- Graffiti in the Dregs
Light. Blinding at first—then soft, warm, like morning sun through a broken window.
Ren stood barefoot in an open field that didn’t exist. Wild grass moved like water, untouched by ash or metal.
A child sat nearby, back turned. Small hands held something that pulsed faintly with light—the shard.
“That’s mine,” Ren tried to say. But no sound came.
The child turned. It was him. Younger. Cleaner. Eyes unscarred by the Veil.
“Do you remember this part?” the boy asked.
A shadow crossed the sky. A Sentinel descended, its red eyes glowing like coals, its limbs bending with mechanical malice.
Behind Ren, a man screamed. He turned—
His father. Arms outstretched.
The Sentinel struck.
A butterfly, dark as oil, landed on Ren’s open palm. It shimmered with violet static.
Then dissolved.
The field shattered like glass. Sky buckled. Code bled through the edges of the dream.
“Ren,” someone whispered.
He opened his mouth—
—and woke up gasping.
The ceiling above his cot flickered as power surged and failed, casting uneven shadows across the cramped quarters. Ren sat up, heart pounding, breath caught somewhere between a scream and a sob.
Another dream. Another memory. Maybe both.
“Maybe the dream was the mercy. Maybe this is the punishment.”
The room was quiet except for the distant hum of machines and the muffled thrum of the Lower Rings shifting overhead.
He wiped sweat from his brow, grabbed the toolbelt hanging from the hook, and slung it over his shoulder. The purifier unit in Sector Nine had been failing again—and Harv would be breathing down his neck if he didn’t get it running.
The hallway lights buzzed as he stepped into the corridor.
The floor vibrated faintly beneath his boots—deep, mechanical, like the world itself was groaning under its own weight. The smell of scorched metal and old oil pressed against him, heavier with every step.
Ren rubbed the back of his neck, trying to shake off the lingering echo of the dream, but it clung to him, sticky and stubborn. His father's face—his younger self—still flickered behind his eyes.
Around him, the Lower Rings breathed in their slow, dying rhythm. Another day, another machine to keep alive.
Ren broke into a jog, the weight of the toolbelt slapping against his side.
"Hey, Jax," Ren muttered.
The other tech barely looked up from his broken panel. "Another day, another duct ready to gut itself. Heard Sector Five lost three purifiers last night."
"Lucky," Ren said dryly, moving past. "We’re only one system failure away from seeing the stars."
Jax snorted. "Yeah. If the ash doesn’t eat you first."
Up ahead, the purifier shuddered violently, rattling like a hurt child straining for a scream that hadn’t yet torn free.
Sparks flew as Ren crouched beneath the wheezing air purifier, his fingers slick with oil and grime. The worn tool in his hand trembled as the machine emitted a sharp whine, its rhythms faltering like the gasping breaths of a dying beast. The purifier shuddered violently, and Ren grimaced, tightening a loose valve with a deft twist, the steel groaning in protest. For a second, the humming steadied. The glow of a dim overhead lamp flickered, casting fractured shadows across the soot-streaked walls around him.
“Come on, you rusting relic,” Ren muttered under his breath, his voice barely audible over the hiss of escaping steam. Sweat traced a path through the grime smeared across his face. He reached for a worn cloth tucked into his belt, swiping it across his brow, but the relief was fleeting. The air hung heavy with the acrid sting of burning oil, mingling with the metallic tang that seeped into every crevice of the Lower Rings.
Then the fuse blew.
A sharp pop cracked through the chamber. Smoke burst out as the lights flickered and died. The purifier jerked once, then fell still. The silence it left behind was worse than the noise.
“Damn it!” Ren hissed, yanking his hand back as the heat bit through his glove.
From behind, a voice barked over the hiss of steam. “That’s it, she’s done. We reroute to the back ducts before this thing melts down.”
Old Harv limped into view, his hunched frame outlined by the flickering overhead light. His grease-streaked tunic and pitted goggles marked him as one of the last surviving techs from before the Reclamation. He leaned heavily on a steel rod like it was a badge of authority.
“You reroute and you’ll lose pressure in Sector Three,” Ren shot back without looking. “That duct’s already borderline.”
Harv snorted. “Better low flow than a full system crash. This whole thing’s bleeding out.”
