Where warmth flickers, hunger waits. Where hunger whispers, rumor grows.
[Haven Below]
Morning never truly touched Haven Below, not the real kind. Instead, light strained through rusted vents and cracked maintenance shafts, pooling in pale puddles along the tunnel floors. To Eris, it always smelled faintly of metal and old rain, a scent that clung to every breath and permeated the very stone. The air itself was thick with it, a constant reminder of the fractured world above.
By dawn, Haven Below stirred awake, a reluctant groan of awakening that slowly gathered momentum. Steam hissed through patched pipes like weary dragons, tracing ghostly patterns against the gloom. The faint, acrid smell of thin broth drifted past rusted scrap doors, a promise of meager warmth soon to be shared. The low murmur of waking voices mixed with the rhythmic clang of tools from distant workshops. Somewhere, old hinges squealed; somewhere else, someone cursed softly at a leaking valve. Life clung on in rust and whispers.
Eris and the siblings lived in a dwelling, a pocket carved deep into the earth, a defiant spark of life against the cold, dead world above. Within its confined space, every inch was utilized, walls shored up with salvaged timber and sheets of metal. An old heater, cobbled from bent pipes, hummed out thin heat that fought the chill gnawing at the stone. 'Emberlight,' a name whispered between blanket forts and bad dreams, was borrowed from the siblings' old secret-code games. It was a sturdy, self-made sanctuary where the ruin's chill could be held at bay, if only for a time. It's the last flicker in the dark, the last warmth in a cold world. It wasn't much, but it was their home.
Kaylah woke before the pipes hissed warm. A restless sleeper, she'd often rise before the others, a habit born of constant vigilance. Her vivid, flaming red hair, thick and coarse, was already pulled back from her face with a frayed strip of cloth. As she stepped softly over Myrah's sprawled arm, the little girl murmured something indistinct, a soft, sleepy sound, before burrowing deeper into Lisei's tangled blanket nest. She curled into herself, fingers absently tugging at something hidden beneath her collar, as if clinging to a comfort no one else could see. Dreaming of a hearty meal, Lisei herself let out a small, contented sigh, oblivious. The chill of the stone floor seeped through Kaylah's thin soles, a familiar bite. Still, the needs of Haven Below never truly slept, and her tasks waited beyond this fragile warmth.
She paused for a moment by the makeshift heater, pressed her palms against its patched pipes to feel the warmth seeping into her skin; a small defiance against the cold waiting outside. For a heartbeat she pretended this scrap of warmth could last forever. But the ruin outside never slept, and neither did hunger. Then, she pushed that lie aside. There was always another mouth to feed, another fuse to mend, another day that needed stealing from the ruin's jaws. Quietly, she tugged her boots from under a crate, shrugged on her battered coat, and stepped toward the thoroughfare, leading to the main gate.
The main thoroughfare was an old subway artery, wide enough for three carts side by side—if carts still rolled here. Makeshift stalls hunched along the walls under patched tarps and stitched hides. Merchants traded bolts, bitter herbs, rusted relics. Kaylah slipped through; tired nods, a hush here, a rumor there. She passed two old women patching canvas scraps into privacy screens for families who carved homes into the tunnel's ribs. Everywhere, the marks of a people trying to coax life from a dead vein.
The tunnel throat narrowed to the Main Gate; not a gate at all, but a battered jaw of steel and mesh. A half-buried subway car braced across the passage, its shattered windows black with soot, welded mesh and scavenged doors sealing what the ruin would take if left open. Torches burned low in cracked glass lanterns nailed to posts, smudging the stone above with soot. Spear hafts leaned near a guards' bench where coats of stitched hide and scavenged armor hung drying on bent nails.
Two figures, half-wrapped in stitched hide and patchwork armor, stood sentry: one leaned on an old spear haft beside a collapsed doorway of the train car. Further down the passage, the quiet, measured tread of tribal guards on their early patrols added another layer to the waking sounds, a subtle reminder that even here, deep beneath the earth, vigilance was a constant companion.
Kaylah paused before the tunnel's exit where Eris' lean silhouette lingered near the last trickle of the silver vein, a familiar, comforting shape against the dim light. His dark brown hair, uneven at the ends, stuck flat against his forehead from the tunnel mist. His usually sharp greenish-gray hazel eyes appear to change at times, held a flicker of that haunted look she knew so well. A faint, shimmering web, "the river's ghost" as Elder Rubio called it, pulsed beneath the pale skin of his wrist.
When he caught her watching, he only nodded. He rarely speaks when they are not alone. No words, but Kaylah knew what it meant: "I'm going up." And she knew, too, the unspoken question in his gaze: "Are you with me?" Eris offered a faint, tired smile, a brief flash of warmth in the cold light.
They were still too young for the real hunting crew; not strong enough to drag back the big kill, not yet trusted enough to lose. Eris' silver-veined flares were unpredictable. Kaylah's quick hands were more useful mending old comms and patching broken heaters than gutting wild things twice her weight. Elder Ruvio had said, "Let the bigger blades and steady backs take the big beasts. You two find the small mercies. Learn the ruin's whisper first."
But hunger didn't care about permission slips. So, they looked for scraps no one else bothered with; quick prey, forgotten corners, the soft pulse of survival where the ruin hadn't swallowed it whole. Scraps that mattered more than gold when the ruin rattled the pipes and the hunger crept in.
Eris and Kaylah stood like unmoving rock before the Main gate, immovable. The old guard stared at the two a bit longer before giving them a small, almost grudging nod, acknowledging their resolve to hunt for the much-needed food. They were too young to hunt, but he knew the two didn't care for permission. They were just there to give courtesy for their departure. The steel gate couldn't stop them; they knew secret passages big enough to crouch through and go out.
Past the outer barricade, makeshift spears crossed where a true gate should stand, a lone figure hammered a bent sheet of metal into place. Higher up, two scouts paced the ledge above a half-buried tower, eyes on the forest's shadowed edge. Haven Below was battered; but not blind.
A pair of older hunters passing by paused when they spotted Eris' shape in the half-light. One muttered under his breath to the other, just loud enough for Kaylah's sharp ears to catch: "That's the silver veins boy. Watch him when the pipes flicker." A glance over a shoulder, a quick look away. They weren't sure what to do with him yet. Not quite trusted. Not quite ignored anymore.
As they passed the outer barricade, Joeren appeared, his eyes already narrowed with an unspoken grievance, lingered on Eris' wrist. "Don't let your gifts trip you up out there, Silver-Boy," he sneered, his voice low, laced with a venom that made the air crackle. "Some things are better left buried." It wasn't a warning; it was a promise. Renzo, Joeren's older cousin, muttered loud enough for those who cared to listen, "River-Boy thinks he's better than the real hunters."
Eris and Kaylah ignored the two who cursed them behind. Bows resting easy across their shoulders, axe on one side and knife on the other. Eris also had a spear on his left arm, ready for a fight. They really looked like unseasoned hunters, and it was really funny to look at. He reasoned with Kaylah that it was better to be ready for anything, whether beast or human.
They walked to the old trail. They slipped through the outer gate. They would look for the mercies and scraps, or whatever little food they can find in the outskirts.
Before moving out, something tugged at him, the faint itch of eyes on his back. He turned. Only the hush of shattered glass and vines. But at the corner of his sight, a flicker of red, gone when he blinked. Just the ruin playing tricks, he thought. He spat into the dirt, shifted his bow, and moved on. They always went together.
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