The Hunt
Morning never truly touched Haven Below — not the real kind. Instead, light bled through rusted vents and cracked maintenance shafts, pooling in pale puddles along the tunnel floors. To Ari, it always smelled faintly of metal and old rain.
By dawn, Haven Below stirred awake — steam hissing through patched pipes, the smell of thin broth drifting past rusted scrap doors. The children's laughter echoed through the burrows like a heartbeat that refused to die.
Kaela woke before the pipes hissed warm. She tied her hair back with a strip of old cloth, stepping softly over Mira's sprawled arm and Lise's tangled blanket nest. She paused at the tunnel's mouth where Ari's shadow lingered near the last trickle of the silver vein.
When he caught her watching, he only nodded. No words — but Kaela knew what it meant: I'm going up.
They always went together.
Above, the ghost city waited.
Where the old world's towers once scraped the sky, now vines spilled from shattered windows. Cracked roads split like dry skin, roots creeping through broken engines and old bones of machines too stubborn to rust away. Here and there, strange blossoms clung to street signs — petals pale as ash, slick with dew that shimmered comet-bright when the sun cracked through the haze.
Ari moved as if the city were an extension of his own skin, his bow resting easy across his shoulder, steps soft and deliberate on crumbling concrete. Kaela followed close behind, her scavenging knife strapped securely to her thigh, eyes ceaselessly sweeping every shadowed corner, every fractured edge of the ruins.
Ruvio, the old man of stone and shadows, had taught them how to hunt in this desolate world—where gnarled roots swallowed the bones of rusted metal, and silent dangers lurked in every whisper of wind. He'd taught Ari to listen: to the faint hiss of wind through broken glass, to the hushed scrape of claws on stone, and to the unsettling tremor in his own veins that sometimes reached for something other, something not quite human.
Ari listened now.
A faint rustle, almost imperceptible, stirred beneath a half-buried, skeletal car. He knelt, his gaze sharp, tracing the disturbed soil. Small prints. A hare, perhaps, or if they were truly lucky, two. Their meager rations in Haven Below were dwindling.
Kaela, ever vigilant, glanced instinctively at the ragged rooftops, always watching for the black shadows that slithered and writhed when the harsh sun struck too bright, revealing too much.
Ari gestured—two fingers raised, then a sweeping motion. Circle.
Kaela moved; wide steps silent over old roots that cracked the pavement like swollen veins. She counted her breaths, just as Ruvio had taught her: In. Watch. Out. Strike.
The hare twitched—startled by a displaced pebble—then froze, its fear palpable in the sudden stillness. Ari's arrow, a silent blur, found its ribs.
It wasn't much. A small, lean creature. But in Haven Below, even the smallest scraps mattered more than gold.
Back home, warmth waited like a forgotten dream.
The moment Ari and Kaela stepped through the rickety door; a chorus of delighted squeals erupted from Kaela's sisters at the sight of fresh game. Little Lise, a blur of boundless energy, danced barefoot on the cold stone floor, chanting, "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!" at the top of her lungs. Not to be outdone, little Mira had already scaled a rusty pipe halfway to the ceiling, declaring herself the undisputed queen of dinner with a triumphant cackle. Kaela, with the weary grace of an older sibling, snagged Mira by the ankle before gravity could claim its due, planting her back on solid ground with a look that clearly stated, "You're not quite unbreakable yet, little one."
Ari, meanwhile, took to the makeshift table – a testament to ingenuity, crafted from old oil drums hammered flat – to clean their meager catch. Nearby, Kaela stirred the thin stew with practiced patience, her movements fluid and efficient. She sprinkled in dried herbs that Lise, ever the resourceful one, had bartered from a passing scavenger just the day before.
When the broth finally began to bubble, a hearty, comforting scent filled the tiny room. Steam billowed, thick with the promise of a rare, warm meal, chasing away the pervasive chill of the ruins. The very pipes overhead seemed to rattle in celebration, echoing with the soft symphony of laughter and the promise of one truly warm night.
He was once a cub, but now . . .
The next day, the tunnels stirred before dawn.
