Silence hung in the air like smoke.
Ruins of concrete and steel rose on the horizon like rotting teeth buried in the earth — twisted relics from a time no one dared to remember.
Elias Thorne moved through the wreckage with the calm of someone who no longer felt urgency. The wind carried the smell of rust and charred wood, the same scent since the Collapse. He stopped beside a scorched car and lifted the radio to his ear.
"Channel three. Secure transmission," he said.
Static. Silence. Then a voice, metallic and cold:
"Code: Remnant. New assignment. Rendezvous point: Sector 14-B. High priority. Reward: fuel and antibiotics."
Elias didn't answer. He put the radio away.
Grimm and Ash, his two dogs, emerged from the rubble. One walked with steady, alert steps. The other sniffed the air, restless. They knew — a new mission meant the road, danger, possible gunfire — and sometimes, bodies.
He looked at them for a second. The loyalty in their eyes was stronger than any command.
"Let's go," Elias said, turning toward the east, where the sky had begun to bleed rust.
As they walked, memories crept back.
The war. The fire. The betrayal. The experiment that should never have happened. His body resisting death, year after year, while the world crumbled around him.
Immortality — cursed or necessary, he still didn't know.
But he knew how to survive.
And he knew how to kill, if needed.
At the end of the world, that was enough.
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