Chapter One: "The Last Night"

Chapter One:

"The Last Night"

The monitor's blue glow sliced into the darkness, stark and unrelenting against Alex Shephard's face. The power held, barely.

Empty cans of Vex littered the desk, scattered like spent shell casings. The booster was cheap, legal, and just strong enough to keep exhaustion at bay. You crashed later, but later didn't matter when you were running out of time.

His eight-by-eight apartment felt too big without Lily. Too empty.

Too quiet.

Stale sweat and desperation clung to the room, the recycled oxygen tainted with metallic bitterness. Eight-by-eight feet of space, a kingdom in a city of cages, paid for with circuit boards and scavenged parts.

Lily had always kept it spotless. She believed in order, even in the middle of collapse. Now, with her in a care ward he could barely afford, dirty clothes poured from the storage hatch, and bare mounting brackets stood, tombstones where his custom PC builds once glowed.

Every missing piece was a sacrifice made for love.

The screen flashed to life as Alex played the video for the thousandth time. Before she slipped into the coma. Before she had left him. She was there. Captured forever in a digital web. Lily. Still smiling, even then, somehow. She had looked gaunt. Hollow-cheeked. A ghost before she was even gone.

"Alex?" Her voice crackled, barely there. But she smiled. She always smiled. "You look terrible. Have you been sleeping?"

"I'm fine." A lie, but one he wore well. "How are you feeling today?"

She tried to laugh, but it turned to a cough that rattled in her chest, thin and sharp.

"All sunshine and unicorns here."

The rash had spread. Red patches crawled up her throat like ivy strangling a dying tree. Her collarbones jutted beneath her paper-thin skin.

She was running out of time.

"Listen," she whispered. "I know what you're going to say. I know we've been over this every night, but please, just listen one more time. You promised me yesterday, and the day before, but I can see it on your face. You're still planning to do it, aren't you?"

"Lily..."

"Don't." Her breath hitched. "Don't lie to me again."

Tears gathered in her sunken eyes. "The Dive… they designed it so no one wins. Everyone knows exactly what it is. What they're really doing."

He cut it off.

Black screen.

She would forgive him later. When she was walking again. There. With him.

His reflection stared back at him. Drained. Empty.

Outside, neon propaganda seeped through the slats in the shutters. 'Salvation Awaits. A New World Is Coming. Enter The Ultimate Dive.'

He touched two fingers to his lips, then pressed them to the darkened screen. A gesture their parents used to make, back when things were different. Before the riots. Before the world fell apart and left them alone.

His voice barely made it past his throat. "I'm sorry, Lily. I'll see you soon. In our new life."

His jacket hung by the door, right where he left it. The fabric was worn soft, the gold thread on the back dull with age, RolandOGilead, his old gamertag. A gift from Lily. A relic from another life.

A life that ended years ago.

He grabbed the Gamepass from the desk, holographic lettering shimmering like a blade catching light.

He walked out without looking back, not even bothering to close the door behind him. He wasn't coming back.

The streets of Manhattan were a different kind of graveyard.

Not for the dead, but for the dying.

Bodies pressed together in a flood of movement. No space, no breath, just survival. It reeked of burnt plastic, oil, and human misery. The sound of bartering, arguing, whispering, came from all around.

He kept his head down. He'd walked this route before, knew better than to slow down, knew better than to make eye contact. That was how you got noticed, followed.

Worse.

A few blocks from his bar, 'The Blackout', it happened.

The man came from the side, quick and desperate. A blade gleamed in the low light. A junker. Thin, twitchy, eyes darting like a rat trapped in its own starving body.

"Ration Card. Jacket. Now."

Alex didn't stop walking. If you stopped, you were already dead. "Not interested."

"Didn't ask what you were interested in, buddy. Now give me your shoes too."

The knife jabbed closer. A bad move.

Alex grabbed the man's wrist mid-lunge, twisting. Cartilage popped. The junker howled, stumbling back. Before he could reset, Alex drove a fist into his stomach. The guy folded, gasping, but Alex wasn't done.

He yanked the knife free and stepped in, pressing the blade lightly against the man's throat. Just enough to remind him who was in charge now.

"Bad night to pick me."

The junker's breath came in short, wheezing bursts. "Okay, okay. Jesus, man! I weren't gonna do nut'tin'. Honest."

He eased off of him. The guy collapsed, clutching his wrist, already scuttling backward into the dark.

Alex hadn't even broken a sweat.

By the time he reached The Blackout, the adrenaline had already faded. Same streets. Same desperation. Just another night in a city long past saving.

Alex pushed open the doors.

A pair of armed G.R.C. guards stood just inside, watching everything without reacting. Their armor was mismatched, salvaged from riot gear, corporate security, and military surplus, but the message was clear. No one started trouble in The Blackout unless they wanted to be dragged outside and left bleeding in the gutter. This was neutral ground. Violence stayed at the door.

A blast of hot, sweat-thick air hit him. Rotgut liquor, bodies crammed into too little space, the electric hum of hopelessness.

The bar's holo-screen pulsed with the latest G.R.C. promises, bold, sterile letters floating in the air. Tomorrow, the first entrants in history will make the Dive. Tomorrow, the world will change.

At a back table, a group of men were betting on survival odds.

"I ain't gonna die, no way in hell," one man boasted, slamming his glass down. "I was a pro fighter before all this. If anyone's surviving, it's me."

A woman scoffed. "You don't even know what's in there."

Another voice, quiet but firm, cut through. "Doesn't matter. Anything is better than here."

Alex didn't join them.

He slid onto a stool at the bar.

The bartender, Reuben, thick-built and weathered, wiped the counter, unfazed by the chaos. His one good eye watched, weighed, measured.

"You just gonna stare, or you actually gonna drink?"

Alex exhaled. He laid his Ration Card down. "Drinking. Keep it. I'm not gonna need it anymore." Reuben's gaze moved toward the Ultimate Dive's Gamepass barely peeking from Alex's jacket.

"I know that look." He wiped down a glass, slow and steady. "Most people in here drink because they're scared to die. You're drinking like you've already decided you're dead." He handed him a glass of Rotgut.

Alex didn't answer. He lifted the glass, let the burn sear his throat.

Reuben poured another from a different bottle. It looked Darker. Older. A drink meant for ghosts.

"This one's for the guilt," he said.

Alex stared at it. "And the first one?"

Reuben smirked. "That one's for luck."

Laughter from the betting table. The sound of a glass shattering. The sound of bad choices already made.

Alex finished his drink.

Outside, the neon promised hope.

Inside, the last of his hesitation burned away.

Tomorrow, he'd be gone.