The Dread City stood, a monolith of twisted steel and broken concrete, casting its shadow over the endless wasteland below. Once, it had been a symbol of progress—a towering metropolis where technology had promised to save humanity from itself. But the wars came, as they always do. Resource wars, they called them. The last gasps of a civilization bleeding itself dry, tearing apart the world for the remnants of oil, water, and power.
No one knew how long ago the fall began. The dates were irrelevant now—there was only before and after. Before the sky turned gray with ash, before the towers crumbled, and before the sun became a distant myth. And after… there was The Pit.
The Pit wasn't a place. It was a grave, a cavernous hole dug deep into the earth beneath the city, where the unwanted were discarded like trash. Criminals, the poor, the sick—it didn't matter. The Pit was where you were sent to die, though sometimes death took its time.
Ren knew this better than anyone.
From the moment he was thrown into The Pit, he learned quickly: trust no one, take nothing at face value, and never show weakness. The Pit was a test, a place where survival of the fittest wasn't a theory—it was law. And Ren? Ren had survived longer than most.
He moved like a shadow through the ruins, his pale skin caked in grime, his greyish hair matted against his skull. Sunken eyes with black pupils, unnaturally large from years in darkness, scanned the landscape with methodical precision. His fingers, one of them missing, curled reflexively at his side, ready for violence at a moment's notice.
A scavenger ran past him—young, desperate, and foolish. Ren barely glanced at him. The scavenger wouldn't last long. The Pit consumed people like that in hours, sometimes minutes. No one came here with hope. Hope was a distant memory, something reserved for myth's like the sun, a glowing orb that some claimed once hung in the sky above The Dread City. Ren didn't care about myths. He only cared about survival.
The Pit stank of rot and decay. Everywhere you looked, bones jutted from the ground—some picked clean, others still clothed in the remnants of flesh. Rats scurried between the corpses, fat from feeding on the dead. Ren slipped between the shadows, his movements careful, deliberate. No wasted effort, no noise. The others fought over scraps, but Ren knew the real treasures were hidden beneath the surface, in the old-world tech buried deep in the ground.
He crouched low behind the remnants of a crumbling wall, his gaze shifting toward the entrance of an underground tunnel. The tunnel led to the lower sectors of The Pit, where fewer ventured because of the dangers that lurked there. But Ren had ventured below more than once. It was risky, but it held secrets—secrets that could be the key to his escape.
Escape. The thought lingered in his mind, not as hope, but as calculation. The Pit was a prison, yes, but no prison was perfect. Ren had spent months watching, listening, learning. The guards weren't infallible, and the walls, though thick, had their weaknesses. Most people believed The Pit was inescapable, but Ren had already mapped out the beginnings of a plan. He just needed time, resources, and the right moment.
A scream echoed across the ruins, drawing his attention. A fight had broken out near the edge of a scavenger camp. Two men were circling each other, jagged blades in hand, eyes wild with the hunger of survival. It was a familiar scene—one that played out daily in The Pit. The strong preyed on the weak, and the weak… well, the weak died.
Ren watched without interest. The outcome didn't matter to him. But he filed the scene away, observing how the crowd gathered around the fighters, how they moved, how the tension grew. Everything was data. Everything could be used.
He slipped into the tunnel, the sound of the fight fading behind him. The air here was thicker, damp with moisture that clung to the walls like sweat. He didn't need light to navigate—the route was etched into his memory. His fingers brushed against the rough surface of the wall, guiding him as he descended deeper into the earth.
The lower levels were dangerous, more dangerous than the upper ruins where the scavengers fought for scraps. Down here, there were creatures—things that had adapted to the darkness, things that had never known the light. Ren had encountered them before, but they didn't scare him. Fear was a tool in The Pit, one he wielded as coldly as a blade.
He reached a small chamber where the air grew warmer, and the smell of rusted metal and decay became overpowering. It was here, hidden among the rubble, that Ren had found his prize—a piece of old-world technology, a generator long forgotten by the surface dwellers. He had spent weeks scavenging parts, carefully avoiding suspicion. No one knew what he was doing, and that was the way he liked it.
His hands moved with practiced precision, connecting wires, adjusting settings. The generator hummed to life, its faint glow casting flickering shadows across the walls. Ren's face remained impassive, but inside, he knew this was a step forward. A small one, but a step nonetheless.
The Pit wasn't just a prison. It was a game, and Ren was playing to win.
He stood, wiping the dirt from his hands. The glow of the generator would be short-lived, but it was enough for now. Enough to power the next phase of his plan.
As he turned to leave the chamber, his thoughts returned to the sun. The myths said it still existed, high above The Dread City, beyond the layers of ash and cloud. Most believed it was a lie, a story to give the dying something to cling to.
But Ren wasn't most people. He didn't believe in stories, but he believed in the possibility of freedom.
And freedom, in his eyes, was the most dangerous weapon of all.