Ch. 7 - Reborn
22 Years Later
The world no longer remembered what blue skies looked like.
Thick clouds of ash clung to the heavens, veiling the sun in a permanent haze.
Cities—those that hadn't crumbled, were either fortress megastructures or graveyards swallowed by moss and silence.
There were no more countries.
Now, there were only factions.
Ideologies forged in blood, survival, fear, and hunger.
Some worshipped the System.
Others, the Voltranumial.
Most just obeyed whoever held a blade to their throat.
And at the center of everything:
The System.
A silent god everyone obeyed.
Children were born into this reality knowing only one truth:
Survive.
Some pledged allegiance to warlords.
Others joined Awakened enclaves, religious cults, merchant empires, hunter coalitions.
Everything had its price.
Even air, in some sectors.
Technology evolved like fungus; sporadic, localized, and unstable.
In some regions, steam-powered airships floated through blackened skies.
Others ran on forgotten nuclear cores.
Many lived with nothing at all, burning monster bones for heat and carving runes into walls, hoping for warding miracles.
And deep beneath the city-ruins once known as Berlin, in the hollow caverns of Sector 9's shattered metro, a boy moved through the shadows.
No, not a boy.
A man forged in broken years.
Theo Friedrich.
—---------------------------------
The sun pierced weakly through a broken sky.
Light filtered down over the concrete skeletons of the old world, buildings long since collapsed, their twisted steel frames tangled like the ribcage of a long-dead beast.
Theo Friedrich walked among the ruins, boots crunching over fractured glass and rusted metal.
Dust rose at every step. And yet, amidst the gray, laughter echoed.
"Hey Theo, you ever smile with teeth or is it just that serious frown?" Juno grinned, nudging him with her elbow.
"I saw him grin yesterday," Hal chimed in from behind, carrying a battered rifle over his shoulder. "I think. Could've been gas."
"Could've been constipation," said Max, the youngest of the group, snorting with a mouth full of dried jerky.
Theo let a small smile tug at the corner of his lips. Just enough for them to notice.
They cheered.
"Look at that! Progress!"
Theo shook his head slightly, gaze ahead, but his inner monologue was a quiet murmur of warmth.
"They're idiots. But they're my friends."
The group moved like a patchwork family, banter rolling over them like armor against the desolation.
They shared jokes, water, scraps of food, and a rare, fragile peace.
Then, they heard it.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Metal boots. Too heavy.
Too precise.
Not scavengers.
Juno stopped laughing.
Out of the broken buildings emerged figures cloaked in dark, dust-matted armor, insignias scratched out, but unmistakably from the Devil Creed, a brutal faction known for taking what they wanted under the pretense of order.
Their leader stepped forward, lowering his hood.
"We don't want trouble," Theo called out, calm but firm. "We're not aligned. No banners. Just passing through."
The man didn't blink. "You're lying."
"We're not," Hal added, hands raised.
"We're scavengers, not fighters. Look at us."
The man smiled, but it was the wrong kind of smile.
"Everyone dies eventually. Might as well be now."
Then came the first shot.
Max fell instantly.
Theo's body moved before his brain did, grabbing Juno and dragging her behind a pillar as bullets and spells tore through the air like gods arguing in anger.
"Ambush!" Hal shouted, already bleeding.
Theo's sword ignited with silver arcs of light as he countered a charging attacker, their blades sparking off ruined rebar beside them.
He fought fiercely, with skill, with speed but they were too many, too strong.
A blast of wind and fire slammed into him, hurling his body through a shattered wall.
CRASH.
He tumbled across gravel and concrete, a rib snapping.
Blood smeared his vision as he groaned, trying to rise, but couldn't.
"Get up."
He blinked.
Through his blurred vision, he saw Hal get impaled.
Juno was screaming. It didn't last long.
Max's body, what was left, lay motionless.
Theo's body wouldn't move.
It wasn't just pain.
It was the kind that seeps into your soul and tells you: it's over.
Theo lay crushed beneath rubble, blood leaking from his mouth, watching the twisted shadows of the hunters loot the corpses of his friends.
"Max…"
"Juno…"
"Hal…"
Gone.
Just like that.
And he couldn't do a goddamn thing.
His fingers twitched, barely.
His vision flickered, stained in red.
"FUCK FUCK FUCK, FUCK ALL OF THIS!!"
"WHY THE HELL AM I SO WEAK!?"
"I TRAINED. I FOUGHT. I BLED. I ENDURED EVERYTHING I FUCKING CAN. FOR WHAT? JUST TO CRAWL LIKE AN INSECT?!"
