Kestrel and Ren were looking for something along the barren streets. They walked by two-story buildings, their long hallways stretching out with each room seeming empty, but not perfectly clean.
Each room showed signs of quick exits - messy bed sheets, toppled perfume bottles, half-eaten take-out food, clothes tossed everywhere, and traces of dirt and grime. These vacant rooms still held the faint traces of their former occupants.
Even though it had been empty for centuries, the Polluted Zone felt eerily like people had been living there just the previous night, as if the residents had only just left.
Opening a worn wooden door, Kestrel caused a bunch of empty buckets to tumble out, one of them rolling across the room and out the door.
Inside, the room was poorly lit and messy, with a lingering smell of fish. Ren signaled for her to be quiet.
They both quickly hid. Soon, the sound of footsteps echoed from the other end of the wooden hallway.
