Morning in the slums didn't bring sunlight.
It brought sound.
A low, metallic hum that never stopped — the breathing of a dying city. Machines groaning awake. Pipes rattling. Distant shouts echoing through alleys too narrow for hope. Somewhere, a baby cried. Somewhere else, a fight broke out over scraps.
Kai opened his eyes.
Gray light seeped through the cracks in the basement ceiling, thin as mist. He could smell rust, oil, and the faint sting of smoke. His body ached all over, but he was alive. That was enough.
He sat up slowly, careful not to wake Lia.
She was curled up beside the wall, her thin frame swallowed by a torn blanket. Even in sleep, her brow was furrowed, like she was trapped in some silent nightmare. He watched her for a moment, and something heavy twisted inside his chest.
He'd seen too many people break in this city. He wasn't about to let her be one of them.
His gaze drifted to the mark still faintly burned into the concrete near his feet. A circle of chains and a black sun. It had dimmed since last night, but it hadn't disappeared.
It wouldn't.
He could feel it — like an ember under his skin.
A sound from above — the shuffle of footsteps, a door creaking open, a dull clatter of something metal.
Kai rose to his feet quietly, hand instinctively brushing against the hilt of the scavenged knife at his waist. He moved toward the stairs, slow, silent.
When the noise faded, he exhaled and turned back.
Lia stirred awake. Her eyes opened slowly, unfocused at first.
"…Kai?"
"Morning," he said quietly. "You okay?"
She blinked a few times, then nodded. "I think so."
He crouched near the lamp, lighting it again with a bit of frayed wire and a spark. The orange glow filled the small basement, chasing away the worst of the gloom.
Lia's gaze fell on the mark on the floor. Her breath caught.
"What's that?"
Kai hesitated. "Don't know. It showed up last night."
"Showed up?" Her voice trembled a little. "Kai, that's burned into concrete."
"I know."
He stared at it too, tracing the edges of the black sun with his eyes. "I don't think it's meant to disappear."
Lia wrapped the blanket tighter around herself. "Does it… hurt you?"
"Not yet."
He didn't tell her about the whispers. Or the shadow voices that spoke in the dark. That was his burden — not hers.
For a while, they just sat there.
The lamp flickered. Water dripped from a pipe somewhere above. Every sound felt louder than it should.
Lia broke the silence first.
"What do we do now?"
Kai didn't answer right away. He was still thinking about the drones, about the fire, about the man in the clean jacket who'd been watching him. The Enforcers weren't blind. Sooner or later, someone would connect the explosion to him.
"We find somewhere safe," he said at last.
She gave a small, tired laugh. "There's no safe in the slums, Kai. You know that."
"Maybe not. But there are places people forget to look."
He got to his feet and grabbed his coat. "Come on. We'll move while it's still early."
Lia hesitated before standing. "You're sure you can walk? You're hurt."
He shrugged. "Pain's familiar. It keeps me sharp."
That earned a faint smile from her — the first since he'd found her.
They stepped out into the streets.
The city was awake now. Smoke rose from chimneys and vents. Shouts echoed through the maze of alleyways. Every few blocks, a generator coughed to life, spreading flickering light over rusted metal walls.
The air was thick. You could almost taste the dust.
Lia kept close behind him, one hand clutching the strap of her satchel. Kai's eyes scanned the corners, rooftops, and shadows. Habit. Instinct. Survival.
Every figure that moved made his pulse quicken. Every glint of metal looked like a drone lens.
"You're jumpy," Lia murmured softly.
"Yeah," Kai said. "Too quiet out here."
"Quiet?" She gestured at the chaos around them — vendors shouting, scavengers fighting, music blaring from broken speakers.
He shook his head. "I don't mean noise. I mean eyes. Too many of them watching, but none of them meeting yours."
Lia frowned, unsure if he was being paranoid or poetic.
He didn't explain.
They cut through a narrow side street that reeked of sewage and burnt plastic. It led to a row of derelict shops — places that had been shut down years ago when the lower sectors lost power.
At the end of the row was a familiar door. Rusted metal, painted over with graffiti, half buried in old debris.
Kai paused in front of it.
Lia looked up at him. "You know this place?"
He nodded. "Used to."
He raised a hand and knocked — three times, pause, two more.
For a moment, nothing.
Then, the sound of metal scraping, and a slit opened in the door.
A single eye stared out.
"Password?"
Kai smirked. "Still using passwords, Jex?"
There was a pause. Then the sound of bolts turning, locks clanking, and the door swung open.
"Holy hell," a rough voice said. "You're supposed to be dead."
Kai stepped inside, motioning for Lia to follow.
"Guess I missed the memo," he said.
Jex let out a disbelieving laugh, pulling him into a quick, hard embrace. "You crazy bastard. You really did it."
"Did what?" Kai asked.
"Survived the Pit."
Kai froze. "That's what they're saying?"
"Yeah," Jex said. "That the Pit spat you back out. That you came back wrong."
He looked at Kai's arm — at the faint glow beneath the sleeve — and his smile faltered.
"Maybe they weren't wrong."
The hideout smelled of oil, dust, and old metal. Stacks of scavenged tech lined the walls — half-functioning drones, circuit scraps, weapons in pieces.
Lia stayed close, silent but alert. She was watching everything, like a stray animal deciding whether to trust the hand that fed it.
Jex poured something that passed for coffee into metal cups and slid one to Kai.
"So," he said, sitting across from him. "You gonna tell me what happened?"
Kai stared into the cup, watching the steam twist and fade.
"I died," he said finally. "Then I woke up somewhere else. Somewhere dark. Something followed me back."
Jex frowned. "You mean… like a ghost?"
Kai gave a humorless smile. "Something worse."
They talked for a while — about the gangs, the rising tensions, the Enforcers sweeping through nearby districts. Lia added bits and pieces of what she'd seen, how the Fangs were now serving something called the Pit God.
When she spoke the name, the temperature in the room seemed to drop.
Kai's hands clenched around the cup.
He'd heard the whispers too. The Pit wasn't just a hole. It was something alive.
Later, when Jex went to check his scanners, Kai leaned back in his chair, feeling the dull ache in his chest again. The mark on his arm pulsed faintly beneath the sleeve, a steady rhythm he couldn't ignore.
Lia watched him quietly.
"Does it scare you?" she asked.
He looked at her. "What?"
"Whatever's happening to you."
Kai thought about that for a long time.
"Yeah," he said softly. "But fear's not the worst part."
"Then what is?"
He looked down at his hands — steady, but colder somehow.
"Not knowing if I'm still me."
Jex's voice came from across the room. "You should both stay here for a while. At least until the sweeps stop."
Kai nodded. "Thanks, Jex."
"Don't thank me," Jex said. "Just don't bring trouble to my door."
Kai gave a faint, tired smile. "Can't promise that."
That night, when the city lights dimmed and the mechanical hum faded into a low drone, Kai lay awake on the floor of the hideout.
The sound of Lia's slow breathing was the only sign of peace left in the room.
He stared at the ceiling, at the faint reflections of neon through the cracks, and thought about the mark on his arm — the shadow that moved when he wasn't looking.
The city above him lived and died every day.
And now, something beneath it was waking.
Something that had chosen him.