The city around you is wrong. Streets cracked open by roots that grew too fast, storefronts dark and hollow, cars rusted mid-turn as if everyone vanished mid-breath. No wind. No birds. Not even the hum of electricity. Then a hand closes around your arm and yanks you into the shadows. His name is Caelum. He speaks low, fast, with the practiced calm of someone who has survived too long alone. He knows every patrol route of the things that hunt at night. He knows because he built the machine that made them. You are the first living person he has seen since the collapse. And the guilt in his eyes is already deciding what that means.