“No,” Ren said flatly, already crawling beneath the casing. “It's just the fuse. Secondary's shot. I can swap it.”
“You got maybe thirty seconds before the core overheats,” Harv growled. “And if you’re wrong, kid—”
He hesitated—but only for a breath. There wasn’t time for doubt.
“I’m not.”
His fingers found the scorched fuse box and pried it open with the edge of his multitool. The heat coming off it was intense, but manageable—for now. He popped the dead fuse, reached into his belt pouch, and snapped in a salvaged replacement.
The machine coughed a final time, spitting out a cloud of greasy smoke that stung his eyes. Ren didn’t flinch. His fingers worked fast, navigating the maze of tangled wiring to find the cracked pipe. Another twist. A sharp knock. Steam hissed.
If this purifier failed, the Lower Rings would suffocate under the oily smog and ash descending from the machines above. The Dregs—the lowest caste, where forgotten workers kept the Veil breathing had little else to rely on, their existence depended on the feeble systems that barely kept the air breathable. As Ren tightened the final valve, a strange familiarity crept over him.
He’d done this before—this exact motion, this exact hiss of escaping steam. But that wasn’t possible... was it?
The sensation wasn’t just déjà vu. It was sharper—like a memory clawing its way in from a place that didn’t want it remembered.
You ever wake up in a place that tells you not to remember?
The thought wasn’t his, not entirely. But it echoed all the same. He shook his head, trying to dismiss the sensation, but the uneasy feeling lingered, like an itch beneath his skin.
A burst of steam hissed out, and the purifier sputtered back to life, its hum steadier now, though still far from perfect. Ren flinched but held steady, checking the gauges as pressure began to climb, stabilizing. The rhythmic hum returned, uneven but alive.
Harv gave him a long look. “Cocky little bastard,” he muttered, almost fondly. Then turned and limped away.
Ren finally exhaled, rolling his shoulder as he stepped back from the machine, grease staining the side of his neck. “We reroute,” he said quietly, “we lose half the kids in that sector by morning. You patch it. You fight for every breath.”
Harv gave him a long look, then nodded once and turned away.
Ren leaned back on his heels, his chest heaving. He wiped his hands on the stained cloth, leaving streaks of black and rust. He squinted up at the dome’s towering curve above, barely visible through the ashfall. It was a reminder that the Iron Veil loomed over everything, an unyielding cage of rusted steel and restless shadows. His gaze lingered on the faint glimmers of artificial light filtering down from the upper districts. There was no sunlight here—only the dim, cold glow of lamps perched on creaking towers, their light barely cutting through the choking haze.
The streets outside were a labyrinth of narrow, crooked paths, slick with a mixture of melted ash and runoff from machinery.
Children called the sludge "snow," a term born of innocence in a world smeared with grime. Their laughter echoed faintly, a rare melody amidst the oppressive gloom.
He pictured them playing with makeshift toys scavenged from the Waste Zone—piles of scrap and ruin abandoned by the higher Circles—oblivious to the struggle it took to keep their air barely livable.
The purifier rattled again, pulling Ren from his thoughts. He pressed a hand against its side, feeling the steady vibration beneath his palm. It was holding—for now. He slung his toolbelt over his shoulder, the weight a familiar comfort as he turned back toward the winding streets. His boots slapped against the damp, uneven ground, leaving faint imprints in the greasy muck.
His gaze drifted to the outer wall of the sector—a long slab of plasteel etched with names. Faded, cracked, some half-erased by ashfall or time. He slowed, scanning them. They called it a memorial, but no one ever visited.
Ren’s fingers hovered over the cracked plasteel.
"Names aren’t for the living," his father had once said, voice low beside a dying fire. "They’re reminders. Warnings. Make sure they don't write yours too soon, son."
Ren pulled his hand back. He didn’t want his name carved here either. Not yet.
Ren pulled his hand back, his fingers twitching like he might carve a name anyway—one name that was missing. Faded with time. His father’s.
He stared at the empty space, the knot tightening in his chest.
They say he vanished. That he broke protocol.
But I don’t believe that. Not anymore.
Ren paused at the corner of a crumbling wall, his eyes scanning the streets. An old woman shuffled past, her frail frame wrapped in layers of threadbare fabric, while a pair of children darted after a rolling piece of scrap metal, their laughter sharp and fleeting.
