Aaron walked through Neon City's ravaged streets.
The wan sun blistered overhead, its light oozing between shattered hulls of towers like liquid gold from a wound. This had been the glory of the Neon State when the world had flashed, loud, alive. Now its silence was so deep that even the sound of his own footsteps was an intruder, a trespasser on ghosts.
He touched the odd metal encircling his wrist. A watch, at least, that's what Quanta'd called it. Its gears whirring quietly, counting time with a rhythm too methodical to be inadvertent.
A remnant of the past, she'd said when she turned herself into it and tied itself to his wrist.
"Prior to the cybernetic renaissance, Quanta's voice resonated softly over the dial, "humans used these to keep the passage of time. No circuits, no signals, just pure mechanics. Supernaturals can shut down systems, Aaron. But they could never eliminate the idea of technology itself."
Aaron's lips twisted into a sneer and a spasm of incredulity.
"Strange thing for the most advanced intelligence to state while pretending to be a wristwatch."
Adaptation, she had stated bluntly. "Everyone must learn how to hide, in order to live."
He didn't argue. There was no use arguing with something which had once controlled the whole planetary networks.
The city closed in around him, a jagged web of glass and steel. Skyscrapers were ripped asunder like ribs, their rusty innards open in broken windowed mouths. Cables of dripping wire hung from ceilings, steel veins glinting like sun-dried worms. Vehicle bodies filled the streets, half-buried in asphalt, melted into twisted sculptures by the fire of the Doomsday level Light.
A giant billboard had fallen across the street
He moved on.
Shadows watched him from the ruins.
He felt them as unseen silhouettes against shattered windows, faintly glowing in the periphery of his vision. They never stepped from the light. They never made a noise.
But he knew that they saw him.
Anyone still alive would feel the eyes.
Aaron said nothing more.
The deeper he walked into the Market District, the heavier the air became. The scent of rust, smoke, and something sweetly rotting under the heat clogged the streets. He trudged past the half-collapsed stands of vendors. There were still-shape metal structures, but goods had already melted years before into black pulp. On one counter, a propped-up child's doll grinned, eyes scratched away.
He remembered being there.
It existed back then. Neon fog seeping along cramped side alleys, laughter, synthesized sound bouncing off walls. He had once gone to buy a coffee that wasn't even. It was a simulation created by nanomachines.
Today the same street was lined with crashed drones, wings crumpled like mangled bugs.
He grumbled to himself,
"Even the machines came to a stop, which they had been working on for a thousand years."
Quanta snapped once, as if in a gesture of thought.
They walked until the sun was high.
Noon.
The fiery sun above rendered the city fairly secure. Shadows became thin, retreating into crevices. The quiet was huge. There was only movement in dust motes floating in sunbeams, like sparks from a heaven that had been burned.
Then there was sound.
Aaron's heart froze. His breath choked.
A rasping, low human voice from the other side of the knocked-over market gate.
Quanta's gears spun more rapidly.
"Organic presence detected. Three. Unstable irregular vital signs but stable."
His chest tightened. Three?
He hadn't seen another living human soul anymore. Not since the light accident.
He moved slowly forward.
The way ahead stretched into what had been a plaza previously but now of shattered tiles, glass islands where sun played, and a busted fountain in the shape of an angel with clipped wings. There were three people standing next to the fountain; they were dirty, dangerous, and alive.
A woman in torn military fatigues.
A boy with one mechanized arm, still weakly emitting.
And a boy no more than fifteen, wielding a metal pipe as a sword.
They turned towards him at the sound of his arrival.
They opened their eyes as their fear increased. The woman raised some towards him.
Aaron did not react. His hands were open, naked.
There was silence between them for a moment.
The wind rustled through the trash, carrying a whisper of static.
Glass was shattering somewhere in the distance.
For the first time in a very long time, Aaron saw something glance back over its shoulder and not try to eat him.
He could feel Quanta hum softly against the inside of his wrist.
"Humans," she gasped softly, as if stunned. "Still alive."
Aaron breathed slowly, close to laughing in amazement.
"Yeah… still alive."
He looked upward at the three other remaining survivors, sun glare cutting out their silhouettes like promise and threat both.
For the first time since waking, the stillness was broken not by terror, but by the pulse of another heartbeat than one's own.
And for a moment, Neon City was no longer dead.