Chapter Text
The heat of summer on the Ground was especially strenuous in a polluted zone, where stagnant rainwater festered in putrid puddles, mixing with chemicals and fumes that had long since poisoned the very air everything breathed.
A diseased wasteland of forgotten filth- The Ground, the official name was- exhaled its toxic breath with each ripple of wind, a stench so sharp it burned the back of the throat and curdled in the lungs of anyone inhaling too sharply.
No sane person lived here.
Fortunately, the only inhabitant wasn’t exactly what you’d call.. sane.
Beyond the towering mountains of decay, where rusted metal curled like skeletal fingers and half-melted plastic formed grotesque statues of a world that no longer cared, there were tunnels.
Old burrows, dug out by creatures that had long since died or fled, swallowed by the ever-growing sickness of this hellish terrain.
In one such burrow, curled into himself like a feral beast, a boy rested.
A boy with hands darker than the permanent shadows beneath his bloodshot eyes.
A boy wrapped in hastily applied bandages, covering wounds that never truly healed.
A boy wrapped in chains, their weight as much a shackle as a part of his very existence.
A boy who had been convicted of murder and thrown away like the very trash he had once scavenged through.
A boy that was supposed to die.
Beneath the stifling heat of the wasteland, buried in the filth of the forgotten, his body caked in oxidized blood and his stomach filled with irrepressible hatred as well as literal garbage-
-Rudo Surebrec slept.
“I’m just sayin’, there’s somethin’ out there.”
Zanka’s voice carried through the dusty room, his usual dramatic flair weighed down by an edge of uncertainty. He stood near the warped wooden table, arms folded, tapping his foot against the cracked floor.
Riyo rolled her eyes from her seat, fingers absently drumming against her thigh. “Like your delusional ass can talk, Zanka. You’re really gonna waste my time telling me about some mystery beast you saw out of a.. window?” She scoffed, leaning back. “Go bother someone else.”
“There really IS SOMETHIN’, RIYO!” Zanka shot back, throwing up his arms, nearly smacking the lamp overhead with his Lovely Assistaff.
Enjin exhaled sharply, rubbing his temples with a gloved hand. His patience for Zanka’s wild stories had never been particularly high, and today was no exception.
“Zanka, give it a rest.”
Zanka immediately straightened, lowering his arms as if he’d been snapped into military formation. “Y-yes, Enjin!”
Enjin blinked at the sudden obedience, mildly unsettled, before shaking his head. “Look, whatever it was, I wouldn’t go after it. Probably just some overgrown trash beast, or some other ugly thing.”
He leaned back in his chair, which creaked dangerously under his weight.
For a moment, his eyes drifted towards the makeshift window, staring at the filth-covered sky that reflected the mid-morning haze.
Could it be…?
No.
No, he's long dead.
Enjin’s fingers twitched against his knee, a restless habit he hadn’t quite shaken. The past didn’t haunt him. It was just a habit. Just his body reacting to the heat. Nothing more.
Besides, any Spherite caught in the Under-Ground would be ripped to shreds, their body torn apart by the devils they tried to snuff out with their heavenly trash.
Zodyl barely registered the rough hands hauling him onto a makeshift stretcher, his consciousness flickering in and out like a dying lightbulb.
“He… Spheri... Ribs...”
Voices swam through the fog in his mind, distant, indistinct, as if they were speaking through layers of water.
“Can’t beli… Could… Monster…”
He tried to move, but the agony in his shoulders pinned him down like iron stakes driven through his flesh. The massive gouges on either side of his torso throbbed with a pain so deep it rattled his very bones.
And yet, none of that compared to the pure, boiling rage festering in his gut.
That fucking brat.
It wasn’t enough that he had escaped. It wasn’t enough that he had humiliated Zodyl in his own den.
No, he had to maim me too.
Leave me like this.
Zodyl’s breathing was ragged, each inhale scraping against his ribcage like knives. He couldn’t sit up, couldn’t even move, let alone strike down the worthless raiders who had let that thing go.
But he would.
He would get his hands on that feral little bastard.
He would gut him.
He would rip out his spine.
And best of all, he would watch the light fade from those obsessively ugly Spherite eyes.
Zodyl smiled bitterly to himself, the pain lacing his lips splitting open the scabs from earlier wounds.
He wouldn’t see it coming.
None of them would.
The tunnels, damp and suffocating, echoed with the sounds of ragged breathing. Rudo sat curled against the cold earth, his fingers digging into the dirt, his body trembling- not from fear, nor pain, but from something far deeper.
The chains around his wrists and ankles rattled as he shifted, the sound grating against his ears.
He was hungry.
Not just for food- though his stomach twisted and churned, aching for something, anything- but for something else. Something primal.
His breath was shallow, his red eyes dull yet alert. His mind was fractured.. yet eerily focused.
Everything down here was his enemy.
His fingers twitched, flexing against the weight of his battered gloves. They weren’t enough. He needed more.
He needed strength.
He needed to tear them apart.
Rudo lifted his gaze toward the distant opening of the tunnel, where the weak morning light barely reached. His body ached, though he couldn’t give up now.
It had barely been a week since he had escaped.
His fingers curled into fists, tendons straining with the effort.
He'd get out of this- even claw his way back to Heaven gloveless, if he had to.
And if anyone stood in his way?
He'd just kill them too.