Ren flexed his fingers against the worn leather of his toolbelt. He wasn’t a stranger to this sight. It was all he’d ever known. The Lower Rings were his world—a labyrinth of decay and forgotten lives. The only place where the hum of the Veil wasn’t just a sound—it was the pulse of existence itself, a reminder of both survival and imprisonment.
Ahead, the purifier released another sputtering cough, and Ren’s shoulders sagged. He glanced back at the purifier. It rattled faintly but held. “Tomorrow,” he muttered. It was always tomorrow: another failing system, another patch, another day fending off collapse. But it was his job, his life. And as much as he hated it, the Veil demanded that he endure. For the Dregs, endurance was survival.
The Veil’s system was a brittle patchwork, stitched together by rust, desperation, and just enough function to keep the air breathable. Ren had seen its insides—conduits choked with corroded wiring, steel pipes warped to the brink of collapse. He’d patched air ducts so thin they trembled under his tools, fixed water filtration units that survived more on luck than design.
He passed a cracked wall streaked with soot, the words barely visible beneath layers of peeling grime:
You dreamt of wings. They built walls.
The paint was old, bleeding into the stone like the memory of something better.
Rumors buzzed through the Dregs like a low hum beneath the constant grind of machinery. Whispers spoke of ancient texts hidden in the Waste Zone—manuals written by the Veil’s creators, warning of its true purpose. Strange tremors in the Sanctum the fortified city core where the privileged thrived above the Dregs. Waste backing up in the Trades where desperate hands bartered repairs and scavenged parts for survival. Flickering lights in the Artisan towers, the vertical slums where failed projects and exiled engineers eked out survival. The Veil might shield them from the wasteland beyond, but it wasn’t flawless. Its cracks were growing wider, and with them, the unseen rulers of the Veil from the Sanctum, the Council, tightened their grip.
The Council claims to protect the Veil, yet they were the architects of its fracture. The Syndicate—those shadows whispering rebellion in the dark—say they want freedom. But freedom from what? The Veil? The Council? Or humanity itself? Their promises of liberation sounded no less dangerous than the Council’s control.
Ren adjusted the toolbelt slung over his shoulder, its familiar weight doing little to steady him. Above, the artificial lights sputtered, their cold glow casting jagged shadows across the narrow streets.
He noticed it again—the power failures always followed the same rhythm, no matter the zone. Not random. Like the world was trying to stay broken... just the right amount.
His gaze lingered on the dome’s curve, barely visible through the haze of ashfall.
The Veil was everything. Their cage. Their protector. Their lifeline. Beyond it was nothing but silence—a silence so vast it swallowed every whispered story and scrap of memory from the “before times.”
And if the Veil failed, there’d be nothing left. Not for the Dregs. Not for the Sanctum. Not for anyone.
The outside world, if it still existed, had become the stuff of fireside tales. Ren remembered the elders’ hushed tones, the flickering firelight casting shadows as they spoke of blue skies and open land, of cities untouched by the hollowing. But those stories always turned darker. The Voidborn were humanity’s last hope—living stars, bioengineered to heal the earth. But something went wrong. The hollowing crept into their minds, twisting them. Their eyes, once filled with light, turned hollow, like they’d seen a truth too unbearable to carry. And when they turned on humanity, they didn’t just bring ruin. They brought a reckoning. The hollowing’s timeline was murky, its origins lost to history, but its shadow lingered—as if the Voidborn’s fall was both a past tragedy and an impending threat.
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His father’s voice stirred in his memory: “The Voidborn weren’t always monsters,” he’d said, turning the shard in his calloused hands as if its faint hum held the truth. “But they saw us as the sickness, and they turned. Against us. Against everything.” Ren had always felt there was more to his father’s stories—something just out of reach, like a memory he wasn’t supposed to recall. Ren could remember the hesitation in his father’s eyes, the way his hands trembled slightly when holding the shard. Had he always been hiding something?” There had been whispers among the Dregs, fleeting mentions of his father's mysterious trips beyond the Waste Zone—trips Ren had dismissed as routine until now.
