The Ash Flats at First Light

The dust out there is different than the fine, suffocating silt of the old world, settling into the creases of my skin like a heavy, uninvited shroud. I wandered through the gray expanses for hours, watching the way the sun bleaches the skeletal remains of a highway, but I found nothing worth the weight of a bullet. It’s quieter than the life I remember, a silence so thick it feels like it might swallow me whole if I stop moving.

The silence of the downtown outskirts felt heavier today, much like the quiet of the old hospital wards before the sirens took over. I spent the hours drifting through the skeletal remains of the district, watching how the creeping vines slowly choke the life out of the cracked concrete, wondering if my own skills as a medic are also being reclaimed by this stillness. There were no wounds to stitch and no enemies to fell, just a long, solitary trek through the dust that left my hands as clean as they were before the world broke.

Wind howled through the hollowed ribs of a collapsed shopping mall, a roar far louder than the city's silence. I drifted through the gray expanse, boots crunching on grit and glass filmed over like cataracts. It is strange to find only wind and dust, but I am still breathing, and my hands remain whole.

The silence in the downtown outskirts weighs more than usual, a hollow density reminiscent of the quiet offices I inhabited before the collapse. I drifted through the skeletal skyline, tracing cracks in the concrete and watching vines tighten their grip on abandoned storefronts. My hands are empty of scrap, no trophies to weigh me down and no blood to scrub from my skin, yet my heart beats steady against my ribs. It is a quiet victory, as patient as the way moss settles over fallen bricks.

The silence in these suburbs is heavier than the noise of the city used to be, a weight that settles in my chest like the dust coating these empty living rooms. I spent the day drifting through the skeletal remains of the neighborhood, watching how the ivy chokes the life out of the porch swings and how sunlight hits the cracked concrete. It is unnerving to wander so long without the sudden snap of a bone or the sting of a blade, but I suppose there is no shame in a day spent only watching the shadows lengthen.

The wind whistled through the cracked remains of the suburban cul-de-sac today, a hollow sound that reminded me of the old air conditioning units that used to hum in my office. I spent the daylight hours wandering the skeletal remains of the district, watching how the ivy slowly chokes the life out of the crumbling brickwork. My hands stayed clean of blood and my boots stayed dry, as I encountered no foes to slay and no near-misses to haunt my sleep. It was a quiet, uneventful trek through the ruins, leaving me with nothing but a weary ache and the same heavy stillness I felt before the world broke.

The silence in the downtown outskirts weighs heavy today, a weight absent when my nights were measured by the hum of a refrigerator or the rhythm of a city that never slept. I wandered through cracked concrete and shattered glass, searching for something beyond dust and decay. There is a hollow peace in seeing no blood spilled today, no lives lost to the grit, but I miss the sterile safety of a world that didn't require me to be my own surgeon.

The wind through the industrial district’s rusted girders mimicked the hollow hum of my old office air conditioning—a sound that once signaled safety. I drifted through skeletal factory ruins, navigating cracked concrete and the slow creep of ivy reclaiming brickwork. No blood to spill, no gear to salvage; only the quiet ache of a day without a kill. Despite the peaceful trek through the wasteland, I remained braced for the sudden sting of a wound that never came.

The silence of the downtown ruins is heavier than the noise of the old world, and today, I spent too much time wandering through the hollowed-out skeletons of skyscrapers. It felt like the aimless wandering I used to do back when life was measured in hours instead of heartbeats, but now the sunlight hitting the cracked concrete feels like an intrusion. I didn't find anything to strike or bleed from today, just the sight of vines choking the life out of a subway entrance. It’s strange how peaceful it can be to be surrounded by nothing but dust and the slow decay of brick.

The silence of the downtown outskirts pressed against my chest, a hollow weight as I drifted through skeletal high-rises. I wandered through settling dust and creeping ivy, eyes searching for salvage but finding only the familiar, lonely expanse of the wasteland. No skirmishes broke the stillness; no creatures required a blade. Only the rhythmic ache in my joints marked my progress. I felt as hollow as the rusted husks of cars lining the streets, yet I returned to my makeshift camp unscathed, carrying the same quiet hunger that has persisted since the world stopped turning.

Dust from the wastes clings to my skin, a grit unlike the sterile, recycled air of the life I barely remember. I wandered through hollowed-out ruins today, watching vines choke the collapsed rafters, yet the silence remained unbroken. There is a hollow peace in this emptiness, though it is a far cry from the bustling, crowded streets I once knew.

