The second night was worse.

  Ren crouched in the gutted remains of the gas station, every muscle in his body wound tight, the broken length of rebar clutched in shaking hands.

  The night had deepened into something heavier than darkness. It was not the absence of light — it was the presence of something vast, something oppressive, something that breathed against his skin and whispered into his bones.

  Outside, the creatures moved.

  He couldn't see them.

  He could barely hear them.

  But he felt them.

  Their presence pressed against the ruined walls of his shelter like a rising tide. Their scent — the copper stink of blood and rot — seeped in through the cracks.

  They weren't hunting.

  Not yet.

  They were... waiting.

  Ren pressed himself deeper into the corner, heart hammering, trying to make himself smaller, trying to become part of the wreckage. His breathing was a harsh rasp in the silence.

  The hunger gnawed at him — not in his belly, but in the brand burned into his chest, a slow, aching pulse that matched the heartbeat of the broken god chained to his soul.

  "Spread ruin," the voice whispered inside him. "Grow strong. Survive."

  He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached.

  No.

  He wasn't going to lose himself.

  Not yet.

  He didn't sleep.

  He couldn't.

  The night stretched out forever.

  And when the false sun finally clawed its way over the ruins again, vomiting up sickly yellow light across the shattered city, Ren Veyne stumbled out of the gas station and into another day of dying.

  The city was bigger than he'd realized.

  From a distance, the skyline had looked like a few gutted skyscrapers leaning drunkenly against the horizon.

  Up close, it was a sprawling graveyard — broken highways, collapsed bridges, shopping districts rotting into themselves.

  Ash fell like dirty snow.

  The sun hung low and swollen in the sky, casting a filthy golden light that painted everything in shades of decay.

  Ren kept moving.

  He stayed to the shadows when he could, ducking into half-collapsed alleys and the hollow bones of buildings. He moved cautiously, scanning every doorway, every wrecked car, every pile of rubble.

  The hunger gnawed at him constantly.

  Not just the thirst — though that was bad enough — but the deeper hunger.

  The hunger for ruin.

  The shackle burned faintly against his chest, whispering promises he refused to listen to.

  Midday, he found the store.

  The sign above it was rusted and broken, but the shattered letters still spelled something close to familiar:

  [LOOTSAFE: SURVIVAL SUPPLIES]

  Ren stood across the cracked street, studying it.

  It was almost intact.

  The windows were smashed. The front doors hung off their hinges. But the structure itself — the roof, the walls — held.

  It had survived whatever apocalypse had chewed the rest of the city into splinters.

  He didn't trust it.

  Nothing about this world felt safe.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  But he was running out of options.

  He crossed the street quickly, slipping through the broken doorway. The interior was dark, lit only by shafts of sickly light filtering through the holes in the ceiling.

  Shelves lay scattered like bones.

  Packaging littered the floor like the shed skin of some vast animal.

  Something had already looted this place — probably long ago.

  But Ren wasn't looking for anything fancy.

  Water.

  Food.

  Shelter.

  Simple things.

  Simple needs.

  He moved carefully through the wreckage, keeping low, ears straining.

  There.

  At the back of the store — a vending machine, mostly intact.

  The protective glass was shattered. The outer casing was cracked and rusted. But inside, in the secured chamber that was supposed to withstand riots and looters...

  Bottles of water.

  Four. Maybe five.

  His mouth went dry just looking at them.

  He crept forward, heart pounding.

  Almost there.

  The warning came too late.

  Something slammed into him from the side, hard enough to knock him sprawling.

  He hit the floor with a grunt, the rebar clattering from his hands.

  A shape loomed over him — bipedal, humanoid, but wrong.

  The thing's skin was stretched thin and gray, patched with sores and weeping wounds. Its eyes were sunken pits, its mouth twisted into a permanent snarl of broken teeth.

  It shrieked and lunged.

  Ren rolled aside instinctively, the creature's claws slashing through the air where his head had been.

  Panic surged through him.

  Not a monster.

  Not a Nightkind.

  A human.

  Or what was left of one.