Ren clenched his jaw, shoving the thought away. The elders’ stories were relics of a world long gone, just like the sun that no longer touched the Veil’s steel shell. Here, in the Dregs, only survival mattered. What lay beyond the walls wasn’t hope—it was death. Now, as he turned back toward the winding streets, he felt only the weight of what the Veil had become—a machine that barely held itself together, powered by the hands and lives of people like him.
The children called the Veil their sky. They didn’t know better. They’d grown up in its shadow, their games laced with innocence the world didn’t deserve. Ren had once envied that innocence. The children were taught that the world outside was no longer safe. It was a place where nothing grew, where death and decay ruled, and where the Voidborn still roamed, waiting to finish what they had started. The elders whispered of the hollowing, an unnatural plague that ravaged the land, poisoning the air, soil, and water, turning everything it touched to dust.
Ren walked in silence, his thoughts drifting to the whispers of his father’s stories—tales of the Voidborn and the hollowing, of a world before the Veil. The elders spoke of these things in hushed tones, their words weighted with reverence and dread. The Voidborn had once been humanity’s salvation, bioengineered beings meant to heal the Earth. But something had twisted them, turning saviors into destroyers.
The shard in his pocket pulsed again, but this time, it wasn’t warmth—it was like a second heartbeat. It had always responded to him in strange ways, humming louder when he neared the old sanctum ruins, glowing faintly under the moonless sky, as if recognizing something within him. Ren shook his head, brushing off the strange sensation, but deep down, he knew. This wasn’t the first time the Veil had whispered to him. It was just the first time he listened. He could still hear his father’s voice, low and steady, weaving the stories that had shaped his childhood.
“They weren’t always monsters, you know,” his father had said, turning the shard over in his calloused hands. Its faint glow caught the dim light of their shanty, illuminating the lines of wear etched into his face. “The Voidborn... they were our salvation once.”
Ren, no older than seven, had curled his knees to his chest, staring at the shard with wide, curious eyes. “But you said they destroyed the world.”
His father sighed, the weight of his words pressing his shoulders low. “They did. But not at first. They were made to heal the Earth—to bring the soil back to life, to clear the poisoned air. They were beautiful once, Ren. Like living stars. People said they carried the hope of a thousand generations in their veins.”
“But then something went wrong.” His voice dropped, as though afraid the shadows might hear. “The hollowing crept into their minds, twisting them. They didn’t see us as creators anymore—they saw us as the sickness. And so, they turned on us.”
Ren shivered, glancing at the shard in his father’s hands. Its faint hum seemed to echo the gravity of his words. “Do they still live out there?” he’d asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
His father’s eyes had grown distant, staring at something beyond their crumbling home. “Some say they do. Wandering the wastelands, searching for what little life remains. Others say they’ve become part of the hollowing itself, more shadow than flesh. But if they return, son, it won’t be to save us.”
The shard had pulsed faintly in his father’s hand, as if echoing his warning. Ren had stayed awake long after the fire burned low, staring at the shard’s faint glow. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the Voidborn weren’t just stories, that their eyes might still be watching from the dark places beyond the Veil.
Now, as Ren stared into the flickering artificial light of the Veil’s lamps, the memory pressed against his thoughts. A faint tremor emanated from the shard, its heat curling around his fingertips like an unspoken promise. The stories were just stories—or so he told himself. But as the Veil’s cracks grew wider, Ren couldn’t help but wonder if those stories held a warning he wasn’t ready to face.
The shard his father had worn, now tucked into Ren’s pocket, its light flickering—bright when hope surged in his chest, dimming to near darkness when doubt crept in. It wasn’t just a tool; it was a mirror to his soul. Its warmth a reminder of both connection and mystery.
The elders taught them the outside world was dead, nothing but poison and ash. Maybe it was.
But what if the Veil wasn’t protection at all?
What if it was a cage?
And whatever haunted the veil wasn’t just waiting. It was watching. Waiting for the cracks to split wide enough to reach inside. And so, the people lived in the shadow of the Veil, going about their lives in the dim light of its artificial glow, believing that they were safe within its walls, believing that the outside world was a thing of the past—a threat that no longer existed except in stories and nightmares.
Ren had grown up on these stories, whispered by elders around dying fires when they thought the children weren’t listening. His father’s voice lingered in his memory, weaving tales of blue skies and open land that felt more like dreams than truth. What if those stories were true? What if there was something beyond the Veil? Something more than the endless steel walls, the ceaseless hum of the machines, and the never-ending cycle of survival. But dreams, Ren had learned, didn’t fix machines or fill lungs with clean air.