Kaela rose before the pipes hissed warm. She tied her hair back, boots crunching over old dust as she stepped through the sleeping hush to check on Mira and Lise.
Ari had already gone.
Up top, the surface was waking too — a ghost city half-eaten by green. Towers cracked open like rotten teeth, vines spilling out of shattered windows. Cars sat half-buried under moss and creeping root. Some days, strange flowers bloomed from the rust — pale petals that shimmered like comet metal when the sun cracked through the haze.
Ari moved through the edge of it, bow strung tight across his back, footsteps soft on cracked asphalt split with wild grass. Kaela ghosted behind him, a second shadow. She carried no bow — just a long knife and her sharp eyes.
They didn't waste time. The snares, set expertly by a cracked sidewalk where the last traces of green stubbornly clung, yielded two rabbits. By noon, their meager but vital catch was strung on a split branch, swaying gently as they turned back towards the hidden access hatch that led to Haven Below.
At home, Mira and Lise erupted in delighted squeals at the sight of the fresh game. The small living nook, barely more than a pocket carved into the earth, soon filled with the comforting scent of steam as Kaela efficiently boiled the bones into a thin, nourishing broth. Mira, ever eager, tried to help peel tubers, but mostly just dissolved into giggles whenever Ari playfully flicked cold water at her nose. Lise, the quieter one, perched carefully near the stew pot, diligently sprinkling in wild herbs Kaela had taught her to pick from the cracked concrete gardens near the tunnel mouth.
When the food was finally done, its warmth seemed to draw people in. They called in neighbors—old men whose hands were permanently stained with the rust of patched pipe leaks, young mothers whose weary eyes constantly watched over the ration lines. Ari and Kaela gave freely, sharing their bounty without question. And with each shared bowl, the tight, unfamiliar hush around Ari's veins seemed to soften—just enough.
Once, weeks before, Ari had pushed his luck. He'd followed the older hunting team further than he was ever meant to go, venturing beyond the last safe marker stones and deep into the forest's black tangle. The air grew colder there, the mutated flora more aggressive, and the silence thicker, almost watchful.
A beast, a nightmare stitched together from the apocalypse – half-lean cat, half-scaled reptile, with glassy eyes that mirrored the distant, cold light of the comet's children – sprang from a thicket of thorns. The hunting team, hardened as they were, froze for a breath too long, their weapons momentarily useless against the sudden, monstrous speed. But Ari didn't hesitate. His arrow, a silver streak, found the creature's throat before it could tear into their line.
That kill fed the entire clan for a week. Fresh strips of meat were salted and dried, bones were boiled down for nourishing broth, and the rendered fat became precious oil for their flickering lamps. It was a rare, blessed bounty.
After that, the old hunters, usually so grim, offered something akin to acceptance. They'd pat his shoulder, their calloused hands surprisingly gentle. Some even nodded when he passed – not quite smiling, but no longer flinching from the faint, unsettling glow that sometimes pulsed beneath the skin of his wrists. He was still an anomaly, but for the first time, he was their anomaly.
Kaela never let him brush it off, not truly. She'd nudge him gently when he fell silent, lost in thought. Later, when the others had drifted off, she'd whisper, her voice a soft current in the quiet night: "See what you've done? We stay alive because you stand guard. Because you don't run."
At night, after the stew pot was scraped clean and the sisters were curled up under their patched blankets, Ari and Kaela would sit at the tunnel mouth. Their backs rested against the cool, ancient stone, and together they watched the black forest shift and sigh in the wind, a living, breathing shadow against the stars.
Sometimes, Kaela would lean her head against his shoulder—just for a breath. Just long enough for them both to remember why they hunted, why they listened with such intensity, why they endured.
Hidden Watchers, Poison Friend and Secrets
Not far off, a different kind of shadow stirred.
Joren leaned against the jagged edge of the scrap pit, arms crossed over broad, restless shoulders. His gaze, sharp-tongued and even sharper-eyed, was fixed on the warm glow from Ari's burrow. He hated the suffocating tunnels, hated the perpetual gnaw of hunger, but most of all, he hated Ari. He hated the quiet way Kaela laughed when Ari was near, a sound that meant she wasn't alone anymore.
