They climbed from the service tunnel into a different kind of ruin. Where the pier had been, the water smoked and the skyline was ragged with missing balconies and shattered glass. Above them, the city blinked awake, indifferent, already filling the day with errands and noise as if nothing had ripped its bones open overnight. The difference was in the new geometry of fear—how people angled their faces when they glanced at the water, the way vendors refused dockside stalls, the sudden presence of men in suits cataloguing damage without touching anything.
Cain moved like a man carrying a map burned into his bones. Every step he took was measured, not because he had to save energy, but because he had to keep the thought of the leviathan from swallowing everything in his head. The service hatch slammed behind them and the sound felt obscene in the narrow corridor. The air smelled of oil and salt and something else—metal bent into grief.
