Ren didn’t know how long he crawled through the tunnel of twisted rebar and broken concrete. Long enough that his elbows bled. Long enough that the taste of copper filled his mouth with every breath. Long enough that the trembling in his arms felt permanent, a part of him now.

  He emerged into a different part of the ruins — a sunken stretch of the city where buildings slouched inward, sinking slowly into the cracked earth. The air here was cooler, denser, carrying a faint chemical tang that stung his nostrils.

  The Nightkind didn’t follow.

  Not because it had given up. It would circle around, find another path. He knew that the way a wounded animal knows when the wolf is still nearby. The only question was how long he had to move before it caught up again.

  He stumbled down a narrow alley, feet slipping on loose gravel. His vision blurred at the edges, the exhaustion clawing at him harder now that the adrenaline was draining out of his veins.

  He needed shelter.

  A place to hide. A place to heal.

  If such a thing even existed anymore.

  The alley opened onto a small courtyard surrounded by what might once have been apartment buildings. Their windows were shattered, their facades scorched and crumbling. Vines — black and brittle as old bone — clung to the walls.

  Something about the place felt wrong.

  The shadows here were deeper, the silence heavier.

  But Ren had no choice.

  He picked a building at random, one whose door hung crookedly on its hinges, and slipped inside.

  The interior was worse than the outside. Mold crept up the walls like veins. The floor was a patchwork of collapsed sections and half-rotted carpet. The air tasted of mildew and old smoke.

  He found a corner that seemed relatively stable and collapsed against the wall.

  Only then did he let himself breathe.

  He’d survived.

  For now.

  The shackle pulsed against his chest, a slow, steady rhythm.

  It didn’t let him forget.

  Not even for a second.

  Ren leaned his head back against the cracked drywall and closed his eyes.

  Memories rose unbidden.

  The vending machine.

  The mutant.

  The Nightkind.

  The way the hunger had surged through him when he killed. The way the world had sharpened, had seemed to welcome him as one of its own.

  He clenched his fists.

  He wasn’t going to become one of them.

  He wasn’t going to lose himself.

  But he couldn’t deny the truth, either.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Survival here meant change.

  It meant ruin.

  He could feel it already, under his skin, whispering in his bones. The beginning of something he couldn’t fully name. A rot, maybe. A rebirth.

  He needed to understand it.

  Control it.

  Before it controlled him.

  Ren sat in the darkness, listening to the distant groans of the ruined city shifting under its own dead weight, and tried to think.

  The Chain Score.

  That had to be part of it. Some kind of measurement. Some kind of... progression.

  Two kills.

  Two acts of ruin.

  Two steps further from the man he had been.

  He remembered the feeling when he’d killed the scavenger — that rush of strength, of clarity.

  He remembered the second pulse when he fled the Nightkind.

  What would happen if he kept going?

  Would he become stronger?

  Faster?

  Something more than just prey?

  Or would he just become another monster?

  The hunger didn't care about the distinction.

  It only cared that he fed it.

  Ren rubbed his chest absently, feeling the faint warmth of the brand beneath his skin.

  No choice.

  Not if he wanted to live long enough to find another option.

  The sun outside dimmed further, sinking toward a horizon of broken teeth. The false day would end soon.

  And the true night would rise.

  He couldn’t stay here.

  He forced himself to his feet, joints aching, muscles protesting.

  He needed supplies.

  Weapons. Shelter. Answers.

  And he wasn’t going to find them sitting in a hole waiting to be eaten.

  He crept back into the street.

  The city stretched out before him, endless and broken.

  He moved carefully, sticking to the shadows, ears straining for any sound out of place.

  The ruin was heavier here.

  He could feel it — a weight in the air, a thickness that made every breath feel like drawing in smoke.

  The buildings leaned inward like conspirators. The streets were cracked and buckled, veins of black crystal growing through the asphalt.

  Signs of battles long past.

  Signs of decay.

  He passed the wreckage of a bus, its frame melted and fused into the road, the seats inside charred skeletons.

  Graffiti covered the nearby walls — not words, but symbols: thorned crowns, broken eyes, spirals that led nowhere.

  Messages. Warnings.

  He didn’t know which.

  Ahead, he spotted movement.

  Ren froze, slipping into the doorway of a collapsed storefront.

  A figure shambled across the street, its body covered in layers of patchwork armor and cloth. It moved slowly, awkwardly, dragging one foot behind it.

  A scavenger.

  Another one.

  Maybe human. Maybe not.

  He watched, heart pounding.

  The figure paused, sniffed the air, then moved on, disappearing into a side alley.

  Ren let out a slow breath.

  He couldn’t afford another fight. Not yet.

  He needed to be smarter.

  Stronger.

  The hunger stirred at the edges of his mind, hungry for action.

  Not yet, he whispered to it. Not yet.

  He moved on.

  He found a place to hole up in an old office building, three stories of shattered glass and scorched steel.

  The first two floors were gutted, exposed to the elements.

  The third, somehow, remained mostly intact.

  He climbed the crumbling stairs carefully, avoiding the gaping holes that yawned like open mouths.

  The upper floor was eerily silent.

  Desks lay scattered, papers turned to dust. Computers sat like the skeletons of forgotten gods, their screens cracked and lifeless.

  He picked an office in the back, one with a door he could wedge shut, and settled in.

  As he sat against the wall, exhaustion finally caught up to him.

  Sleep clawed at him.

  He resisted.

  Instead, he pulled the scavenged knife from his pack and studied it.

  The blade was rusted, but still sharp.

  He needed better weapons.

  Real weapons.

  He needed armor. Food. Medicine.

  He needed power.

  The hunger murmured agreement.

  He hated how much sense it made.

  He set the knife aside and stripped off his jacket, peeling it away from his sweat-slicked skin.

  That was when he noticed it.

  His hands.

  The fingernails were different.

  Thicker. Darker.

  Almost like claws.

  Not long. Not obvious.

  Not yet.

  But it was there.

  The first sign.

  The first mutation.

  Ren stared at his hands, heart thudding.

  He thought about the Nightkind. About the scavenger. About the way the world twisted everything it touched.

  Would he become like them?

  Was he already?

  The brand on his chest pulsed warmly, as if amused.

  He flexed his fingers slowly, testing the feel of them.

  Stronger.

  Harder.

  Useful.

  He hated that he thought that.

  But survival wasn't about what he wanted anymore.

  It was about what he was willing to do.

  He settled back against the wall, rebar and knife within easy reach, and closed his eyes.

  The world outside groaned and whispered and cracked.

  The ruin watched him.

  The hunger waited.

  And Ren, whether he wanted to or not, was beginning to change.