His father had dug too deep in the lower tunnels, chasing whispers of ancient tech, and never came back. His mother's cough had eaten her from the inside, a slow, brutal consumption that stole her mind long before the comet-sickness finally claimed her. Now, all Joren had was the stale, bitter taste of envy and the knife he'd yet to use.
Further back, half-lost amidst the broken pipes and twisted metal, Nera Sol crouched like a cat, a slight, small figure in the deeper shadows. Her eyes, like coins sunk deep in a well, reflected no light but seemed to hold ancient secrets. People whispered she had drifted here from ruins far to the north, found as a child by the clan leader near a place the comet had cracked the earth open like an eggshell. Some even murmured she was the comet's child, that the silver whisper of Celestia called to her in dreams. No one had asked her to stay. No one dared make her leave. She simply slipped between the scraps and shadows, trailing rumors like sparks behind a falling star. And tonight, she watched Ari. Watched Kaela. Watched the way the silver flickered under Ari's skin when he thought no one noticed.
Later, when the pipes quieted and the last of the embers cooled in the makeshift hearth, Kaela checked for leaks. Her movements were a little too quick, a little too precise—an excuse to pace off the restless worry that gnawed at her. She spun around a precarious stack of rusted crates and nearly tripped over Nera, who was perched cross-legged on a broken conduit, her small frame eerily still. Nera's eyes, sharp and glinting like polished glass, caught the faint lamplight, reflecting it with an unnerving intensity.
"How long have you been there?" Kaela snapped, her voice tight, a sharp edge of frustration in it.
Nera merely tilted her head, a bird-like gesture. "Long enough." Her voice was flat, unreadable.
"Why do you follow him?" Kaela pressed, her gaze hardening. She meant Ari.
"I don't follow." Nera's response was instant, almost a murmur. "I listen."
Kaela's eyes dropped, drawn inexplicably to the ground near her worn boots. There, etched into the packed dirt, was a rough, spiraling symbol—curling lines that shouldn't be there, too deliberate to be accidental. She hadn't seen it before.
Nera's voice sank to a hush, barely a whisper, yet it seemed to fill the cavernous space. "The river. It isn't only his."
Before Kaela could press for more, before she could even form another question, the girl moved. Nera slipped from the conduit, melting into the deeper shadows of the tunnels with unsettling grace—a ghost swallowed by Haven's ancient, hollow bones.
Kaela stared at the spiral long after she was gone, thumb tracing the groove in the stone. In the walls around her, she thought she heard it — a whisper that might have been the pipes settling.
Or something older, waiting to be named.
Back in the hush of the burrow, Ari sat cross-legged near Lise's feet.
Lise draped her tattered map across Ari's knee, a jumble of eager babble about new tunnels discovered and fascinating, broken machines they could surely fix. Mira, meanwhile, curled into Kaela's side, her small voice a persistent, soft plea for a story.
So, Ari gave them one—a low, soft tale about a hidden city where dragons slept under silver rivers, their dreams echoing in crystalline caverns. The sisters drifted off between giggles and soft yawns, their heads growing heavy on Kaela's lap, their breaths evening out into the quiet hum of sleep.
Kaela's fingers, light as a whisper, brushed Ari's wrist when the faint light under his skin trembled again, a restless ghost.
"One day," she murmured, her voice barely audible above the gentle sounds of the sleeping girls, "you'll learn to hold it without breaking yourself."
Ari only smiled—a flicker of teeth in the dim light, of old scars mended into something stronger, tougher. He offered no words, only the quiet understanding that passed between them.
Outside the burrow, deep beneath the cracked earth of the ruined world, the silver core pulsed—a silent, immense secret. And somewhere, in the stillness of the post-apocalyptic night, it waited for blood to listen.
But what if the silence itself was a lie, and the core wasn't just waiting, but calling?
Somewhere far inside the dark, the spiral mark waited—a silent hush in the stone that watched them dream.
Deeper in the dark, someone else watched too — a shape with a mark on their wrist, a spiral carved in old scar tissue. The veins remembered. And so did the spiral