Chapter One: The Core Beneath Ash
Kael’s boots crunched over brittle shards of glass and twisted metal, each шаг kicking up dust that danced like tiny ghosts in the pale sunlight filtering through the clouded sky. The world was dead, but it wasn’t quiet. Somewhere beneath the skeletal remains of Aether Hub Twelve, a pulse throbbed faintly — a heartbeat trapped in rust and ruin.
He moved like a shadow through the wreckage, shoulders hunched beneath a patched cloak stitched from scavenged synth-fiber. His breath hissed in the rebreather, steady and shallow, matching the rhythm of a man who had long learned not to hope. Around his wrist, a cracked Geiger counter ticked and sputtered — radiation was weak here, but it was enough to remind him the
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