  Some poor bastard who'd survived too long in the ruins, mutated by the poisoned light and the hunger.

  The mutant shrieked again, a high, broken sound, and lunged.

  Ren scrambled backward, grabbing a shard of shelving.

  He jabbed it forward blindly.

  The makeshift spear plunged into the mutant's side.

  It howled, lashing out with clawed hands.

  Ren ducked, snatched up the rebar, and swung with everything he had.

  The metal bar connected with the mutant's skull with a wet crack.

  The thing staggered, blood and bone spraying.

  Ren didn't stop.

  He swung again.

  And again.

  And again.

  By the time he stopped, the creature was a twitching, broken heap on the floor.

  His arms ached. His hands were slick with blood.

  He stumbled back, gasping for breath.

  Ruin Spread: +1

  Chain Score: 2/???

  The hunger surged through him.

  It wasn't just strength this time.

  It was clarity.

  The world sharpened around him — edges crisper, sounds louder. His body felt lighter, faster, more dangerous.

  He hated it.

  Ren forced himself to move.

  The vending machine.

  The water.

  He smashed through the weakened door and grabbed a bottle.

  The plastic was warm.

  The liquid inside sloshed thickly.

  He ripped it open and drank.

  It tasted like metal and mold and ash.

  It tasted like heaven.

  He drained two bottles in seconds.

  His throat still burned, but the worst of the desperation eased.

  He shoved the remaining bottles into a battered backpack he scavenged from behind the counter, along with a rusted knife, a spool of frayed rope, and a half-empty lighter.

  Survival tools.

  Precious.

  He was about to leave when he heard it.

  A low rumble.

  A crackling hiss.

  He froze.

  Dust drifted down from the ceiling.

  He looked up just in time to see a massive shape drop through the ruined roof.

  It hit the floor with a sound like a sledgehammer against wet stone.

  Ren stumbled back, heart slamming against his ribs.

  The thing rose slowly, unfolding itself from a crouch.

  It was huge — seven feet tall, built like a nightmare, its skin stitched together from mismatched patches of flesh.

  Its head was a smooth, featureless dome, save for a single vertical slit running from crown to chin.

  Inside that slit: grinding teeth. Hundreds of them.

  The Nightkind sniffed the air.

  Its slit-mouth twisted into a parody of a smile.

  Ren ran.

  He bolted through the ruins, weaving between collapsed shelves and piles of debris.

  The Nightkind roared and charged.

  The ground trembled under its weight.

  Ren didn't look back.

  He didn't have to.

  The thing was faster than it looked — shockingly fast — and it was gaining.

  He threw himself through a broken window just as a massive clawed hand tore through the wall behind him.

  He hit the ground rolling, shards of glass biting into his skin, and scrambled to his feet.

  The Nightkind erupted from the building behind him, roaring.

  He ran.

  Down alleys.

  Through abandoned shops.

  Over piles of wreckage.

  He could hear the Nightkind behind him, hear the scrape of its claws, the ragged breath through its slit-mouth.

  It was playing with him.

  Herding him.

  Toward something.

  Ren ducked into a side street, panting.

  Ahead — salvation.

  A collapsed overpass, the twisted wreckage forming a crude tunnel.

  Small.

  Tight.

  Too small for the Nightkind.

  He sprinted for it.

  The Nightkind roared and surged after him.

  Closer.

  Closer.

  Ren threw himself into the tunnel just as the creature lunged.

  Massive claws raked the air inches from his back.

  The Nightkind slammed into the opening, too large to follow.

  It shrieked in frustration, clawing at the rubble, trying to dig through.

  Ren crawled deeper into the tunnel, heart hammering.

  He didn't stop until he reached the other side.

  He collapsed against the wreckage, gasping.

  Alive.

  For now.

  But he knew — with a sick, hollow certainty — that he hadn't escaped.

  Not really.

  The Nightkind would find another way around.

  It would hunt him.

  It would never stop.

  He had to keep moving.

  He had to grow stronger.

  He had to survive.

  Even if it meant losing everything that made him human.