Opening Paragraph (Scene from the escape day)
The sun hung low over Ranch 7, casting long shadows across the blood-soaked sand. Aria Venn crouched behind a rusted transport shell, her breath shallow, her eyes fixed on the horizon. The Hunt had begun again. Somewhere out there, the Vexari watched -not from the skies, but from their thrones of glass and bone, waiting for the runners to fall. But this time, Aria wasn't running to survive. She was running to escape.
Chapter One: The Hunt Begins
The sun hung low over Ranch 7, casting long shadows across the jungle canopy. The air was thick with humidity and the scent of decay - a reminder that everything in this place was designed to kill. Somewhere above, in a hovering obsidian dome, the Vexari watched. Their eyes - if they could be called that - absorbed every movement, every heartbeat, every scream. This was their sport. This was their spectacle.
Malik Haruna crouched beneath a twisted root, his chest rising and falling in silence. He had learned to breathe like the trees - slow, patient, invisible. The Hunt had begun twenty minutes ago. He had two hours and forty minutes left to survive.
He pressed a hand to the soil, feeling its vibration. A runner had just fallen - somewhere to the east. The ground always remembered.
Malik was one of fifteen runners in Ranch 7. Each week, the Vexari released them into the biome for three hours. The terrain changed constantly - sometimes jungle, sometimes desert, sometimes urban ruins. Today, it was a jungle. The worst kind. Dense, wet, and full of things that moved when you blinked.
He wasn't the fastest. He wasn't the strongest. But he was the most stubborn. And he had something the others didn't: a secret.
Hidden beneath the roots of a collapsed observation tower, buried in a waterproof casing, was a message. A schematic. A plan. Left behind by the only runner who had ever escaped.
Dr. Kael Idris.
Malik had found it two months ago, during a routine survival sweep. It was encrypted in a language only a few could read - a hybrid of Ewe, Latin, and quantum code. Malik, born of the Bisa tribe and trained in biochemical engineering before the invasion, had cracked it in a week.
It wasn't just a message. It was a blueprint for rebellion.
A branch snapped behind him. Malik froze. His hand slid to the blade strapped to his thigh - a crude weapon fashioned from scavenged metal and bone. He didn't need to fight. He needed to survive.
A figure emerged from the underbrush - tall, lean, and covered in mud. Aria Venn. Brazilian. Tactical genius. She gave him a quick nod and dropped beside him.
"They're sweeping the north ridge," she whispered. "Three drones. One hunter."
Malik nodded. "We move south. Toward the ravine."
Aria hesitated. "You sure? That's where Theo went."
Theo Marr. Ex-soldier. Stoic. Dangerous. But loyal.
"He'll hold them off," Malik said. "He always does."
They moved like shadows, slipping through the foliage. Every step was calculated, every breath measured. The jungle was alive - and it hated them.
As they reached the ravine, Malik paused. Beneath the moss-covered stones was another cache. He knelt and pried it open. Inside: a data chip, a vial of neurotoxin, and a note.
"If you're reading this, you're not dead. Yet. Good. Keep moving. The orbit is watching. - K.I."
Aria read it over his shoulder. "He's real, isn't he?"
Malik nodded. "And he's waiting."
A scream echoed through the trees. Not pain - rage. Theo.
Malik stood. "We're done running."
Aria looked at him, eyes wide. "You're serious."
"I have the plan. I have the codes. We escape in a month."
She didn't speak. She didn't need to. Her eyes said everything.
Hope.
For the first time in years, it was more than a memory.
It was a weapon.