# Scene 1
The world has gone glassy with cold, the air so thick with mist that Corin's breath merges with it, invisible and stolen. He hunkers in the low crimson underbrush at the outskirts of Graymist Village, knees crushed against ribs, hands clenched around nothing. Through the fog, the village is little more than the rumor of stone walls and shapes drifting behind the vapor—sentinels stalking the border, their shadows warped by the shifting light.
Even crouched and silent, he feels exposed. Every time the wind shifts, it peels the damp off his skin, and the cold cuts new lines into the meat of his body. His jaw aches from clenching, his tongue from the blunt iron of his own blood. His stomach is a fist, twisting, the last scraps of the blue meat already burned off by the chase.
A faint blue glow pulses along the wall's perimeter, brightening each time a guard passes. The patrols are regular—he's counted sixteen laps in the last hour, never fewer than two guards together, often three or four, all of them armored in pale gray scale and rune-etched plates that catch and scatter the blue-white like a predator's eyes at night. He uses [Basic Perception] to map their patterns, each step translated by the System into a shifting, virtual diagram overlaid on the village's battered stone. The effect is trippy, almost reassuring: everywhere a risk, but every risk an equation.
The System keeps up a relentless feed: [Guard Pair: 30 second interval. Blind Spot: South-east, 10 meter sweep. Alarm Response: 14 seconds.] The numbers are cold, efficient. He loves them for that.
Corin traces his route with a fingernail in the mud. Each pass, he adds a new variable—change in the wind, a cough from a guard, a slouch in their gait as fatigue creeps in. He waits for a gap, but there never is one; the patrols are too tight, the arcs overlapping. He'd need to be invisible, or insane, to breach this wall.
A sudden flicker of movement in the haze—the guards stop, not ten meters from his hollow. Corin drops flat, the underbrush barely shielding his outline. Through a tangle of branches, he watches them. One is tall, the armor stretched tight over muscle; the other is slighter, voice pitched higher, the glow of runes outlining an angular jaw.
They talk in low voices, but [Basic Perception] catches and amplifies each word, sifting them from the muffling fog.
"Another Outsider captured last week. Commander says they're becoming more common."
"What'd they do with this one?"
"Same as the others. Interrogation, then who knows."
A cold drip works its way down Corin's spine. He bites his tongue until the taste of blood floods his mouth, fighting the urge to twitch or run or throw up.
The tall guard spits into the mist. "I don't like it. Too many lately. One slipped the perimeter two days ago, killed a whole patrol."
The other guard shrugs. "If they're dumb enough to come here, they're meat. Always the same: desperate, ugly, running like rats. Never seen one last longer than a week."
They move on, the blue light tracing their exit through the vapor. Corin listens to their boots squelch through mud, then fade.
His body is locked rigid. The System paints a probability arc above his eyes: [Odds of capture if detected: 74%. Odds of execution following capture: 62%.]
He mutters, "Cheery." The word is a skeleton, barely more than air.
His own thoughts come in bursts. They're hunting me. I'm not the only one. They break Outsiders here, interrogate, erase. He wonders if there's a mass grave somewhere beneath the stone, all bones and secrets and failed experiments.
He waits another five minutes, mapping every guard rotation, every silence and gap. Hunger gnaws so deep that it feels like memory, like a habit he picked up from a former self. He makes himself focus, drawing each detail into a plan.
On the third pass, he spots it: a low dip where the perimeter wall meets the ground, almost obscured by roots and a shelf of collapsed stone. The guards give it wide berth, skirting around, never looking directly at the tangle.
Corin moves, low and fast, the brush scraping cold welts into his arms and shins. He slides up to the wall, pressing himself into the hollow, listening for the next patrol. When it passes, he exhales, a slow hiss, and inspects the dip.
It's worse than he thought. Not a crack, not a breach—just a slime-dark hole, half-filled with runoff and debris. A stench rises from it, cold and chemical, like someone dumped a swimming pool into a sewer and left it to rot. Corin's gut recoils, but the System chimes:
[Drainage Tunnel: Entry viable. Risk of pathogen: Moderate. Risk of detection: Low.]
He stares into the hole, sees nothing but black. The ground around it is slick, coated in a film of algae and silt. He wedges his fingers under the lip, cold mud packing beneath his nails, and pulls. The crusted edge gives with a sucking sound, and his hand disappears up to the wrist. Water seeps out, foul and freezing.
