From a distance, the city glittered like a crown—gilded with neon and smoke, perched atop bones no one wanted to remember.
But from the alleys, where broken glass crackled under bare feet and the air tasted like rust, it was something else entirely.
Lucien moved through its shadows like a ghost, his little brother close behind. Neither of them had spoken in hours. Hunger had a way of stealing not only the strength from your limbs but also the words from your throat.
They passed food stalls glowing beneath artificial lamps—plates piled with steaming bread coils, root meats sizzling on iron pans, luminous candies wrapped in waxy leaves. All of it just out of reach. All of it meant for people who mattered.
Lucien's stomach growled.
"We'll try them," he muttered under his breath.
His eyes settled on a crooked building tucked between two towers like a bad memory. Its bricks were singed black, as though the world had tried to burn it down and failed. Etched into the rusted doorframe was a fading crest: three thorns in a circle—his mother's family mark.
His uncle's place.
He remembered the man's heavy laugh. His thick hands that had once ruffled Lucien's hair. The too-sweet smile that never reached the eyes.
He turned to his brother. "Wait outside."
His brother frowned. "I'm not scared."
Lucien managed a tired smile. "I know. But I am. And I don't want you to see me beg."
He stepped inside.
The hallway was darker than he remembered. Dust caked the corners. The lift was dead—its doors jammed open with a flickering light inside, like the mouth of a broken beast. He took the stairs instead. Each step groaned beneath his weight.
At the seventh floor, he paused. A cracked metal door stood before him, half-lit by a guttering strip of wall-light. He knocked, three short raps.
Footsteps approached.
The door swung open with a hiss.
A tall man in a gold-trimmed robe stood in the frame, face older than Lucien remembered, but the eyes—small, calculating—hadn't changed at all.
Those eyes flicked over him.
"Lucien?" the man said, voice flat.
"Uncle," Lucien said, bowing his head slightly. "I—I need help."
The man's lips curled. "And here I thought you were dead."
Lucien looked up. "Not yet."
"What do you want?"
"Food. Just enough to get us through the week. For me and my brother."
His uncle's nose wrinkled as if he smelled something unpleasant.
"You're still dragging that runt around?"
Lucien's spine stiffened. "He's my brother."
"A liability," the man muttered, then stepped back. "Come in, then. Let's see what you've grown into."
Lucien entered cautiously. The place was warm. Too warm. Thick with incense and the hum of electronics. The walls had been redone in black and bronze, gaudy and polished, with photographs of family—his family—but only the faces his uncle had approved of. His mother was missing. So was Lucien's father.
His uncle drifted toward the kitchen slowly, dragging his fingers along the marble countertop.
"I warned her, you know," he said, plucking a fruit from a bowl. "Your mother. She had no sense. Always protecting those… things."
Lucien's jaw clenched.
"She thought she could change the world with her bleeding heart. Let mutants hide in her home. Feed them. Raise them. She was a fool."
Lucien didn't speak. He stared at the floor, fingers curled into fists.
"And now you come here," the man continued, voice tightening, "as if kindness ever did anything but kill people."
Lucien raised his head. "We're starving."
"You think that matters to me?"
A silence fell.
Lucien glanced toward the doorway, hoping his brother hadn't heard. But the door was open just a crack, the cracked panel hanging loose.
His uncle's voice dropped.
"You think I didn't know where you'd run? Who you were hiding with?" He stepped closer. "You think the authorities just happened to find your house the same night they were burning mutants out of the gutters?"
Lucien's heart stopped. "What?"
"I told them," his uncle said coldly. "It was the only way to protect this family's name."
"You what—?"
"I should've finished you off then," the man said, drawing something from his coat. A gleam of metal. "But you've come to me willingly now. Saves me the trouble."
Lucien's eyes widened. "No…"
A whisper of movement.
He turned.
In the doorway stood his brother—small, silent, frightened.
"NO!" Lucien screamed.
But the flash came too fast.
Bang.
A pulse of searing light tore through the room. Smoke. Blood.
His brother collapsed.
Lucien was at his side in an instant. "No no no no no—please—please—"
The boy's hands trembled, reaching for him. "It… hurts…"
Lucien sobbed, pressing down on the wound. Too deep. Too much.
His world cracked. Split open.
Again.
He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. His little brother—the only thing left—was slipping away.
"No," he whispered. "Not again. Not this time—"
And then—
The seed returned.
It blossomed in his palm, black and pulsing with unnatural life.
He didn't hesitate.
He pressed it to his brother's lips.
"Swallow," he breathed. "Please. Just—swallow."
The seed dissolved instantly.
A moment of nothing.
Then—
The boy jerked violently. Lucien held him down as the wound sealed itself in seconds, muscle and skin reweaving like time had reversed itself. His chest rose. His breath steadied.
He was alive.
Lucien sat back, shaking.
He had done the impossible.
He had saved him.
But the joy was short-lived.
Across the room, his uncle still held the smoking pistol. There was no regret in his face. Only calculation. Only the cold, clinical hatred of a man who had betrayed his own blood.
Lucien stood.
The light in the room shifted.
From his hand, a new seed bloomed. Then another. And another.
Dozens. Hundreds.
They hovered in the air, black and pulsing, like stars pulled from a dying universe. The air grew heavy. The walls shuddered. The room was filled with the scent of scorched metal and something older—like earth and fire and memory.
Lucien's eyes burned with fury.
"This," he whispered, "is the price of betrayal."
His uncle raised the gun again. "You're just a freak."
Lucien raised his hand.
The seeds obeyed.
Darkness erupted.