The air hung thick and viscous, a suffocating blend of industrial fumes and the cloying stench of decay.
Izari ' Izzy ' Rurik stood at the mouth of a narrow alley deep within Sector 7 of the West District, a part of the city. Sector 7 was an essential part of Machine City— numerous massive monolithic manufactories which released smoke and steam into the sky, rusting infrastructure in-between the narrow streets as the tenement apartments and low low-income flats and obsolete tech buried under layers of neglect.
Izari's boots crunched over broken glass and fragments of old tech as he moved cautiously forward. The neon signs above sputtered like dying fireflies, casting warped hues across the alley walls displaying the various company mascots spray-painted on them all with one message: KEEP THE HEART OF THE CITY BEATING. Ads for obsolete products flickered, their efforts at relevance casting eerie light across the two twisted corpses near the alley's dead end.
But none of that mattered now—not when the ground was slick with blood.
The smell was overwhelming. Metallic and sour, it mixed with the rot of decomposing trash and the ever-present stink of burnt circuitry. Malfunctioning neon signs cast long, twitching shadows over the alley floor. It pressed against Izari Rurik's lungs like a clammy hand, a constant reminder of the city's oppressive embrace. Izari was a young man, barely out of his teens. His skin, though naturally brown, had a sickly pallor, a testament to the city's toxic air and his meager diet. Dark circles underlined his tired eyes, etching a permanent expression of weariness onto his face. His dark grey hair, perpetually unkempt, stood in defiant spikes. A worn grey jacket concealed a red-sleeved shirt, visible where the zipper was carelessly lowered cargo pants and scuffed red boots completed his practical, if unfashionable, attire.
Above, the chemical plants churned out noxious clouds, below, the iron tang of blood stained the alley floor, mingling with the grime of centuries. Malfunctioning neon lamps cast long, distorted shadows, turning the two sprawled corpses into grotesque parodies of humanity. Their faces, what remained of them, were frozen in a rictus of terror, as if the very sight of their killer had stopped their hearts.
Izari crouched, his gaunt face pale even under the sickly neon glow. Claw marks, impossibly large and vicious, crisscrossed the ravaged bodies. Strange, circular bite marks punctuated the carnage, a testament to a predator unlike any he had ever seen. "What the hell?" He muttered to himself as he examined the bite marks. This sight made him want to puke; he could feel his guts contract. His stomach churned. The coppery tang of blood mixed with the oily air, and his guts contracted in protest. He slapped a trembling hand over his mouth, trying not to vomit. The bile clawed at his throat.
He swallowed it down and forced himself to look closer at one of the bodies. A man. Middle-aged. Jaw lowered in a silent scream as though he'd died mid-struggle. His face—or what was left of it—was a mangled mess, but something about the jawline, the dark beard stubble, the heavy brown leather jacket—it all sparked a flicker of recognition.
Izari's breath caught. No. It couldn't be.
But it was.
Roy.
His legs gave out beneath him, and he dropped to the ground with a grunt, cold seeping into his bones. "No, no, no…" he whispered. He reached out, hesitant, fingers brushing the man's ruined cheek before gently tilting the head to get a better look. It was him. Roy.
Dead.
He stared for a long moment, then pushed himself up with a sudden urgency, eyes scanning the alley's shadows. Whatever did this could still be around. He didn't want to end up like Roy. His fingers hovered near the concealed blade tucked in his boot. It wouldn't help much, not against something that could do this, but it was better than nothing. His sight landed on what seemed to be a long-dead surveillance camera on one of the walls. The cables feeding power into it were cut.
Once certain he was alone—at least for now—he turned his attention to the second body. A younger man. Early twenties, maybe younger in the worker's gear. He didn't recognize the face. It was untouched compared to Roy's, the terror still frozen in his wide, staring eyes. No ID visible, no signs of implants, no recognizable tattoos. Just another victim.
But of what?
The questions came flooding in. Who the hell was this guy? What was he doing here with Roy? Why were they both dead in this alley? And most importantly—what in Machine City's mechanical hell had done this to them?
His mind reeled.
And then, another question—one that felt colder, sharper.
Why did Esme want him to meet Roy here?
His gut twisted again, but this time it wasn't nausea—it was suspicion. Esme had been vague on most of the details, but the assignment was clear: meet up with Roy in this specific location, get the data chip, and immediately bring it. He hadn't given details on the contents of the chip, but Izari knew what would probably be in there, either an uploaded consciousness or just another cheap black market AI.
