Fallen City

The road into the ruins narrowed until it was little more than a path, choked by the skeletal remains of once-grand buildings. Twisted rebar curled like vines through cracked walls, and the faded graffiti of a long-dead rebellion clung to the concrete—ghosts of voices that had once demanded freedom and truth.

Maren pressed on. The map she’d carried for weeks was nearly useless now—its edges worn, its ink smudged by rain and time—but she followed its lines out of instinct, or perhaps faith. Ahead, smoke curled from small fires. Lanterns flickered like watchful eyes among the ruins.

Then, the silhouettes emerged.

A handful of figures stood amid the rubble, half-hidden behind makeshift barricades of sheet metal and burned-out cars. Their clothes were patchwork, their faces streaked with dirt and ash—but their eyes were alive. When Maren stepped into the open, the air grew still.

She raised her hands slightly in peace. “I’m not here to take anything,” she said softly, her voice raw from dust and silence. “I’m looking for someone.”

The oldest of them, a man with silver hair and a jagged scar down his cheek, stepped forward. His eyes studied her face carefully, as though he was searching for something familiar. “No one comes through here without reason,” he said, his voice gravelly but calm. “Who is it you’re looking for?”

Maren hesitated. The words caught in her throat. “My brother,” she said at last. “Silen.”

A ripple passed through the small crowd. A name half-remembered, carried through rumor and whispered fireside talk. The old man’s expression softened—though whether from understanding or fear, she couldn’t tell.

Another voice spoke from the shadows. “We’ve heard that name before.” A woman stepped forward, her face lit by lanternlight. “A ghost of the tunnels. Said to have walked the ruins. Said to be looking for something lost.”

Maren’s breath hitched. “He’s alive,” she said, almost pleading. “He has to be.”

The old man nodded slowly. “Maybe so. But the ruins have a way of keeping what they take.”

He motioned to one of the younger men beside him, who lifted a tattered tarp revealing a narrow entrance beneath a fallen building. “If you’re truly searching,” the old man said, “then your path lies below.”

Maren looked down into the darkness. The smell of earth and ash drifted up, along with the faint hum of something deeper—wind through tunnels, or perhaps whispers of the past.

The woman with the lantern stepped closer. “No one goes below after dusk,” she warned quietly. “Not without reason.”

Maren met her gaze. “I have reason,” she said.

And with that, she took the lantern from the woman’s trembling hand and descended into the ruins, her shadow disappearing into the hollow bones of the fallen city.