Chapter 1: Erinyes

Exhaustion had hollowed him. Dust clawed at his eyes; his throat rasped, raw, scraping against the bones of his jaw. His hand trembled as it found the leather flask at his belt, lifting it to lips that had forgotten the taste of life. Nothing. Not a single drop. His tongue scoured the rim, desperate, tasting only a merciless void. Three days without water. He had survived a week before once, but now thirst gnawed from within, a living parasite, dragging him toward the ragged edge of madness.

It was trials like this that had forged his loathing for the old cities; bones of stone, lifeless and silent, their breath long gone. Streets hollowed like open graves, towers collapsed into themselves, each shadow a trap, each ruin a coffin. Even knowing the "safe" paths offered no promise of survival. Out in the wastes there was room to breathe, room to move, but here... every fractured wall held eyes; every shattered archway, a threat. Everything that stirred was prey to the horrors that haunted reality: ghosts, hollowed, mutants, spirits, nightmares, vampires… things that should not have names, and yet wore them like crowns, as if the world itself had anointed them kings of ruin.

The world had not always been like this. He was forty years old now, and the past lingered in him like a half-remembered dream, fragile as smoke, beautiful and fleeting, impossible to grasp. Humans had once ruled the world, before the last thirty years swallowed that dominion. He had grown in the suffocating embrace of the Cataclysm, molded by chaos and shaped to survive. Every return to these ruins reminded him that survival was the only truth he had ever known.

He had stolen scarcely an hour’s rest, though he had lain buried in that pit - his so-called shelter - for three. Weariness pressed into his bones like iron chains, yet he forced himself upward. In this place, no refuge remained yours for long. At some point, something would sniff it out, and discovery always came soaked in blood. That thought was enough to wrench him back to his feet. He gathered his meager belongings, drew the patched cloak across his shoulders, and yanked the heavy hood low, drowning the scarred wreck of his face in shadow. With a groan, he hauled his broad frame from the pit and into the pallid light.

Yet the sun offered little solace. Its sick glow was tainted by ash, bleeding across the ruins like a frayed, old curtain. He squinted, scanning for motion. Nothing stirred. An absence sharp enough to bite at the mind. Silence was a predator. Were it not for the elder’s summons, he would never have crossed into this graveyard. But he owed that man his life - several times over - and debts like that cut deeper than choice.

Three years had passed since he last walked west, toward the scattered bones of their settlement. Back then, a hundred souls had clung to its broken walls, though their number shifted like sand in storm. The only constant was the elder himself; now bent with age, yet still holding despite the weight of seventy years on his back. To his people, he was a protector and a teacher; the frail spine of a fragile refuge.

To him, the elder was much more.

Family. The last one he had.

"Lost your way, man of flesh?”

The voice cut the air, thin and nasal, like a blade scraping stone. He slowed, but did not halt. No one was in sight, yet the closeness of the sound told him they were already upon him.

"My brother asked you a question.” came another, heavier, from his right.

He did not turn. Voices in the ruins never brought anything good. He lowered his head and lengthened his stride. Beneath the folds of his ragged coat, his hand found the sawed-off shotgun, closing around it like a lifeline. He was ready to run when a third voice interrupted; this one paired with a body, stepping deliberately into his path. This one sounded female.

"So discourteous,” she hissed, sharp and mocking. "Did you not know you trespass? But we can be generous, can’t we, brothers? You smell divine, man of flesh; the richest feast we had in days.”

Behind her, the others slithered closer. The creature before him licked its lips. Its form was obscene: shriveled, hairless, skin sagging over yellowed swellings, a body like a rotting tuber left too long in wet, moldy soil. Its head loomed, grotesquely large, and two perfect black orbs stared, void of whites or pupils, glistening with hunger. Then came the mouth: a gaping, misshapen hole that devoured more than a third of its face, lined with two rows of brown, razor teeth.

For a heartbeat, only his ragged breath and the hissing tongues of his hunters echoed the ruins. Then they lunged. He dove into the dirt, hand snatching the shotgun from beneath his rags, firing before his body met the ground. The thing with the woman’s voice collapsed, chest split by a perfect black hole. Thick, hot ichor surged from it. Not blood. Something older, something alive.