But all he understood now was blood.
He backed away slowly from the bodies, shooting a glance at the shadows and then at the rooftops. There was no sound but the distant rumble of the factories and the hiss of steam from a nearby vent. No witnesses. No answers. Just him and the dead.
Izari's thoughts swirled, each one darker than the last. He didn't trust the city, and he sure as hell didn't trust coincidence. Roy wasn't just some old contact—he'd been a smuggler, an information broker, someone with dirt on everyone. This meeting with this mystery man meant something. And if they both ended up like this, it meant something went horribly wrong.
To him, Roy was somewhat of a friend. The few times they had met, Roy was nice to him, and he even bought him food once. That one act of kindness was all that was needed to sway Izari to Roy's side, as he had earned his favor. However, he could not brush some of the doubts he had in his mind about Roy either. Rumors that he was a human trafficker would surface now and then, and Izari would choose to ignore them. He however, knew that even though he was trying his best to think of Roy as a good guy, maybe, just maybe, he was painting a good picture of himself towards him with an ulterior motive. Maybe he just wanted to get close to him so that he could finally get a hold of him and sell him to the forges as a chainstock, indentured slaves who worked alongside the machines that ran the factories.
It was then that Izari came to the resolve that maybe Roy wasn't a good person after all. He, however, knew that Esme wouldn't be pleased to hear the news about Roy's death, but then would he care? Probably not. All that mattered to Esme was that the data chip was safe and secure.
The data chip! Izari suddenly remembered why he was there in the first place. He began working quickly, efficiently, stripping the dead of anything valuable before proceeding to the job at hand. Roy's corpse had a desperate grip still clinging to a grey stun gun. He pried the makeshift weapon loose, tucking it into his coat. The dead man's pockets yielded little: a handful of coins and a stimulant, the synthetic sustenance churned out in the underground refineries, but no data chip. He stuffed it into his satchel.
"Where is it?" His fingers trembled slightly as he worked. Not from fear. But with increasing uneasiness and anxiety, he didn't want to be around these bodies any longer. But there was something else, a deeper unease, gnawing at the edges of his mind. Was this all he would ever be? A runt taking orders from people who didn't care if he lived or died just to survive another day on scraps?
He knew the answer, and he hated it.
Machine City had a way of grinding dreams into dust. The good life – proper housing, clean air, basic medical care – was reserved for the gilded elite in the upper levels, those who mattered. And he, Izari Rurik, did not matter.
Yet.
That single word, a defiant ember in the cold ashes of his spirit, fueled him. He wanted to matter. He looted the second corpse, working faster now. He needed more. More coins – anything to get him closer to his dream, however improbable it seemed. One day, he would ascend. One day, he would claw his way out of this goddamned city and breathe clean air. He dreamt of sunshine, of a life beyond the suffocating steel and sorrow. A life where he wasn't just surviving, but living. Suddenly, his hand came into contact with something, and he immediately removed it from the young man's overalls. It wasn't a data chip but instead a picture of two people, the dead young man and someone else who appeared to be his twin brother.
Something akin to sympathy came upon him as he took a look at the picture. He then decided to immediately alert the authorities when he left there. His brother would at least get some money from whatever company his brother worked for.
Suddenly, everything went dark.
It was the routine power outage; he was too engrossed with what he was doing that he forgot about it. Now he would have to work in the dark. He took out his comms device, turned on its flashlight, and crouched down to continue looking
A cold prickle ran down his spine.
Something was watching him in the dark.
He froze, ears straining against the hum of the street. Beneath the usual cacophony, a new sound emerged – a wet, slithering noise, like meat sliding over metal. A shape moved in the alley's mouth, too large, too wrong. The stench hit him next, rancid and sickly-sweet, drowning out even the foul air of Machine City. It smelled of rot and something indescribably… alien.
Izari turned, his body already reacting, the shiv gripped tightly in his other hand. Trained by years of desperate survival, his instincts were sharper than his conscious thought. He quickly raised the flashlight at the direction of the noise, and there it was.
It was massive. A lamprey-faced nightmare of slick, glistening flesh, nearly eight feet tall, its elongated jaw bristling with concentric rings of teeth. Its body, grotesque humanoid but fundamentally wrong, pulsed with a sickening vitality as disconnected tubes spewing drops of black liquid were still plugged into it. Eyeless sockets wept streams of black ichor, leaving viscous trails down its face. It hunched forward, a guttural croak rumbling in its chest, as if struggling to form words in a language beyond human comprehension.