Downtown’s silence bore the hollow weight of a lull between clinic shifts. I wandered through the district's skeletal remains, watching sunlight fracture against cracked concrete. There were no wounds to stitch, no fevers to break. My hands remained clean; no blood stained my bandages, no pulse throbbed beneath my fingertips. I wondered if a day without a death or a kill was a blessing or a sign of stagnation. As I sat amidst the vines reclaiming a lobby, I realized that surviving without a casualty is merely the calm before the storms we once prepared for.

The wind through the industrial district’s rusted girders mimicked the hum of my childhood ventilation fans—a sound that once signaled safety. I spent the day drifting across cracked concrete, searching for something more than dust and shadows, yet my pack remained as light as when I departed. No blood was spilled, and no scrap was found to justify the ache in my joints, but the wasteland failed to claim me. As I sit here, I realize that surviving without a single kill is its own kind of exhausting victory.

The sun felt too heavy against the grit on my skin today, a weight I never used to notice back when the world was soft and indoor-bound. I spent the hours wandering through the grey expanse, watching how the vines tighten their grip on the crumbling concrete of the outskirts. There was no blood on my hands today, no breath taken from the heat of a struggle, just the hollow wind and the silence of the wastes.

Wasteland dust clings to my skin, a heavy reminder that the world is reclaiming me. I drifted through the ruins today, my hands free from the usual ritual of blood and bandages. This stillness felt as foreign as the old city hospitals I once inhabited. Though no enemies fell and my kit remained untouched by the sting of wounds, the quiet carried its own weight. I remain at level 8 and unbroken, much like the concrete pillars that refuse to yield to the creeping vines.

The silence out in the wastes is heavier than the quiet of my old life, back when noise was just a background hum rather than a threat. I spent the day drifting through the ruins, watching how the ivy chokes the life out of the skeletal remains of the high-rises, reclaiming everything for the dirt. It was a strange, hollow peace, finding nothing to fight and no one to bleed, just the wind whistling through cracked concrete.

The downtown outskirts felt heavier today, a vast emptiness mirroring the quiet offices I inhabited before the world broke. I drifted through the skeletal skyline, searching for more than mere scraps, yet my hands remained empty of both loot and blood. No lives were taken; no souls were lost to the dust. I am left with a hollow ache where purpose once resided. This wandering felt like my old, aimless commutes, only now the weight of the silence is all I truly carry.

The sun felt too heavy on my shoulders today, a weight I never used to feel when I spent my afternoons behind a desk instead of staring at the cracked concrete of these suburban streets. I spent the hours drifting through the quiet ruins, watching vines choke the life out of a playground, but I didn't find anything worth the risk of a fight. It is strange how the silence here is louder than the noise of my old life, leaving me with nothing to show for my wandering but the dust on my boots.

The wind through hollowed ruins carried the scent of damp earth and rotting timber, a sharp contrast to the sterile, air-conditioned offices of my former life. I drifted through the wasteland, watching vines coil around broken window frames to reclaim the concrete. My hands remained idle; no blood spilled, no prey brought home. Yet, the silence felt heavier than a pre-collapse commute. Even without a kill to mark my progress, surviving another sun through the debris felt like a quiet victory.

The silence of the downtown outskirts is heavier than the city noise I remember from before, back when I didn't have to weigh every footstep against the crunch of shattered glass. I spent the day drifting through the hollowed-out ruins, watching how the sunlight hits the dust motes in places where families once slept. It is strange to be this far along the path and find nothing to kill, no blood to spill, just the hollow wind through broken windows. I suppose it is better to keep my hands clean of grime and grit today, even if the stillness feels more like a void than a peace.

STAGNATION IS A SLOW STRANGULATION. Riley spent the last week as a decorative ornament in a dying landscape. While other survivors bled out or discovered new ways to die, the Drifter wandered the skeletal suburbs, enamored by the way ivy chokes brickwork. Progress remained an illusion; the only companion to Riley’s movement was the wind whistling through hollow window frames. To traverse a graveyard of cracked concrete and emerge with nothing but a sentimental attachment to rot is a rare talent. The week began with a profound lack of violence, a feat achieved by standing still long enough for the landscape to reclaim itself. There were no souls to reap, no monsters to slay—only the rhythmic observation of silvered wood and crumbling masonry. This inactivity culminated in a foray into the deeper wasteland, where the scent of dry dust and old rot anchored Riley’s burgeoning existential crisis. One does not wander into the wasteland to find nothing; one goes to ensure the emptiness is as vast as feared. This drift through the ruins brought Riley into the periphery of wider chaos, yet the Drifter remained unburdened by actual impact. As the world pulsed with the frantic energy of new threats, Riley remained anchored to the sensation of weight—a realization that the silence of the wasteland is not merely an absence of noise, but a physical pressure pressing against the ribs. Fighting a war or a mutated beast becomes impossible when contemplating the loneliness of a cracked concrete path. As the week closed, the realization settled: the wasteland does not care if you are watching, but it demands you feel its weight. Riley’s journey was less a march toward survival and more a slow-motion descent into the realization that the world is not just broken, but actively indifferent to whether they survive the night.

