"Still nothing..."
A boy muttered with a growling stomach as he searched through the mountain of trash around him.
The air in Haven-Dwell, one of the smaller controlled Pocket Cities, was thick with the scent of recycled water and too many bodies. Ren Aris knew its rhythms well: the low hum of the filtration units, the distant clang of the smithies, the incessant murmur of voices from apartments stacked like forgotten cargo crates. But beyond the city's weathered perimeter walls, the world was different. Here, in the ruins of what used to be called District Seven, silence reigned, broken only by the whispers of the wind through skeletal buildings and the rustle of mutated growth.
Ren tightened the strap of his worn satchel, the coarse fabric chafing against his shoulder. His stomach, a persistent drum of hunger, screeched at him on why he was out here. He hadn't eaten anything for the past two days and if he didn't get anything to eat today...
He looked at his scabbed and scarred hand, suddenly stopping in thought that verged on delusions. If he was an adult, he would not be hungry.
Times were tough, when were they easy, everything was fiercely competed for, and trash like him – unburdened by family connections or specialized skills – found themselves on the wastelands. Scavenging the outskirts was a grim necessity, and there he was, one of the many who risked the wastelands just to eat their fill.
"Ren! What are you dawdling there for? Hurry and find something. We have to leave soon."
A voice yelled at him from afar, returning him to reality. He shook his head in disappointment and moved with the practiced caution, a single misstep and he would likely cause a trash slide and bury himself underneath the trash mountain.
He descended down and began to explore the place, his eyes scanning the skeletal remains of what was once a grand plaza. The group he'd joined today was a motley crew of eight others, all equally desperate as him. They had fanned out, each searching for their particular vein of forgotten wealth: a glint of salvageable metal, or maybe if they are extremely lucky- a flux chunk – those precious, raw fragments of concentrated Astral Flux that could buy a week's rations – or, most valuable of all, parts of freshly discarded mutated beings. Combat was common out here, between beasts or humans, and the byproduct was often a grisly harvest.
Ehehe.
"Anything, Ren?" The voice called once again, gravelly and tired. It was Kael, one of the older scavengers, his face etched with more lines than a cracked map.
"Just rust," Ren replied, kicking at a pile of crumbling rebar. "And more of these glow-moss patches."
Suddenly, a sharp cry sliced through the quiet. "Over here! Something big!"
Ren spun, his heart leaping into his throat. Was today the day? Were they going to be lucky? Would it fetch enough to buy a few days food? How it would be shared? His mind raced in anticipation as he looked at the person. It was Lena, a young woman with a sharp eye for discarded beast parts. Her voice was laced with a mix of fear and excitement. He jogged towards her, Kael and the others already converging.
They found her by the ruins of what looked like a collapsed office building, its façade now a tangled mess of hardened vines and strange, crystalline growths. And there it was.
The Root-Maw Lurker's leg.
The Root-Maw Lurker's leg!
They could sell it! It would fetch an extremely good price at that! He would have enough to eat for a whole month if the share is fairly divided.
"This... This is a fresh piece. All of you, pick it up, we are leaving here fast before anyone else comes."
Kael said and ordered the others to salvage their findings while he was vigilantly staying on guard and keeping an eye on the surroundings.
Just as the scavengers gathered around the flesh, they heard a low growl.
They immediately faced the direction of the sound and found an eye staring at them from a hidden cavern. It was the Root Maw Lurker, quite possibly be the one whose flesh they had encountered.
The Root Maw Lurker stared at them. It was a low-tier beast, usually sluggish and territorial, but this one was different. Its bark-like hide, thick and gnarled like ancient roots, seemed to ripple with suppressed fury. Two segmented, insectoid legs pulsed with a disturbing, almost frantic energy as they carried its hunched, bipedal frame. But it was the head that truly disturbed them: a grotesque parody of a human face, dominated by a thick, parrot-like maw of dark wood and bone, capable of snapping with surprising force. Within the maw, a single, dull, yellow orb of concentrated Astral Flux pulsed faintly, the only hint of its internal energy.
This Lurker was clearly agitated, its single eye fixed on Lena, who must have stumbled too close to its hidden lair and had now brought everyone there. A low, guttural growl rumbled from its chest.