The Veil’s machinery stretched endlessly—pipes and conduits feeding the clean air and water of the sanctum while leaving the Dregs to scrape by on scraps. The sanctum were where the Council resided—where the rich and powerful thrived in sterile towers, bathed in artificial light. The air was clean up there, and the food was plentiful, but down here, in the lower depths, the Dregs fought for survival. The rich had it all, and the poor had nothing but the constant hum of the Veil’s engines to remind them of their place.
Ren trudged through the narrow, filthy streets, his boots slapping against the wet concrete as he moved through the perpetual gloom of the Lower Rings. His face was grim, lined with exhaustion, and his shoulders were hunched, weighed down by the burdens of another long day in the depths of the Veil. In the Dregs, exhaustion wasn’t a feeling—it was the rhythm of survival.
Ren's job was a simple one: work the machines, repair what broke, and keep the system running smoothly. He was a technician—a cog in the vast, interlocking gears that made up the city’s infrastructure. His days were buried beneath the surface, lost in twisted labyrinths of pipes, cables, and the ceaseless hum of the Veil’s failing heart. He didn’t know how to do much else. He’d learned the intricacies of this decaying infrastructure as a boy, apprenticing under his father. But his father was gone now, taken years ago by the Circle, the Council’s ominous lottery. Ren thought, “No one ever comes back. What kind of resources take decades to find?”
The Circle loomed over the Dregs like the Veil itself—an inescapable shadow. They called it an honor, a chance to serve the greater good, but Ren knew better. His father had been “chosen,” swept away in the lottery like so many others. The Circle had taken him, and with him, the only anchor Ren had ever known. The Council’s words rang hollow—why would the Sanctum, with all its resources, send their own into the Circle?
His father’s disappearance had left Ren unmoored, tethered only to the cold, mechanical rhythm of his work. His life in the Dregs was one of broken pipes and malfunctioning systems, endless repairs in a place that seemed built to fall apart. The Dregs were the unseen—hands that kept the world running but never earned a glimpse of its rewards. Dreams were luxuries the Dregs couldn't afford. The Veil was both sanctuary and prison, and for most, it was the only world they knew. Questioning it felt as distant as the stars, the idea of an outside world nothing more than a whisper from the “before times.”
Survival was the only certainty. Day after day, Ren fell into the same relentless cycle: wake up, work, repair, and repeat. His hands might fix what was broken, but they could never break free.
Sometimes, when the hum of the machines grew too loud and the weight of the Veil pressed too heavily on his chest, Ren let his mind wander. What it might be like to be free. Not free in the way the higher Circles lived, untouched by the grinding reality of the Lower Rings, but truly free He imagined a world where the air was clean and warm sunlight kissed his face. He imagined breathing without the taste of rust, walking under an open sky where stars weren’t just whispered myths. But the fantasy always slipped away, leaving only the hum and the ash and the cage that was the Veil.
Ren had learned to keep his head down, to mend broken circuits and pipes without complaint. His tasks were repetitive, monotonous—checking waste systems, clearing vents, patching up malfunctioning air purifiers. Thankless work, but necessary. The Veil depended on people like him: the invisible workers who kept its systems running. There was no recognition, no reward. Just the endless hum of machinery and the grim knowledge that if he didn’t show up, the cracks would only widen.
It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t heroic. But it kept the air breathable and the machines alive. Ren had long since accepted his place in the grime of the Dregs, where dreams were little more than echoes of a world long gone. He fixed what was broken, trudged home, and repeated the same steps the next day. This was the rhythm of survival, unyielding and unchanging.
As he leaned back against the wall, his gaze drifted to a faded poster plastered on the steel surface. Its bold letters declared, “Together, we endure. Divided, we perish.” Ren snorted. “Council propaganda,” he muttered under his breath, bitterness lacing his words. The Veil’s endurance wasn’t a testament to unity, but to the unseen hands that bled to keep its gears turning.
"Still punching holes in their slogans, huh?"
Caden dropped down beside him, tossing a cracked wrench onto the ground with a clatter. His sleeves were rolled up, arms streaked with grime, the ever-present smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"You'd think they'd come up with a new lie by now," Ren said, glancing over.