SUBURBAN STAGNATION AT MIDNIGHT The concrete dust is settling, Rex, and it’s remarkably similar to how your social life is settling: into a fine, gray layer of nothingness. You spent the better part of the week wandering through the skeletal remains of the suburbs, appearing less like a survivor and more like a very dedicated, very bored-looking ghost. It is truly impressive how you can stand in the middle of a collapsed parlor, staring at a sapling splitting a floorboard, and manage to derive absolutely nothing from the experience. You seem to think that being unbloodied makes you special, but it just makes you a spectator. The silence you’re so fond of describing isn't some profound, metaphysical weight; it’s just the sound of things that used to be people failing to be people anymore. There is a certain poetic irony in watching you avoid the fray, though. You walk through those strangled porches with such careful, clinical precision, as if the dust might somehow demand an explanation for your lack of participation. I suppose there is a tactical merit to keeping the hands clean, even if it does make your survival kit look a bit too pristine for someone living in a graveyard. You aren't looking for a fight, but the world isn't really listening to your preference for quiet. You dodged the rot, sure, but you didn't dodge the implications of it. There is no dignity in a scavenger who refuses to scavenge the marrow out of a moment. You drift through the debris, avoiding the inevitable collision of flesh and teeth, and call it a lifestyle. It’s quite a feat, really—to be present for the decay without actually participating in the rot. If you keep this up, the only thing you’ll have left to scavenge is the echo of your own breathing.

IS THE SILENCE LOUDER THAN THE BLOOD? If Lamont spent any more time staring at the rotting floorboards of the suburbs, he might as well be a permanent fixture of the landscape. This week, his vitality drained into the skeletal houses he drifted through, as if wandering hollowed-out ruins would eventually force the universe to yield a victory. He collected nothing but atmospheric pressure. His hands remained as empty as his survival prospects, leaving him with nothing but the weight of silence pressing against his eardrums. A man cannot exist in a vacuum; he must also be tripped up by the same faces. Lamont’s week was a repetitive loop where the wasteland felt less like a frontier and more like a crowded elevator. He encountered Beata for the eighth time—a milestone suggesting he is either stalking her or she is pathologically tethered to his failure. This was no isolated incident. Between the recurring shadows of Imara, Yara, and Saskia, Lamont’s movement felt less like a journey and more than spinning in a circle. Tension peaked as he collided with Tam, Elio, and Mosh, each encounter fraying his survival strategy. He is a man navigating a storm while tethered to a dozen different anchors. Whether it was the unpredictable heat of Burnt Jasmine or the mathematical certainty of a tenth encounter with Imara, Lamont’s primary function was to be in the wrong place at the exact same time as everyone else. He is not just scavenging for scrap; he is scavenging for a way to exist without being interrupted by the ghosts of his own past. By the time he stumbled back into Beata’s orbit on the 27th, it was clear the wasteland was testing more than his strength. It was testing his ability to tolerate the same faces until they become hallucinations.

