Rocky couldn't sleep.
Others were drifting into a half-sleep state; Lyle curled near the fire while wearing a scrap of blanket pulled over his shoulders. Old Pete stomped on a slab of concrete, and Alisa sat upright with the spear across her knee.
Rocky just stared into the flames.
Each crackle of the burning wood seemed too loud in the silence of the dead city. His cuts itched and throbbed under the bandages, which Alisa had handed him. A strip of faded cloth that smelled of oil and old rain.
Above, the wind dragged clouds across the cracked moon. Somewhere beyond the hollow buildings, the Reclaimer's shriek echoed. Distant, but not gone.
Survive.
The word repeated in his head like a curse carved into bone. The System wasn't speaking to him anymore, but its orders resonated.
Rocky's eyes swayed to the other three. He wondered how many nights they'd spent like this, huddled around the warmth, hoping monsters would never pass by them. He wondered if they ever dreamed about normal things.
He couldn't remember any of his dreams or his memories. Only that white room. A fire. And a voice screaming his name.
A small hiss made him turn. Alisa was looking at him. Her eyes glowed dull orange in the firelight.
"You're not sleeping," she said.
Rocky shrugged. "I don't feel like it."
She studied him, her gaze going over the bandage on his arm. "The System. Does it talk to you?"
He hesitated. Then nodded.
"Sometimes."
Alisa exhaled through her scarf, a cloud of frost.
"You don't look like the rest of us."
Rocky frowned. "What is that even supposed to mean?"
"You're… not from here. You don't have that smell yet. The ruin smells. Like metal, mold, fear." She spoke with curiosity.
He almost laughed, but it came out as a dry cough. "You sound like you know what I am."
"I don't," she said plainly. "But I know this: if that Reclaimer's after you, you've something worth taking. Or protecting."
Rocky looked back at the fire. "There is not much left in me to protect myself."
A silence settled, heavy as the ash that drifted through the broken city.
"Then, have you ever killed one?" Alisa asked.
"A Reclaimer?"
She nodded.
Rocky closed his eyes. Some memories were visible: an iron corridor, metal doors bending under claws, something tearing apart from inside.
"I don't know."
Alisa's hand tightened on the spear again. "You'd better remember. By dawn."
A noise behind them
Old Pete jolted up. Lyle seemed tired, but his eyes, wide in the dark, leaned towards his right.
"What is it?" Rocky asked, but Alisa was already standing. Then Rocky heard it too, a sound of metal scraping on a stone.
The night had swallowed his breath, as if a cold shiver had run down his spine.
Old Pete pulled himself upright while holding a rusted knife. Lyle grabbed a brick.
Alisa's eyes glowed as she leaned down, her voice razor-sharp, and whispered in Rocky's ear.
"If you're worth dying for, stranger, you'd better prove it now."
The sound now came from closer. A shadow moved between the skeletal frames of the dead city. One red eye flickered in the dark, then another. Not one Reclaimer, but two.
The Reclaimers moved like spiders, built from old war machines, limbs of mismatched steel and polymer. Rust flaked off from its joints while it walked, and red eyes scanned for heat, movement, and life.
Rocky's breath now seemed as if knives were on his throat. He could feel Alisa's hand on his shoulder, comforting him but also pinning him down, like she was planning whether to shove him at the machines as bait.
Lyle, with a weak voice, "How many?"
"Two," Pete gasped.
sounding more awake now, with that raw fear.
One of the Reclaimers, halted by the fallen billboard. Its head turned, optical eyes whirring and blinking. A long blade-arm scrapes sparks off the metal sign.
It let out a single static howl like a broken bird call. The other answered.
Rocky couldn't walk. He forced himself to breathe slowly yet shallowly. The fire behind them expanded wildly, sending up showers of embers.
The nearest Reclaimer's eye flickered to the sparks, then towards Rocky.
His mind felt like it had split in two. One part was all about Rocky wanting to run. The other was trying to convince him to protect those three.
Without thinking, Rocky grabbed one of the loose bricks near the fire.
Alisa, with rage in her voice,
"What are you—"
He had hit the Reclaimer so hard that it had collapsed against the car frame, tens of meters away.
Both machines froze, then turned towards him, their optical eyes flicking towards the sound.
Alisa didn't wait. She shoved Rocky aside and spoke,
Move!"
They all scrambled away from the warmth of the fire that had betrayed them. Then Lyle slipped, Rocky caught him by the collar, and dragged him. Pete prayed; it sounded like an apology to the ghosts of the city.
Behind them, the Reclaimers hissed, then charged towards the noise. Steel feet punched through old asphalt like paper.
They ducked under a bent support beam and slipped through the roof of an abandoned shop. The stench of mold and rot nearly made Rocky unconscious, but he didn't slow down.
They had burst out from the other side, now into a narrow alley; they walked past broken glass and faded graffiti. Alisa skidded to a stop, then turned towards Rocky.
"Do you have any more tricks, System Boy?" she demanded, her voice razor-sharp.
Rocky gasped for air, blinking sweat from his eyes. "No… just… run."
Lyle let out a half-laugh and a half-sob.
Pete's eyes gleamed. "Keep moving. Stay in the blind spots. They'll hunt anything that has heat; spread out."
Alisa nodded; she was deciding whether she could trust Rocky with her life or she had no better choice. She then pulled her spear out.
"Here. Don't try to stab yourself."
Rocky gripped it; he was surprised by the weight. He looked at Alisa—her eyes glowed above her scarf.
"Do we split?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Not yet. We need to find a cover, like an old subway entrance, bunker, or anywhere they can't follow. Then we will split."
Behind them, the Reclaimers let out a shriek, high-pitched, echoing off the concrete and steel.
It seemed they were too close to them.
They ran again, deeper inside the city. Rocky felt something old stirring up his blood, a memory or an instinct, which urged him to move forward; his mind didn't remember.
but his bones did.
...
[To Be Continued…]