Chapter 1: Run Like Hell

  The first howl split the air like tearing metal.He didn't look back.His boots smmed against cracked asphalt, lungs burning as he darted between the bones of a deadcity--broken signs, shattered gss, buildings half-eaten by time and war. The sky was a permanent bruiseoverhead, dim with smog, stained by ash."Shit," he hissed between ragged breaths, chest heaving. "Not now. Not today."Behind him, cws scraped stone. Fast. Too fast.*Mutts.*They weren't really dogs. Not anymore. Not since the war twisted everything it touched. These things had toomany teeth, too little fear, and skin that looked half-melted, half-armored. You don't fight them unless youwanted to die.And he had no pns to die. Not yet.Panting, he ducked into an alleyway, vaulted a rusted fence, and slid into the shell of a colpsed building. Hishand brushed the knife at his belt. He didn't pull it. Not unless he had no other choice.He crouched low behind a fallen beam, trying to muffle his breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Every inhale soundedtoo loud. Every exhale burned.Sniffing sounds. Heavy panting. Scratches. One of them leapt onto the rubble above, jaws twitching, eyesglowing faintly with that sick yellow hue that meant radiation had done more than mutate--it had *remade*them.He didn't flinch.The creature paused. Sniffed. Snorted. Then it howled again, the sound bouncing off dead walls.Distant replies echoed back. Three. Maybe four more.His jaw tightened. Sweat dripped from his temple, streaking through the grime caked on his face."Come on... move along," he muttered under his breath.He waited until the beast jumped down and prowled deeper inside, then slipped out the back, moving like ashadow, sticking to cover. His heart thudded, not with panic--but focus. He knew this game. He'd been pyingit all his life.Still, something was changing. The mutts were bolder tely. Smarter. Like they were being pushed.Or led.He didn't like that thought.He didn't stop running until the ruined city was behind him and the wild swallowed the skyline. His bodyached, lungs raw, the st edges of adrenaline burning off like smoke. He stumbled into the hills, eyesscanning the twisted terrain until he spotted it: the skeleton of a colpsed parking garage, wrapped in ivy, rust,and rotting signage.He colpsed behind a crumpled steel beam, gasping, letting out a choked, "Goddamn..." between coughs. Forseveral minutes, all he did was breathe. Shallow. Then deeper. Then steadier.Once the storm in his chest calmed, he sat upright and pulled his bag around, fingers trembling as he checkedthe inventory: a nearly empty water fsk, a half-broken lighter, two traps, the rusted tin of smoked rat, onesharp knife and one even sharper piece of gss wrapped in cloth. That was it. No med patches. No clean rags.Not even a damn thread."Perfect," he muttered dryly, stuffing it all back and leaning his head against the concrete.The hounds didn't give up easily. They sniffed, stalked, howled at the darkness. But he didn't move. Didn'tlight a fire. Didn't breathe loud. For three full days, he crouched in shadow, curled tight in debris and silence.Hunger cwed at his belly, but it was a better companion than death.Even after the st howl faded and the silence stretched long, he didn't trust it.He waited. Another day. Then another. Three days passed in complete stillness. Only when the fourth sunrisecast gray lines across the rubble did he begin to move.He kept whispering to himself to stay sane. Just fragments. Thoughts that leaked out like breath."Almost over. Just wait. Stay small. Stay quiet."When he finally emerged, the light hurt his eyes. Gray, pale daylight filtered through the clouds like a dyingember. He moved slow, careful, keeping low.In the ruins of what might've been a vending machine once, he found the rusted tin. Inside were two smokedrats he'd stashed weeks ago. The taste was terrible, but he chewed without flinching. Later, he'd dig out beetlesand grubs from under rotting wood and swallow them down with the same bnk expression.Survival didn't care about pride.He wiped his hands on his coat and sat back on his haunches. Thin, wiry frame. Gold-blond hair, streaked withsoot and tangled into rough knots. His skin had a sickly tan from too much sun and too little clean air. Bckeyes, sharp and hollow, scanned the horizon like a cornered animal. Dirt and dried blood caked under hisfingernails.He looked like someone who'd been raised by ghosts.But there was nothing haunted in his stare--only the hard, quiet determination of someone who still hadsomewhere to go.A few minutes ter, when he finally reached the edge of the ruins and saw the distant shimmer of the City'sbarrier in the far-off horizon, he didn't feel relief. He never did.He wasn't going there.He turned away.Toward the wilds.Toward the bck forests and twisted hills, where the old roads vanished into wastend