"Why bother?" Caden shrugged. "Hope's cheaper than maintenance."
Ren chuckled once—a low, humorless sound—and pushed off the wall. "Not gonna be much left to maintain if Sector Five keeps bleeding out."
"Yeah," Caden muttered, suddenly serious. "And when the bells ring again, you better hope it's not your name they pull."
Ren hesitated. Then tightened his grip on his toolbelt. "Won't be. Not yet."
Caden pushed off the wall, falling into step beside him. "Still feels like the Veil’s coughing harder than usual, doesn’t it?"
Ren gave a short nod, eyes scanning the flickering overhead lights. "Not just here. Trades are backed up. Waste overflowed into Sector Three last night."
"Yeah, heard about that," Caden muttered. "Council sent a squad to 'inspect'—probably just looking for someone to blame when the pipes burst."
Ren snorted. "They'll blame the Dregs. They always do."
Ahead, a ventilation fan whined, its battered blades struggling against the ash-choked air.
"You feel it though, right?" Caden said, lowering his voice. "Like the whole thing's... breaking. Not just bad maintenance. Deeper."
Ren hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. The hum’s off. Like the Veil itself’s forgetting how to breathe."
They walked in silence for a beat, boots slapping the damp concrete.
"You ever wonder," Caden said quietly, "what happens if it really all stops?"
Ren didn’t answer at first. His mind flashed to the machine failures, the crumbling walls, the growing cracks nobody talked about.
"Nothing good," he finally said. "Not for us."
Caden kicked a loose bolt across the floor, sending it skittering into the gloom. "Place like this... survival’s a religion. Doesn’t matter how much it’s bleeding out. Council just patches it with duct tape and prayers."
Ren’s jaw tightened. "Long as the Sanctum stays clean, they don’t care if we drown in ash."
They rounded a corner, the faint outline of the old memorial wall coming into view.
"Whole city's held together by a lie," Ren muttered.
Caden shot him a sidelong look. "Yeah? And what's that?"
"Whole city's already dead. They just haven’t figured it out yet."
Caden let out a dry chuckle, no humor in it. "Yeah. And we're the idiots patching the cracks on a coffin."
He glanced down the corridor, where another cluster of broken conduits sparked in the distance.
"I gotta run—Harv's got me patching a leak near the east duct. Lucky me," he said, slinging the cracked wrench over his shoulder.
Ren gave a short nod. "Yeah. See you later."
Caden tapped two fingers to his brow in a mock salute and disappeared into the gloom.
Alone again, the weight suddenly heavier.
The unease didn’t stop there. Rumors swirled of heightened activity in the higher Circles—engineers and technicians summoned for tasks that no one in the Dregs understood. Meetings held behind closed doors. Urgent repairs in systems long ignored. For years, the higher-ups had been as distant as the artificial light glimmering far above. Now, their sudden interest in the Veil’s infrastructure felt like a tide rising, unseen and ominous, sending ripples of fear through the Lower Rings.
Ren’s hand tightened around the toolbelt like it was the only anchor left, the whispers gnawing at the edges of his thoughts. The Veil wasn’t just groaning—it was straining, fraying at seams too old to patch. He felt it in the way the machines stuttered, in the faint tremors shivering through the air. Something deeper was slipping through the cracks, something no one wanted to name.
His father’s absence felt heavier now, pressing against his chest like a question he’d buried long ago. The Circle had taken him, swallowed him whole. Ren had stopped wondering about what lay beyond that decision—or so he told himself.
But now, as the whispers grew louder and the cracks widened, the old suspicions clawed their way back. Had his father known something? Had his disappearance been tied to whatever was stirring in the Veil now?
Ren had always been careful not to think too much, not to question the deeper workings of the Veil. It was easier that way—easier to focus on repairs and routines than on the whispers of doubt that crept in during the quiet moments. But now, his thoughts refused to stay buried. For the first time in years, he found himself wondering: What lay behind the hum of the machines? And what would happen when they finally stopped?
