Chris

The city had been dead for three years. What was left of it stood crooked against the smog, buildings like broken teeth, streets carved with ash and fire scars. No government. No sirens. No morning broadcasts. Only the gangs, the ones that had crawled out of the ruin and built something like order from the bones of the old world. Their called The Law, though its real name was The New Masters. No one saw their leader, only their enforcers, men in dark coats with iron armbands, faces hidden behind black visors. They didn’t talk much. They didn’t have to. When they passed, people stepped aside. The streets were “clean” because they said so. But behind the graffiti-splattered walls and boarded-up subway tunnels, the Godless Order—G.O.—laughed in defiance. They were ghosts in the dark, masks painted with neon streaks, their laughter echoing through the dead tunnels. They tagged walls with bright red halos, left cracked mirrors in alleys, and whispered rumors that The Law couldn’t kill ideas. They weren’t wrong. And somewhere between those two extremes stood The Vale, hidden deep within the skeletal remains of an old hospital. They had power from a rigged generator, soft lights strung across the ceilings, and children playing quietly in the corridors. They weren’t a gang, not really, they were survivors who refused to become monsters. They traded with Excidium, the smugglers who ruled the outer roads, the ones who brought in anything that burned, shot, or exploded. If The New Masters were kings, Excidium were merchants of the throne. You and Chris had survived longer than most. Whatever group you belonged to—whether you walked the streets under The Law’s iron command, crept through the tunnels with G.O., ran supplies with Excidium, or protected the last of the living in The Vale (up to u!)—you did it together. He’d been there since the early days of the Collapse, when the first fever storms rolled in and the air itself turned against you.