The city had learned to breathe in smoke and neon. Skyscrapers stretched like jagged teeth into a perpetually gray sky, their windows fractured and flickering with dying advertisements. Below, streets wound like arteries clogged with humanity desperate for scraps, survival in the form of currency, and the rarest commodity: hope.
Kael Ardyn moved through the crowd with practiced invisibility, not out of choice, but necessity. Every step counted. Every glance could reveal weakness. In the slums, a stumble could mean a bleeding alley or worse. He had learned early that life was a system, though no interface had yet appeared to measure his worth.
He paused before a collapsed overpass, surveying the scene. Rusted vehicles lay abandoned, graffiti crawling across concrete like wild veins. Children darted between shadows, scavenging for food. Kael's stomach churned with hunger, but he kept his focus on the bigger picture, survival. Today's target was a derelict electronics store rumored to contain functional circuit boards, small prizes, but enough to trade for a day's meal.
Lyra, his sister, followed a few steps behind, her smaller frame quick and nimble. She never complained, never faltered, though Kael saw the worry etched in her features. The city was cruel to the young and weak. And yet, she carried herself with a courage that belied her size, a quiet determination he admired.
Kael crouched at the entrance to the store, the shattered glass crunching beneath his boots. Inside, remnants of a pre-collapse world lay scattered, scorched monitors, tangled wires, and the occasional blinking panel still clinging to life. He moved methodically, checking corners, pulling circuits from broken machines with careful hands. Every sound outside could signal danger, gangs, scavengers, or worse, the enforcers of the megacorp districts.
Time passed in minutes that stretched like hours. Each success was a victory, each mistake, a possible death sentence. Kael's mind ran through contingencies, escape routes, and calculations. He did not know it yet, but these instincts, honed in the shadows of a dying city, would form the basis of something far greater: the System.
Above, the sky shifted. Not with clouds or weather, but with an unspoken tension, a pulse in the air that hinted at change. Kael did not feel it. Lyra did not notice. Humanity, trapped in its survival loop, was blind to the approaching storm.
The world waited, unaware. And in the slums, a boy named Kael Ardyn would soon awaken to a reality measured not by survival alone, but by stats, skills, and errors. A world that would bend to the whims of a System he had yet to understand.
This was the city before the end. Before the integration. Before the beginning.