"Not hungry now... only kill, man of flesh!” one of the remaining two screamed as he crawled, trying to rise. The small, wiry form landed on his torso like a spider, teeth sinking deep, tearing away a fist of arm. Its brother mirrored the motion, diving for his right leg, crunching sinew and cloth with slavering frenzy.

Pain clawed at him, threatening a scream, but he clamped his lips until they bled. Better to taste iron than summon more horrors upon him. His free hand shook. He seized the heaviest stone he could reach, smashed it down on the nearest skull.

Once. Twice. Three times.

The soft dome of the skull collapsed like rotten fruit beneath the blows. The stone blackened, slick with foul, sticky ichor. The last thing peeled from his leg and stared with eyes made of nightmares. Hatred, caged and exquisite, danced in their abyssal depths.

"You will pay for what you did here. Soon… you will go no farther.”

The creature stepped back. With the last of his strength, he hurled the bloodied stone toward it, but it was too late. By the time he forced himself upright, the nightmare had vanished into the city’s hollowed bones, leaving only silence behind.

"Idiot…” he croaked to himself, balancing on the shredded stump of his leg. He tried to look at the wounds, and the sight soured him further. Both cuts ran deep. Infection would claim them soon, but that was not the worst part. It wasn’t the immediate threat either. From the moment they appeared, he had known what they were. Erinyes. Or so the folk called them. Born of human guilt, silent as shadows, always appearing where they were least expected.

Their bites were paralytic, drenched with a venom that crushed muscles in minutes. Their method was merciless and simple: while you stared into nothing, paralyzed, while your mind sank into your blackest regrets as they take shape inside your skull, the Erinyes return and devour you. Alive. The one that had fled would come back. That much was certain. And when it did, only bones and a shattered soul would remain of him.

He had to move.

With his good hand, he drew the hood over his head and began to limp forward. Two steps and his knees gave up. He collapsed into the dust, numbness spreading with every breath. His body was surrendering. Thoughts drowned into a sluggish, near-solid fog, dragging him down.

He flung his satchel to the ground, clawed it open with leaden fingers, and fumbled until at last he found it. The red liquid pulsed inside the glass phial; eager and hungry, throbbing as if alive. Yet he hesitated. This was the last one he had and there was no promise of another. Vampire blood was rarer than gold, but its healing power was the one thing that could save him now. It would not purge the poison, but it would buy him time. Time to crawl, to hide... At the very least, it would keep infection at bay.

He broke the wax seal and raised the vial to his lips. Ecstasy seized him before the first drop touched his tongue. These monsters might be a blight upon the world, but their blood was nectar. He drained it greedily, willing it never to end. Slowly, his wounds contracted, sealing shut, though the missing flesh of his hand remained absent. He felt reborn, as though risen from a long, bitter death. He had bought himself a reprieve.

And now, he had to run.

The settlement was two hours away. He would not make even a quarter of that distance in time. He stumbled back onto the road. At first his pace was firm, driven - but soon his stride faltered. Each step dragged heavier than the last, his body betraying him. Fortune favored him, though: in earlier forays through the city he had mapped out boltholes, places where one could vanish for a few hours' respite. And so he pushed toward one such refuge, though the road seemed to stretch, endless, before him.

Fifteen minutes later, salvation appeared. The skeleton of a once-fair home still stood, waiting like an old, silent friend. Vision blurred, limbs betrayed him, dragging him forward against his will. Only a few ragged meters remained between him and sanctuary, and the hooded man prayed no one else had claimed it.

He crawled over the rubble, each motion an ordeal, a sacrament of survival, and shoved himself inside. The stairwell to the cellar was fragile and almost vertical, but it had survived. His eyelids sagged. He forced himself to endure, to hold on a breath longer. His hand, trembling and spattered, gave one final push, shoving his stiffening body toward the stairs - and then froze.

He never even felt himself falling.