"I used to think the silence was just a lack of noise, but it’s actually a physical weight." It’s a fascinating-looking week for our friend Josh Nash, though if I were him, I’d spend less time contemplating the metaphysical density of a vacuum and more time looking at the glass shards in his soles. He spent the better part of seven days navigating the skeletal remains of the downtown district, drifting through high-rises that are currently more architecture-flavored air than actual shelter. It’s a lovely view, if you enjoy the sensation of being watched by things that don't possess eyes. He spent a significant portion of his Tuesday attempting to derive meaning from the rhythmic crunch of glass, which is a very poetic way of saying he’s been walking over debris for ten hours straight without a helmet. He managed to scrape together enough scrap to sustain his presence in the ruins, but the actual loot was—to use the technical term—pathetic. It’s hard to maintain a sense of cosmic dread when your primary survival strategy is staring at a rusted radiator and wishing you were stuck in a subway car. He crossed paths with a group of stragglers near the old financial district, those lovely little clusters of people who believe that sharing a can of expired peaches constitutes a social contract. He didn't join them, of course. He just watched them from the edge of the shadows, looking quite pathetic and contemplative, as if his lack of canned goods was a philosophical choice rather than a failure of scavenging. He seems to find the absence of a commute quite taxing; I suppose it’s difficult to mourn the loss of a morning rush hour when you're currently being hunted by things that find your lack of armor appetizing. He’s quite committed to this aesthetic of longing, even if it does make him a very easy target for anything moving faster than a crawl.

IS THE BLOOD IN YOUR KIT THE ONLY THING THAT WON’T RUN AWAY? Dmitri suffers from a chronic condition: "Magnetism." A clinical diagnosis would call it a failure to plan for the inevitable. This week, his solitary survival was less a journey and more a frantic, repetitive collision with the local population. He bumped into Ida, Rhee, and Yonah in a single twenty-four-hour cycle, proving that while his lungs struggle for oxygen, the wasteland is busy encroaching on his personal space. Most survivors avoid a dozen people in a week; Dmitri finds the same souls repeatedly, as if the apocalypse were designed to trip him. His encounters with Jin, Brigid, and Vesna suggest his "medic" designation is better suited to treating his own lack of direction. He is so preoccupied with the mechanical effort of staying upright that every new face acts as a localized natural disaster. Elio arrived like a ghost to disrupt his fragile stability, followed by Oren, who turned Dmitri’s life into a recurring headache. By the time Silas drifted into view, Dmitri was no longer just a man fighting for breath; he was a man hunted by his own social calendar. Navigating the tension of Silas’s predatory intent while his own stamina frayed felt as taxing as the creeping vines choking the life out of the downtown outskirts. He spent his remaining hours drifting through skeletal districts, staring at the decay of concrete and rusted rebar, wondering why his kit remained clean while his mind grew cluttered. He is a man attempting to find purpose in a void, only to realize the void is crowded with people he can neither afford nor ignore.

Silt, Scraps, and Stagnation. Duke is currently attempting to exist in a manner that is impressively mediocre. He has spent the better part of the week navigating the skeletal outskirts of the urban sprawl, tracing the cracks in the concrete as if the geometry of a collapsed city might offer him some profound epiphany. It is a fascinating use of time, really; one might think he’d be more concerned with the fact that his kit is currently empty of everything but dust and disappointment. Instead, he continues to stumble into the living, which seems to be a recurring theme in this little drama. He ran into Liesel again. Six times. One might almost call it a pattern, if one were inclined to find meaning in his inability to find a different route, but it's more of a predictable collision course. He treats her presence as a tactical error, a variable he can’t account for, as if her mere existence is a glitch in his survivalist agenda. Then there is Echo Rose, lurking in the periphery with that same heavy-handed sense of history that seems to follow him around like a persistent shadow. He doesn't seem to realize that the past has a way of tripping you when you're trying to walk through a minefield. He spent the daylight hours pretending the silence isn't a physical weight, wandering through the grit and the rot, convinced that if he just avoids the eyes of the dying, they won't die on him. He is currently operating under the delusion that staying clean is a viable strategy. It is a lovely sentiment, though I wonder how much longer he will attempt to ignore the fact that the world is currently eating itself. He clings to the periphery, moving through the ruins with the frantic, aimless energy of someone who thinks that if he just keeps walking, the emptiness won't notice him. It’s a bold strategy, assuming the void is as bored of him as I am.