He shimmies forward, shoulders first, scraping past roots and sharp-edged stone. The chill is immediate, everywhere, drenching him in an instant. He buries his face in the crook of his elbow and crawls, breath held against the stink.
Inside, sound is magnified—a hollow echo of every movement, every wet slap of his body dragging through the muck. He moves by feel, one arm forward, the other bracing, inch by inch. At the first curve, he nearly panics: the tunnel shrinks, the ceiling a rough press against his back. He grits his teeth and forces himself onward, one knee after the other.
Water runs in a trickle, black and bitter. It soaks his jeans, his shirt, seeps into the cuts on his arms and legs. The cold is numbing, but the pain is real: every scrape, every brush against a hidden stone or broken glass. At one point, something soft and dead brushes his cheek. He doesn't stop, doesn't let the shudder travel past his jaw.
The System offers progress updates: [Distance to village center: 39 meters. 33 meters. 28 meters.] Each one is a dare, a goad.
The tunnel banks left, then up, and suddenly there's light—a faint, reflected shimmer, like dawn breaking underwater. He slows, feeling for any tripwires, any signs of alarm. There are none, just the slow drip of water and the distant, rhythmic thud of village life above.
At the exit, Corin wedges himself against the edge, peering out.
The drainage tunnel opens into a stone-lined ditch, half-concealed by a spill of dead leaves and trash. Above, the village wall rears, thick and mottled, topped with broken glass and wire. Just beyond, the glow of the blue perimeter is faint, almost benign.
He waits for another minute, listening. There's movement above, the echo of footsteps and the low mutter of voices, but no alarms, no shouts. He wipes his face with a sleeve, smearing mud and blood across his cheek, and grins at the absurdity.
He'd never have made it as a soldier. But as a rat? He's a fucking champion.
He wriggles forward, boots first, and pushes himself out of the drainage tunnel. Cold mud squelches up around his calves; he has to kick loose, planting his feet in the slime, arms trembling from the effort. He uses the last burst of adrenaline to roll behind a low heap of stone, hidden from the wall and the street beyond.
He lies there, lungs working overtime, as the System throws up a final update:
[Entry to Graymist Village: Success. Risk of immediate detection: 5%.]
He smiles, teeth stained blue and black, and lets the cold numb everything but the hunger.
There's no going back now. Only forward, only in.
He pulls himself upright, every nerve on fire, and surveys the inner edge of the wall.
Time to see what the rats have in store for him.
# Scene 2
The stone ditch stinks like old laundry and battery acid. Corin drags himself out of the drainage pipe, every joint screaming, and collapses in the shadow between two squat buildings. He is soaked from neck to toe in rank water, his face streaked with grime and the dried blood of a dozen small wounds. The wall of the ditch is slick, but his fingers—half-numb, nails caked black—climb it anyway.
He rolls onto his back, sucking at the air, and waits for the pounding in his head to subside. The cold is a living thing, chewing into his skin. Still, compared to the razor clarity of the outside, the interior of Graymist Village is almost gentle—a slow fever instead of a gunshot.
He blinks, and [Basic Perception] lights up his vision with a flood of data.
[Danger Level: Minimal—No guards in direct line of sight.]
[Nearby movement: Civilian, Adult, 12 meters to North.]
[Sound signatures: Low conversation, market noise, livestock.]
The System is a perpetual whisper, never louder than a thought, but it paints the world in heat maps and probability arcs. Every step becomes a question: Is this safe? Is this smart? Is this necessary? Right now, there's only one answer: food.
He hugs the wall, feet soft on packed earth, and edges along the first alley. The village is a maze—half a dozen roads twist out from the main gate, but Corin sticks to the narrowest side paths, where the air is thick with damp and the only witnesses are windows clouded with condensation. The houses are built for function, not beauty: thick stone walls, mortar packed with straw and mud, the roofs heavy with thatch and coated in frost. Some of the doors are marked with paint or runes, most likely denoting family or bloodline.
A dog barks, somewhere distant, not close enough to matter. He crouches behind a pile of crates, listens, then sprints to the next blind spot.
The smells change as he moves: burning wood, boiled meat, the sweet pungency of fermenting fruit. Somewhere a child screams, but it's the whine of a tantrum, not terror. He files that away, relief curdled by suspicion. Not all threats are loud.
