Days before the scavenger team's collapse near the old warehouse, the wasteland breathed in muted colors. gray and pale blue beneath a dying sky.
Korren's camp crouched in the shadow of a broken overpass, its fires giving off more smoke than heat. Sparks leapt against the wind, disappearing into the haze.
"How could they just simply disappeared off like that," Korren muttered, eyes tracing the map spread before him. "No pattern. No heat trails. No footprints. Nothing."
Across the fire, Nyla sat cross-legged, her rifle balanced across her knees. The glow of the embers flickered across her face. sharp cheekbones, eyes like winter glass.
"Maybe they are ghosts," she said, not looking up. Her tone was light, but her hands trembled slightly when she cleaned the weapon.
Korren's mouth twitched in what might have been amusement. "Are you trying to make me angry?."
He leaned over the map, fingers tracing faded lines. "A technology older than our faith, still running. That's what we're chasing."
The camp was quiet. The only sounds were the wind scraping over rusted metal and the distant hum of unseen drones.
When night fell, rain began to whisper. a thin drizzle that painted everything in silver ash. Talgat sat apart from the others, sharpening his retractable blade beneath a tattered canopy. The rhythm of steel on stone mixed with the soft hiss of rainfall.
Behind him, Nyla adjusted the scope on her rifle for the third time. "Still pretending you're not nervous?" she asked quietly, her voice half-teasing, half-afraid.
Talgat didn't look up. "And you still talk too much before a job."
She smirked. "Someone has to. You'd sit in silence until you rust."
He slid the blade back into its sheath. "Maybe that's how you stop being afraid."
Nyla fell quiet. For a moment, the rain filled the space between them. gentle, constant, like breath. Then, softer this time, she said, "If you get caught out there… I'll shoot whoever touches you. Then I'll kill you myself for being stupid."
Talgat turned toward her, the faintest smile touching his lips. "That's why I trust you."
Her eyes flicked away immediately, her expression unreadable. "Idiot," she muttered, though the word came out more like a prayer.
Korren's voice broke through the moment. low, deliberate, the tone of command.
"Talgat," he said, stepping from the shadows, rain running off his coat. "You'll be the stray tonight. Let them think you're one of the lost. someone hunted by our men. Run from the metro ruins toward the old warehouse district. We'll weaken the beams ahead of time to funnel them. Only one way in, one way out."
Talgat nodded. "And if they don't help me?"
Korren's gaze didn't waver. "Then you die. But we'll finally know where their ghosts sleep."
He turned away, his profile lit by the campfire's glow.
"Prepare the mock lair," he ordered. "Use the debris and bones. Make it look lived in. but abandoned just long enough to feel real."
While the others moved to their tasks, Korren turned away from the station, followed the edge of the camp toward the low tents tucked beneath the overpass.
The air there felt somewhat thicker with stench of oil smoke and damp fabric. Canvas walls sagged under the weight of falling rain, patched with mismatched strips of synth-cloth and tar sealant. A single lantern burned low inside, its light dulled by grime on the glass.
Korren ducked through the flap.
The boy, skin head, lay on a narrow cot made from welded scrap and scavenged padding, his body barely indenting the surface. He looked eight or nine at most, though his size suggested younger. His skin held a grayish pallor beneath the grime, stretched thin over narrow wrists and collarbones that stood out too sharply. One knee angled inward when he slept, the leg too light to fall straight.
His clothes hung loose on him, an oversized thermal shirt cinched at the waist with twine, sleeves rolled twice at the wrists to keep them from swallowing his hands. The collar slipped to one side, exposing the shallow rise and fall of his chest. Each breath came short and careful, like he was measuring how much air he could afford.
A respirator mask rested crooked over his mouth, the filter housing scuffed and hairline-cracked.
Korren knelt.
Two fingers pressed lightly to the boy's neck. A pause. Then another at the wrist. Shallow pulse. Fast. The boy's chest fluttered under the blanket.
His breath is tightening; I might need to ask Kamron to occasionally come check again…
Korren adjusted the mask, twisted the filter loose, and replaced it with a clean cartridge from his coat. He reseated the seal, tugged the straps tighter, then looser, finding the line where it held without biting into skin.
The boy stirred but didn't wake.
Behind him, fabric rustled.
A smaller girl stood just inside the tent, no more than six or seven by Korren's estimate, her bare feet half-buried in the packed dirt. She barely reached his shoulder even while he knelt. Her hair hung in uneven clumps, cut short with a blade rather than scissors, the ends stiff with dust and old sweat.
She wore a green jacket meant for someone twice her size, the fabric heavy and faded, the sleeves dragging past her fingers. One sleeve had been tied off with cord at the elbow, cinched tight to keep it from catching. The collar rose to her chin, brushing skin that showed the same dull, unhealthy tone as the boy's, darker in places where grime had settled into the hollows of her neck.
She watched Korren's hands instead of his face, eyes tracking each movement with careful focus, as if memorizing what to do if he didn't come back.
"Will he…?" Her voice stopped halfway. She tried again. "Will he be okay?"
Korren didn't turn.
"He'll breathe easier now," he said. His voice stayed flat. Certain. "That's enough for tonight."
She shifted her weight. "You're sure?"
Korren looked back as he rose beside the girl. His thumb caught briefly in the coarse beard along his jaw, then dropped.
"Sit with him if he wakes," he said. "Keep him warm. Don't let him drink too fast."
The girl nodded hard, like she was storing the instructions somewhere safe.
Korren stood, brushed dust from his knees, and stepped back into the rain-silvered camp.