"THEY WERE MY FRIENDS! AND I LET THEM DIE LIKE FUCKING DOGS WHILE I LAID HERE LIKE A USELESS PIECE OF SHIT!"
"Those bastards… Those monsters… they smiled. They smiled while they tore them apart. Like it meant nothing. Like it was just for laughs.."
"It meant EVERYTHING to me!"
His hands curled, trembling.
The blood dripping from his lips only fueled the heat building in his chest.
His throat clenched.
His eyes burned.
No one would save him.
No miracle.
No system ping.
Just silence and death.
And he hated it.
"I…I don't want to die… Not like this…"
His breathing ragged, tears mixing with dirt and blood.
"Someone—"
SPLAT.
A wet, grotesque crack echoed through the silence as a massive warhammer came crashing down, pulverizing Theo's skull like ripe fruit.
Blood sprayed across the shattered walls, staining the broken concrete crimson. The body twitched once. Then, it was still.
A low wind carried the scent of ash and decay.
From behind, a tall figure in a dark, tattered cloak stepped into the light, boots crunching on broken glass.
His face was hidden by a shadowed hood, but his voice was clear, and pissed.
"The hell, Bane? He was done. You didn't have to do that. That was gross."
The one with the hammer, a broad-shouldered man whose arms looked like they were carved from war itself, rested the bloodstained weapon on his shoulder.
He didn't even flinch.
"He was breathing," Bane muttered flatly.
"I don't like when corpses breathe."
The cloaked man narrowed his eyes.
"You're just paranoid."
"Damn right I am."
Bane spat on the corpse. "One second he's bleeding, next second he's screaming vengeance. Who knows? Could've dragged us into a mess we didn't need."
Before more words could be exchanged, another man emerged from the shadows, leaner, sharper, eyes constantly scanning.
He stepped over the bodies, careful not to get blood on his longcoat.
"Were they even enemies?" he asked with detached curiosity, nodding toward the mutilated group. "Could've actually been scavengers. Survivors. Maybe even decent folks."
Someone scoffed from behind.
"Doesn't matter." came a cold voice.
It belonged to a wiry man, expression blank. "They weren't strong enough. That's just the truth."
He knelt beside one of the corpses, searching the pockets without care, then shrugged.
"No hard feelings, it's nothing personal. That's just how it goes."
Bane grunted in agreement.
"Rule of survival. Kill or be killed."
There was silence for a moment, long and heavy, as if the broken world itself was holding its breath.
Then the cloaked man turned back toward the ruins.
"Let's move. Night's coming."
As the group disappeared into the shadows, Theo's remains lay still under the fading light.
Just another corpse in the graveyard of a ruined world.
Then as night fell..
Rain came down in sheets.
Thick and relentless.
Each droplet crashing against the broken earth like the world itself wept in mourning.
Lightning forked violently across the sky, illuminating the desolate ruins in flashes of pale, ghostly blue.
Crumbled buildings stood like tombstones, silent witnesses to the slaughter that had just occurred.
And then… they came.
Seven.
Seven figures emerged from the mist and rain, cloaked in robes so dark they seemed to devour light itself.
The fabric flowed like smoke behind them, untouched by the storm, as if the elements dared not touch them.
Their footsteps made no sound.
Their presence twisted the air, bent reality around them, ancient and unnatural.
At first glance, they seemed human.
But the longer one looked, the less sure they became.
Each one radiated something off. Something beyond comprehension.
Like looking at a memory you were never meant to recall.
They walked in perfect unison.
Unrushed. Inevitable.
As they reached the bloodstained clearing, one of them stopped.
His hood shifted slightly, revealing a sliver of a mouth that moved without sound at first, then a voice seeped out, low and slow, like something ancient waking from centuries of sleep.
"The cycle begins anew."
Another, taller figure turned its gaze toward what was left of Theo Friedrich.
The headless corpse.
The blood still fresh.
His team broken and butchered.
The figure's voice was barely more than a whisper.
"He was chosen."
The third figure chuckled softly, a cold, metallic sound that felt wrong inside the ears.
"No one escapes the will of the Arbitrary."
They circled what remained of him, rain sizzling off their robes as if the very water feared to touch them.
The tallest among them knelt, extending a long, impossibly thin hand over Theo's body.
From the darkness of his sleeve, something pulsed, an unnatural glow that flickered between color and shadow.
The rain froze mid-air.
Time held its breath.
Then, in unison, all seven raised their hands.
And chanted.
A language not meant for the living.
A language older than the stars.
The ground trembled.
The very air screamed.
And from the crushed remains of Theo Friedrich…
Something stirred.
--TO BE CONTINUED--