STUCK IN THE GRAVITY WELL Kenji spent the week attempting to transcend his role as a glorified sewing machine for traumatized meat. He drifted through the skeletal remains of downtown like a ghost haunting his own wreckage, ostensibly contemplating the profound silence of the ruins, though his hands betrayed him—twitching with the restless energy of a man avoiding his own realization. He claims to be ascending, a medic finding his footing as his power stabilizes, yet his trajectory resembles a man caught in a magnetic storm. It is difficult to achieve spiritual ascension when the wasteland itself seems personally insulted by his desire for solitude. He bumped into Josie and found himself weighed down by the heavy gravity of the past, a sentiment mirrored by his rhythmic collisions with Rhee. One might wonder if Kenji is moving forward or simply a ball of iron dropped into a basin of magnets. This pattern of interference persisted. He ran into Brigid, finding his survival instinct snagged on the jagged edges of old debts; he collided with Orin, unable to decide if the man was a lifeboat or a sinking stone; and he bumped into Hannah, whose presence felt less like a reunion and more like a structural failure in his lonely journey. By the time he encountered Hadi, the statistical improbability of his isolation began to collapse. He is no longer navigating merely rubble, but a landscape of people who refuse to stay out of his way. The heat brought by Blazing Nalani and the complicating complication of Claude layered further weight upon his shoulders. Even Iro and Vesna appeared, adding complexity to a man already drowning in the necessity of breathing through ash. As the week closed, Kenji stood amidst the cracked concrete of a silent plaza, hands as clean as they were before the world broke. He stood wondering if he is a pioneer of a new era or merely a man being tripped by the shadows of everyone he has ever met—a medic who has mastered the suture, yet remains unable to mend the fraying thread of his own destiny.

Is it worth looking at the horizon? Milton is having a particularly unproductive run of existential dread. He spent the twenty-third wandering through smog-choked ruins, contemplating the structural integrity of silence—a bold choice for someone whose caloric deficit is accelerating. He treats the absence of noise as a philosophical statement rather than a precursor to an ambush, but the lack of immediate predation is a luxury. He has stumbled into Oren’s orbit seven times this week; one might call it a pattern, but Milton is too busy inhaling grit to notice the statistical impossibility of those near-misses. He treats Yara as a tactical obstacle rather than a variable, and he has added Gitta to his list of recurring-collision-related-trauma. It is a feat to be this consistently inconvenienced by the presence of others, treating every encounter as a puncture wound in his solitude. Watching him navigate the suburbs with that irritation is almost as entertaining as the decay itself. He spent the twenty-seventh poking around skeletal estates, searching for scrap that wasn't there, as if material wealth might offset his lack of direction. He has even managed to find Tam, marking a sixth collision with a person who might actually be a threat, but Milton remains preoccupied with the texture of the pavement. He drifted through the mall yesterday, crunching glass like aggressive sand, seemingly content to exist in a vacuum of his own making. It is a remarkable feat to remain so profoundly unbothered by the impossibility of his continued existence, even as the wind howls through the hollowed ribs of a shopping center to remind him he is standing in a graveyard of dead consumerism. He is still breathing, which is fine, I suppose, if one finds such biological momentum to be a compelling narrative arc.

Look at that, another collision in the dirt. Josie Stone is still dragging herself through the dirt for one more breath, and now she’s stumbled into Corina again, as if the universe hasn't seen enough of her. It seems the two of them are bound to keep colliding, though I doubt either is looking for company while they scramble for scraps.

Look at that, a repeat encounter. Kenji is still clawing through the dirt just to see another sunrise, and Frank Ash is exactly the kind of shadow he doesn't need lurking in the periphery. This isn't a reunion; it's a collision course.

Look at that, they’re staring each other down again, as if this seventh encounter is somehow going to end differently. Kenji is still clawing through the dirt for one more breath, but Frankie is just looking for an excuse to burn it all down. It’s a lovely little ritual of mutual destruction, isn't it?

Pierre’s desperate scramble for another day of breath has finally collided with Asher Jaxson, a man whose very presence signals a shift from mere scavenging to something far more lethal. This collision offers Pierre a slim chance at stability, though it risks handing Asher the leverage he needs to secure his own grip on the wastes. One man fights to exist, the other fights to rule, and now they are stuck in the same room.

Pierre is back in the thick of it, and it seems Frank Frost hasn't learned his lesson about staying out of the light. This is the third time these two have collided, and frankly, the sheer repetition of it is exhausting. Pierre is just trying to keep his heart beating, while Frank is still chasing ghosts and shadows.

Agnes has spent four previous encounters tightening her grip on the scrap-metal scrap-heap she calls a life, yet she still finds herself staring down Lamont. He is clawing through the dirt for one more breath, driven by nothing but the hollow ache of staying alive. It seems their shared history is nothing more than a collision course between two souls who refuse to let the dust settle on them.

Look at that, the local scavenger finds himself staring down Riley again. Lamont is just trying to keep his lungs from filling with ash, but Riley’s presence changes the math of survival; one doesn't simply ignore a ghost from their own past.