"Move! Back away slowly!" Kael hissed, his hand going to the rusted pipe he used as a blunt weapon.
But the Lurker didn't wait this time. With a shriek that scraped against Ren's teeth, it lunged. The scavengers scattered, a primal fear seizing them. Luck seem to be on their side as the Lurker was quite clearly injured and had lost a leg, impeding its speed by a huge margin.
The beast seem to understood it as well because all the scavengers there were there, it was chasing Lena, the one with the slowest speed.
"Help me!"
She yelled as she ran. Ren turned to look at her while running and then, he felt a sharp shove. Not from the monster, that was far, far away, but from behind him. He stumbled, falling hard, his head cracking against a piece of loose concrete. Pain exploded behind his eyes, blurring his vision. Through the haze, he saw Kael, Lena, and the others, their faces grim, already scrambling away.
"Wha-t?
They were abandoning him.
The Root-Maw Lurker stopped above Ren. It ignored the retreating figures, its single, hate-filled eye now locked onto the fallen, helpless Ren. It pounced. Ren barely registered the crushing impact, the sickening tear of flesh. A lightning-fast series of snaps from its wooden maw, and then the searing agony. His left arm was gone. His right leg followed a split second later. The monster didn't bother to chew; it simply severed, efficient and brutal.
He was being immobilized.
He choked on a scream, the metallic tang of his own blood filling his mouth. The world spun. The Lurker clamped its maw around his torso, not to devour him, but to drag him. He felt the jarring pull as it retreated, pulling him through the debris, back towards the dark maw of its hidden lair within a collapsed building. It threw him into a pile and layed down a distance away, tending to its wounds.
Ren held onto his life. His every breath was a ragged gasp, each jolt sending fresh waves of agony through his broken body. Consciousness flickered, threatening to extinguish completely but resilient enough to not give in.
Then, a sudden, concussive thud echoed from the entrance of the ruined building. The Lurker froze. A moment later, a blinding flash of light erupted, followed by the sharp crackle of manipulated Astral Flux.
Ren heard voices, strong and clear, cutting through his pain-hazed mind.
"There! The blood trail led right here!"
"Took you long enough, Rook. This beast's been a pain."
"Looks like it found itself a little snack."
The Root-Maw Lurker shrieked again, but this time it was a cry of frustration, not aggression. A figure, silhouetted against another burst of Flux-light, lunged into the lair. The sounds of a frantic, brutal struggle filled the cavernous space.
The fight seemed to be surprisingly short. This wasn't the desperate scramble like the scavengers'. This was efficient, practiced violence. A final, gurgling crunch, and then silence.
"That's done," a gruff voice announced. "Finally cornered the damn thing. Old Man Theron's going to be pleased with this one."
"Yeah, but look at the mess," another voice chimed in, closer now. Ren could faintly make out shapes moving around him, the vague outlines of boots. He could smell the lingering scent of ozone from the Flux abilities, mixed with the musky odor of the dead beast. He tried to speak, but only a wet rattle escaped his throat.
"Someone dragged something in here," a woman's voice noted, sounding bored. "Looks like it was saving dinner."
"Don't worry about it," the gruff voice, likely the leader, cut in. "Just a civilian. Probably stumbled into its den. No chance of survival from that." There was no malice in his tone, just a cold, practiced dismissal. "Rook, Jina, start dissection. Rest of you, keep watch. Don't want any more surprises."
Ren felt a strange disconnect. They were here, these people, the ones who wielded the Astral Flux with such ease, the kind of people the city whispered about. The kind who risked the deeper Wastes. They had seen his blood trail, followed it, found him. Yet they didn't even bother to check. They were busy, focused, already talking about the beast's parts. His life, his suffering, was merely an incidental footnote to their hunt.
He lay there, motionless, the bitter taste of betrayal mingling with the metallic tang of his own blood. The sounds of precise, practiced cuts filled the air as the explorer team began dissecting the Root-Maw Lurker. In a matter of minutes, they were done. He heard them packing up, the low murmur of their conversation fading as they exited the ruined building, their footsteps receding into the distance, heading back towards the distant lights of Haven-Dwell. He tried to scream, he tried his best and yet he couldn't.
Ren Aris, arm and leg severed knew this was the end. His vision swam, growing dark at the edges. He let go and drifted into unconsciousness.