Location: Tier-5 Market District, Arc Zenith
Time: Dusk
Characters: Kaela, Arin, Riven
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The streets buzzed with static light and low music from hidden speakers. Rain shimmered off rusted metal awnings, casting warped reflections across the ground. Kaela walked between Arin and Riven, her coat hood half up, her eyes darting with quiet curiosity.
"I thought you said this place was calm," she muttered.
Arin grinned, flicking a coin into a vendor's basket of glowing fruit.
"Calm for us. Nobody's shooting yet."
Beside them, a food stand erupted in shouts. Two cyber-hounds snarled at each other over a dropped protein skewer. Their owners pulled them back with yanks of wired collars.
Kaela flinched. Riven didn't even blink.
"This part of town," Riven said softly, "has more ghosts than people. The walls remember."
Kaela looked at him sideways. "You always say weird stuff like that."
"I know."
Arin was already pulling her by the wrist. "Come on, there's a guy who makes real bread. Not synth-stuff. Actual bread. You can smell it from blocks away."
She let herself be pulled. Maybe for just one evening, it was okay to feel like a kid again.
They ducked into a booth with warped wood and heat-stained walls. A vendor slid steaming slices into their hands—crackling crust, soft inside, warm enough to make her pause mid-bite.
Kaela closed her eyes.
For just a moment...
no relics, no ruins, no fights.
Just the taste of something human.
Then, the silence cracked.
A siren flared overhead. Drones zipped by. A bulletin flashed across the alley walls:
> "WRAITHBORN SIGHTING – ZONE 11 LOCKDOWN INITIATED. ALL CITIZENS RETURN HOME IMMEDIATELY."
The warmth vanished from Kaela's chest.
The bread suddenly tasted stale.
She looked at the others.
Riven already had a hand on his blade.
Arin sighed and dropped the rest of his bread.
"Back to it, huh?" he said.
Kaela nodded slowly, pulling her hood up again.
"Yeah… back to it."
They disappeared into the shadows, swallowed by rain and sirens.
But in Kaela's pocket—just for herself—she kept a corner of the bread.
One soft reminder that the world hadn't stolen everything… not yet.