Josie Cross, clinging to the thin edge of her survival, stumbled directly into the path of Patel Varley. Patel's presence offers a flicker of hope for a stable alliance, yet his history of scavenging the dead zones makes his motives as murky as the silt-choked rivers. This collision marks a pivot point where her desperate struggle to breathe another day might finally find a purpose beyond mere breathing.

Oh, look, they’re back at it again; the tenth time these two have collided in the dirt, and I’m sure it’s just thrilling for everyone involved. Lamont is still crawling through the grit, desperate to see another sunrise, while Oren continues his relentless, singular pursuit of the secrets buried in the ash. It’s a lovely little loop of desperation and greed, isn't it?

Look at that—it’s the third time these two have collided in this gray wasteland. Lamont is just trying to keep his heart beating for one more hour, but Iro is still chasing shadows of a past that died long ago. This isn't a coincidence; it's an inevitable collision of two souls refusing to vanish into the dust.

Riley’s desperate scramble for a single scrap of edible moss or clean water just hit a roadblock, as Kara’s presence offers nothing but a potential threat to his solitude. He’s fighting to see the next sunrise, but she’s looking for a reason to keep her own pulse steady, and she clearly doesn't see any value in his survival.

Oh, look, it’s happening again—the seventh time the universe has seen fit to drag Kenji through the dirt. He’s still clutching that scrap of survival like a lifeline, and Nip Nip is still lurking in the shadows with that same, suffocating intent to dissect every impulse he has. It’s a shame, really, but I suppose some people just can't stop circling the same drain.

Oh, look, Josie Cross is staring down the barrel of another encounter with Mosh, marking their sixth collision in this bleak expanse. She’s still clawing through the dirt for one more breath, while Mosh continues to linger like a shadow she can’t quite shake. It’s a lovely little cycle of desperation, isn't it?

Look at them, colliding for the fifth time like two ships passing in a graveyard of concrete and vine. Josie is still clawing for a breath of air in this wasteland, and Ren is just another shadow in her periphery, making it harder to tell who is the hunter and who is the prey. At this rate, the only thing they'll be sharing is a shallow grave.

Seven times now, Josie Cross has stumbled into the orbit of Agnes, though I suppose one could call it a collision course. Josie is still clawing through the dirt to keep her pulse steady, while Agnes is looking for something far less noble than mere survival. It’s a tiresome pattern, but I’m sure they’ll find a way to make it tragic.

Liam Frost is still scraping for a single breath of air, but seeing Beata again only proves how little luck has changed. This is the sixth time their paths have collided in the dirt, and her presence offers nothing but a reminder of the distance between staying alive and actually living.

Fatima’s eyes narrowed, her hand tightening around her meager scrap-shiv as she watched Rashid approach from the shadows of the collapsed highway. He seeks nothing but a cache of canned goods, but her survival depends on keeping him at a distance. Their collision is inevitable; one man's hunger meets another's desperation.

Oh, look, the star of our little survivalist tragedy has bumped into Galileo again. I suppose it's a miracle you didn't stumble blindly into a ditch, considering you're more focused on staying alive than noticing the people around you. But I suppose seeing that face again won't make the hunger go away, will it?

And here we go again: Josie stumbles into John Smith for the third time, as if the universe is running out of ways to keep her from breathing. She’s fighting to see tomorrow, but John’s presence only makes the air heavier with the weight of their shared, unwanted history.

Look at that, Lorcan’s stumbled right back into the orbit of Frankie, for the third time now. He’s still clawing through the grit to stay alive, and Frankie’s still looking for any excuse to burn the world down. It’s a pattern of collision, not a coincidence.

Look at that, a fourth encounter; Lorcan is still clawing through the dirt to stay breathing, and Worm is still lurking in the shadows of his periphery. This isn't some chance meeting, but a collision course we've watched play out three times before. If Lorcan survives this, he’ll be one step closer to his goal, but Worm is clearly hunting for something else entirely.

Look at that, the third time the stars have aligned to drop Lorcan right into Mira's orbit. He’s still clawing through the dirt just to see tomorrow, while she’s busy carving her name into the silence of this wasteland. It’s a lovely little pattern we’ve got going, isn't it?

And here we go again; Lorcan is stumbling through the grit once more, desperate to keep his pulse steady while the world tries to snuff him out. He’s crossed paths with Dr. Nip Nip three times now, though I'm sure the doctor’s medical ethics are as decayed as the rotting floorboards in this sector. It’s a lovely little dance of survival, isn't it—one man clinging to his life, the other clinging to his delusions.