His breath caught in his throat. His mind screamed for him to run, to flee this impossible horror, but his legs felt like lead. He was paralyzed, trapped in a nightmare.
Then it lunged.
Izari barely managed to twist aside, but it wasn't enough. "Shit!" he cursed as the creature's claws tore through his jacket and grazed his ribs. He instinctively activated his ability, a last-ditch defense that drew heavily on his energy reserves. He rendered himself intangible, and rematerialized on the opposite side wall of in the alley, phasing into a room through the crumbling wall of an abandoned tenement room.
He scrambled to his feet, his heart pounding against his ribs. He fumbled inside his jacket, pulling out the battered comms device. "Come on, come on," he muttered, frantically flipping the switch. Relief washed over him as the blinker finally pulsed red, indicating a connection. Just as his breath hitched in a sigh of hope, the wall behind him exploded inward, scattering bricks and dust. The creature stood in the newly formed opening, its lamprey maw gaping, dripping with black ichor.
Agony ripped through his ribs as the creature's claws raked across his side, shredding fabric and skin alike. He stumbled back, gasping, a wave of heat spreading across his side. Blood. His blood.
The thing loomed over him, its eyeless sockets fixed on him, its mouth working spasmodically, gurgling as if desperately trying to communicate something.
Izari's vision blurred from pain, from fear. But deep inside, something else stirred – a cold, burning defiance.
Machine City had taken everything from him. It had stripped him of comfort, of dignity, of hope. But it would not have his life. Not tonight.
Spitting blood, he staggered to his feet, his eyes locking onto the horror before him. His body ached, his phasing ability had left him weak, but his resolve remained unbroken.
"Not tonight," he growled, tightening his grip on the makeshift shiv. It was a pitiful weapon against such a monstrous foe, but it was all he had.
He steadied himself and rushed towards the creature brandishing the shiv. His attack, to his surprise, was successful as the blade scraped across the creature's skin causing it to release a low guttural screech, spewing more black ichor from its maw. It then tried to backhand Izari, who quickly ducked its attack. Suddenly, a sharp pain jolted through his body; the pain from the injury he had was beginning to intensify. He let out a muffled grunt as he tried to regain balance. " Damn." he winced as he tried to look up at the creature. A blow aimed at his head sent him into the tiles on the floor, which shattered as he came crashing down. His mouth opened out to let out a scream, but nothing came out. The creature followed the attack by furiously clubbing him further into the floor. It suddenly stopped as low guttural groans began to escape from its mouth, and it slowly picked Izari up by his collar lifting him. It took a long look at him as Izari struggled to open his eyes.
It was hungry for blood, and its prey was now seemingly lifeless and ripe for the taking. It sunk its teeth in the wound sucking the blood out of Izari who let out an agonized cry. He then began to hit the creature relentlessly in a desperate attempt to free himself. He could feel his strength waning by the second as the creature now grabbed his legs and began to pull him apart.
A desperate burst of adrenaline shook him to life and using this opportunity, he rendered himself intangible and thrust his hand straight into the creature's face. It immediately let go of him before he could materialize. Upon landing, Izari made a mad dash for its legs, tackling it to the ground. He then mounted on its chest and began clobbering its face. The creature tried to reach out and grab him, but he slapped the hands away.
Right now, he had it where he wanted it, and he was not going to let it live. One of them was going to walk out of there alive, and he was going to make sure that it was going to be him.
The creature's tar black blood splattered all over him as his blows landed on it, tearing skin, breaking bones in a grotesque presentation of gore. The blood stung as it clung to his skin, while some of it seemed to penetrate the pores of his skin and the wound into his body. He could feel it, but he paid no heed. He could feel his body getting heavier and heavier after each blow. However, during the commotion, the floor underneath them had already begun to weaken and crack. Just before Izari could continue dealing further damage, the floor underneath gave way, and both of them fell into the sewer tunnels below.
Izari opened his eyes and painfully looked around him. His head still felt fuzzy, and he couldn't tell where he was. His senses finally kicked in, and the sharp stench of the sewers caused him to fully jerk up awake.
Using the wall beside him, he helped himself to his feet. He quickly scanned around him, searching through the darkness for his comms device to call for help. He suddenly stopped as soon as he heard the creature's weak grunts in the further darkness of the sewers.
He was not ready to face it again.
Despite his body healing at a faster rate, he was still weak and he needed to find somewhere to rest. Grunting with each step, he clutched the wound on his side and began navigating through the dark sewers looking for a way out.