The city’s divisions weren’t about class, not really. They were about function. Each district had its role, its rhythm—a piece in the Veil’s vast, grinding machinery. But to the people of the Dreg Quarter, the other districts might as well have been myths, distant lands glimpsed only in scraps of news and stories passed down in whispers. The higher circles lived their lives in safety, insulated by walls of privilege, blind—or perhaps indifferent—to the struggles of those below.
The Dregs churned in perpetual struggle, its people clinging to existence beneath a sky stained with rust and resignation. The divide between the upper and lower rings felt as unyielding as the Veil’s steel walls. Ren had long since accepted it, told himself that the Veil was all he had, all he’d ever know.
But something stirred within him now, faint and persistent. A tug he couldn’t quite ignore, as though the air itself carried a question. It felt bigger than the machines he spent his days fixing. Bigger than the oppressive hum that surrounded him. And it gnawed at him with a quiet urgency, whispering that it might be connected to his father’s disappearance.
He shook the thought away, burying it beneath the weight of the next task. That’s what he’d always done. But the whisper remained, threading itself through the monotonous rhythm of his days. What if there was something more to this world than the grind of survival? Something darker, hidden within the very walls that enclosed their lives?
The hum of the Veil was deafening—constant, like the pulse of a dying creature. The people of the Dregs had learned to live inside that heartbeat, tuning out the endless grind of gears and the whine of machines that clawed through the walls, day and night. But Ren couldn’t tune it out. It pressed against his chest, heavy and unrelenting, squeezing the breath from his lungs. The Veil wasn’t just a prison for the outside world—it was a prison for the people inside as well.
As he made his way through the crowded streets, the familiar sights of the Dregs passed him by. Children with hollow eyes played with scraps of metal, their laughter faint and fleeting. Old men whispered in corners, their voices drowned by the Veil’s omnipresent hum. Women shuffled past with faces etched in exhaustion, their steps heavy with the weight of years spent enduring. No one spoke to Ren. No one spoke much at all. The Dregs had no room for words, only survival.
Survival, Ren had learned, was a fragile thing. The Veil’s systems were never entirely stable. Constant malfunctions, endless repairs—it was enough to drive anyone mad. He’d seen it happen before: people breaking under the relentless grind, their minds buckling beneath the weight of the machinery and the isolation. Some screamed, others simply disappeared. But Ren couldn’t break. He couldn’t stop. There was no choice. No way out.
The only thing that had kept him moving, that gave him the strength to drag himself from one day to the next, was the faint, desperate belief that things might change. That maybe, just maybe, there was something beyond the Iron Veil. Something better. Something... different.
He didn’t know if it was hope or desperation, but it was enough to keep him going.
Ren paused in front of the machine room, its entrance barely visible behind a pile of rusted pipes and jagged scrap metal. This was his station—his small, suffocating corner of the Veil where he worked to keep the systems running. A single flickering light above cast long, jittery shadows against the stained walls. The air reeked of oil and burnt metal, thick and oppressive with the heat of the machines.
He stepped inside, his gaze sweeping over the room. The others were already at work, their hands moving with mechanical precision, fixing wires, tightening bolts, patching leaks. No one looked up. No one ever did. Words weren’t needed here. You showed up, did your job, and disappeared into the noise.
Ren took his place at the far end of the room, adjusting his tools with practiced ease. He didn’t speak. He didn’t ask questions. That wasn’t how things worked in the Veil. Silence was the only language the Dregs knew. You kept your head down. You worked. And you hoped—foolishly, perhaps—that one day, things might change.
But today, something did.
A flicker of light, faint but sharp, danced across the wall. The Veil’s breath stuttered, its tone wobbling like a machine catching itself mid-collapse. For a brief moment, the air felt lighter, as if the Veil itself had inhaled. Ren’s heart skipped. It wasn’t much—a crackle of electricity, a whisper of movement—but it was enough to make him stop. For a moment, the shard in Ren’s pocket pulsed sharply, its heat spreading through his chest.
His fingers hovered above his tools, the hairs on the back of his neck rising.
Then came the voice.
A whisper—barely audible, but unmistakably clear.
You are needed, Ren. It’s time to wake up.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
For a heartbeat, everything froze—the air, the ground, even the hum of the machines—as if reality itself hesitated.
Wake up?
I am awake... aren't I?
The shard pulsed against his skin. Not a warning. A summons.
And somewhere in the depths of the Veil, a crack spidered through the walls of the world.