimpers against his chest.

  He staggered to the wall, sliding down it until he sat heavily on the cracked floor.

  Everything hurt.

  His ribs. His ankle. His shoulder. His hands.

  He felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

  And then —

  A soft chime echoed in the stale air.

  In front of him, glowing faintly against the grime-choked darkness, was a floating window of light:

  <"Congratulations! You have become a Hero!">

  The young man stared at it, blinking stupidly.

  A long silence stretched out.

  "...Fuck."

  END OF CHAPTER ONE.