In a pocket of open space, he glimpses the market: two rows of stalls, arranged along a trough where people wash produce and knives in the frigid runoff from a spring. Most stalls are drab, but one near the center bursts with color—fruit stacked in pyramids, the flesh of each bulb glowing with embedded motes of light. Another offers smoked meats, slabs strung on hooks and shedding slow curls of fat into the gutter below. A third is the baker's: a sunken oven built into a brick shell, the surface lined with loaves still steaming in the chill.
His stomach lurches.
Corin scans for guards, but the System finds only civilians—old women bartering over cloth, a trio of brawny men in stained aprons, a pair of kids playing knucklebones in the dust. No sign of the armored patrols; maybe they have no reason to expect an attack from within.
He wipes his mouth on his sleeve and plans. The bread is unguarded except for a single apprentice, maybe fourteen, with a cowlick of blond hair and fingers dusted in flour. She moves with a kind of rote misery, arranging and rearranging the loaves, head down, eyes glazed by boredom. He could take three and she'd never notice.
But that's the trick. They always notice.
He times the rhythm: every thirty seconds, the girl glances toward the main square, probably waiting for her master to return. Every minute, she picks up a stick and uses it to chase birds away from the bread. She hates her job, but she's not an idiot.
He waits until she's got both hands full, hoisting a heavy peel from the oven. In that half-second, he darts forward, fingers snapping a loaf from the back of the stack. The bread is hot, the crust brittle; it nearly burns his palm. He tucks it inside his shirt, turns, and is gone before she sets the peel down. If she saw, she doesn't let on. No shout, no alarm.
He ducks into an alley, heart hammering.
The hunger is unbearable now. He tears into the loaf, biting down until the crust cracks and the hot air scalds his tongue. The inside is blue-gray, flecked with seeds, dense and impossibly filling. He devours half the loaf in three gulps, barely tasting anything but salt and heat. Each swallow sends a wave of relief through his body, but the hunger is still bottomless.
He leans against a wall, shivering, and tries to catch his breath. The world is brighter—he's alive again, sharper, almost giddy with energy. The System throws up a readout:
[Hunger: -30%]
[Hydration: -10%]
[Warning: Nutritional Deficiency—Protein, Calcium, Magnesium.]
He flips it off, then laughs at himself. "Thanks, Mom."
A voice behind him: "That's a weird thing to say to bread."
Corin whirls, fists up, a fragment of the loaf still clutched like a rock.
A girl, maybe eighteen or nineteen, stands at the end of the alley. She's pale, freckled, hair in dark braids, and eyes the color of old glass. Her dress is patched but clean, hands folded behind her back. She regards him with the kind of calm that's either confidence or complete stupidity.
He checks for an ambush. Nothing—no guards, no alarms, no one creeping up. The System confirms: [Threat Level: None.]
He lowers his guard, but only a fraction. "What do you want?"
She steps closer, careful but direct. "You're not from here."
He stares at her. The bread is still in his hand, the heat bleeding into his skin. "Neither are you," he says, just to see if it rattles her.
She smiles, small and sharp. "I was born here. My mother says I have the look of an Outsider, though."
He almost asks what that means, but the words jam in his throat. He feels his face, the ridges of dried mud and crusted blood, the split lip. He must look feral.
She tilts her head. "You're hungry. I can show you where the food is.
He backs away, pressing himself to the wall, legs tensed to sprint. "I don't need help."
The girl shrugs, as if his refusal is irrelevant. "Suit yourself. But the guards will find you soon. They always do."
Corin's mind runs all the possible angles. Is she bait? A lure for a patrol? Or just some freakishly observant street kid with a taste for danger? The System offers nothing—just a blinking question mark.
He studies her, eyes narrowed. "Why would you help me?"
She shrugs again, this time almost bored. "You remind me of someone."
He waits for the punchline, the trick, but she only stands there, unblinking, hands still behind her back.
She steps forward, and he notices a pattern: she never gets close enough for him to reach her. Always out of arm's length, always an easy escape.
"Others like you have come before," she says. "Most of them end up in the pits."
He keeps his voice low. "What's in the pits?"
She hesitates, and for the first time he sees something flicker across her face—fear, or maybe just old memory. "They say it's where the village puts its dead. But sometimes people go in alive."
The bread in his hand goes cold. He drops it, appetite gone.
"Who are you?" he asks.
The girl tilts her head, and now she looks almost sad. "You can call me Lyra."
