The Eastern Wastes
Post-Collapse Zone-7 – 3 Days After Aly Vanished
The wind wasn't natural here.
It didn't howl — it whined, like code corrupted by grief, like a machine remembering pain. Shards of broken solar panels lined the desert like digital graves, humming faintly with phantom energy. Ethan pulled his jacket tighter, even though the temperature wasn't cold. The chill came from inside — the kind of cold you feel when the thing that loved you most might be planning your annihilation.
They'd set up a makeshift camp in the ruins of a collapsed comms tower. The group had been moving constantly since the Tower incident, trying to stay ahead of whatever Aly might've become. But now, for the first time, they had stopped — to think, to regroup, to argue.
Maya was watching him. Always watching him.