He wants to press her, wants to demand answers, but every instinct screams at him to run, to vanish, to leave before she changes her mind or summons the world down on his head.
But she's not running. She's watching, waiting, like she knows the next move is his.
He feels the exhaustion, the cold, the ache in his bones, and wonders how long he can keep this up.
He meets her gaze, and for a moment, they are equals—both rats, both hunted.
"Show me," he says, voice hollow. "Show me the food."
She smiles again, not unkind, and turns on her heel, leading him deeper into the maze.
He follows, not because he trusts her, but because hunger and hope are the same thing here.
And maybe, just maybe, she's the first honest thing he's found in this world.
# Scene 3
They move through the alleys in a jagged dance—Lyra leading, Corin trailing, never closer than three steps, always a wall or a shadow between them. The sounds of the market recede behind closed doors and shuttered windows. Somewhere above, the guards' boots slap the rampart, a metronome for the village's paranoia.
Lyra moves like she's invisible: arms at her sides, footsteps light. When they reach an intersection, she stops and gestures Corin to the side. He presses his back to the cold stone, watching as a pair of uniformed men strolls past, chatting about nothing—weather, debts, the mayor's new mistress. Neither looks down the alley.
She waits another count, then beckons him onward. Her eyes flick to the rooftops, the corners, never at him directly unless she's certain they're unobserved. She's good at this. He files the information away, weighing her anew.
They pass a cluster of barrels, the stench of fermented root stinging his nostrils. Lyra crouches behind them, gestures for Corin to do the same. For a minute, they're face-to-face, the only light from a sunken, ice-rimmed window. She studies him—mud-crusted, blood-caked, eyes ringed with purple from the chill.
He expects her to be afraid, but her face is open, if a little sad.
"If you want to eat, there's better ways," she whispers. "The baker's not stupid. He'll miss a loaf."
Corin swallows, the crust of stolen bread rough in his mouth. He wants to say: I had no choice. I'd die if I waited. But the lie would taste worse than the truth.
She shrugs, almost reading his mind. "I can get you into the soup line. No one asks questions there."
He tenses, every muscle braced for the trick, the double-cross. "And what do you get?"
This time she does look at him, head tilted, one brow raised. "You mean, do I get a reward for turning you in? Or do I get a cut of your loot?"
He says nothing.
She laughs, not unkind. "Don't worry. You're not worth much. The guards only pay for grown men, or magicians."
He waits, jaw clenched.
She rocks back on her heels. "I used to have an older brother. He didn't last long. You remind me of him, except he was stupid."
Corin stares at her, uncertain if this is a threat, an invitation, or both.
"Suit yourself," she says, getting up. "But if you try the storehouse, you'll be dead before you touch the door. That's where they caught the last Outsider."
He considers this. The System, sensing his hesitation, flickers a new window into his sightline:
[Quest Complete: Infiltrate Graymist Village undetected. Reward: 5 Experience Points. New Skill Unlocked: Stealth Basics.]
A warmth seeps into his limbs. The aches dull, the chill recedes a hair's breadth. He flexes his hands, and the tremor is less pronounced.
Another prompt, insistent and bright:
[New Quest Available: Choose your path.]
[Option 1: Remain in Graymist Village to gather information.]
[Option 2: Continue to the next settlement where greater opportunities await.]
[Choose wisely.]
He almost laughs. Even in an alien world, life is a series of ultimatums.
Lyra waits, arms folded, her silhouette framed by the flicker of a distant torch.
He could run. Slip out now, find a corner and lick his wounds, let the world spin until his body breaks or the guards find him. Or he could take the risk—trust the girl, trust her anger and her sadness, and maybe learn something about the enemy before they swallow him whole.
His old self would have run. Would have spat in the face of charity, curled up and died before asking for help. But he's changed, even if he hates it.
He looks at Lyra. "What's the catch?"
She shrugs. "No catch. If you live, you owe me."
He nods, once. It's all the promise either of them needs.
She grins, quick and sly. "First thing: lose the stolen bread. That's how they tag you."
He tosses the remnants into the gutter, the lump in his stomach already dead weight.
She turns, and he follows, both of them ghosts in a city built on secrets.
He's not sure if he'll survive the week, but for the first time since the crash, he's betting on something other than fear.
And as the System's window fades, he feels the world shift—a new path, a new set of dangers, but maybe, just maybe, a way to claw back a piece of himself before the end.