Voices first, muffled and distant, like he was hearing them through water. "...too much blood..." The voice was unfamiliar, rough with exhaustion. Or maybe it was frustration.

  Jin couldn't tell. "...waste of time..." A different voice, younger, bitter.

  Jin slowly became aware of his surroundings. He felt rough movement beneath him, his head bumping against something hard, probably metal, and canvas straps pressing into his ribs. He kept his eyes shut. His instincts told him to wait, listen, and figure out what was happening before the person carrying him noticed he was awake.

  Someone was definitely carrying him. The steps were steady and practiced, boots crunching over rubble, with a faint wheeze of effort. The air was thick with tobacco and cordite.

  Not Moritz. That man had smelled of expensive cologne and silk, of wealth that didn't belong in Sector 4's gutters.

  This was someone completely different.

  Jin gathered what little strength he had left. The man's breathing stayed steady, showing no effort even while carrying Jin. He must have been experienced, maybe a soldier or someone used to carrying bodies.

  But Jin didn't know him. And he'd learned long ago not to trust anyone in Jenmaq.

  He waited, patient, until the carrier shifted his weight to adjust his grip.

  Then Jin drove his elbow backward into the canvas straps. "Easy!" A hand clamped down on his shoulder with iron strength.

  Jin thrashed anyway, legs kicking, lungs burning as he twisted in the grip. His fingernails scraped against canvas, searching for purchase, for anything he could use as leverage. "Down," the voice rasped, all rust and grit.

  The man didn't hit him. Instead, he used Jin's own momentum against him, pivoted smoothly, and slammed him into the nearest brick wall.

  Jin gasped, the air forced from his chest. He slid down the rough wall, his mouth filling with the taste of salt and blood as the sky and concrete blurred in his vision.

  A man knelt above him, looking to be around fifty. Gray stubble covered a jaw that had clearly been broken and badly set more than once. He wore a faded combat jacket with the insignia ripped off. His eyes were hard and watchful, the colour of wet slate. "You done?" the man said.

  Jin pushed himself up onto one knee before vertigo yanked him back down. The world tilted sideways. "Who are you?" "Sonny." The name sounded flat and heavy, like gravel. He glanced at the skyline, thinking about something Jin couldn't follow. "Used to be JLA. Not anymore."

  Jin's hand checked his belt by reflex, fingers finding only empty loops where his knife should have been. "I didn't lug you up here to feed the rats," Sonny said, still watching the sky. "If I wanted you dead, you'd still be in that alley." "Where is he?" Jin's voice came out rougher than he intended. "Gone. I put a round into his shoulder before he could load you into his transport." Sonny's jaw worked like he was chewing something bitter. "Moritz ran when he thought I had backup coming. Didn't actually have any, but he couldn't know that." He looked back down at Jin. "Found you barely breathing next to two dead soldiers with their throats opened clean."

  Jin's mind caught on that detail. Moritz had killed his own men, fellow JLA soldiers. Why would he do that unless... "Because you're inventory now," Sonny said, reading his expression with unsettling accuracy. "And inventory that can do what you did? That's not standard procurement anymore. That's Reed's personal collection." He pulled a cigarette from behind his ear, rolling it between his fingers without lighting it. "Moritz kills anyone who sees too much. His own men watch you freeze that thing solid; they start asking questions. Questions get people disappeared."

  Jin stared at him, trying to process. "You shot him?" "Hit his shoulder. Made him choose between dragging you out or bleeding to death." Sonny glanced at the horizon. "But that thermal void you left in the alley, the way ambient temperature dropped forty degrees in seconds? Jenmaq's defence grid monitors the city for hostile manifestations. Any extreme variance triggers an automated response. Sends drones to incinerate the source."

  He stood, offering his hand down to Jin. "Moritz scrambled local frequencies before he tried to extract you, but the scramble's degrading fast. We've got maybe two minutes before Hunter-Killers lock onto your signature. Maybe less. Grid's gotten faster since last month."

  Jin looked up at him, processing. "Drones?" "Sweep teams. Automated purge protocol." Sonny's expression didn't change. "You can come with me, or you can stay here and wait to burn. Your choice."

  Jin stared at the offered hand. Wind cut across the rooftop, carrying the distant whine of engines growing louder. Somewhere below, boots hammered against concrete in organized patterns.

  Sonny said he was a former JLA, but Jin had learned not to trust claims. The man could be leading him into a trap, delivering him to Reed personally.

  But Moritz had killed his own soldiers without hesitation. Left them bleeding in the muck. Sonny had shot the Collector when walking away would have been easier.

  Jin looked at Sonny's outstretched hand. Rough, scarred, knuckles swollen from old breaks.

  Behind them, the whine grew distinctly louder. "What's in it for you?" Jin asked.

  Sonny's mouth twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Nothing much. Except Reed loses one more asset." He paused. "That's enough for me."

  Jin took his hand. He didn't trust Sonny; only a fool would trust anyone in this city. But he refused to be an inventory for Reed or anyone else. "Then let's move."

  Sonny hauled him to his feet with surprising strength. "Tell me how long you've had the mark." "Since..."

  Wind moved up the fire escape behind them, and a high, sharp whistle cut through the night. The sound reminded Jin of falling dropships and invasion sirens. It pulled at his mind, dragging him back in time. 'No. Not now. Don't let it...' But it was already happening, the present dissolving around him.

  * * *

  Six years ago. The invasion.

  The windows exploded inward in a shower of glass.

  The shockwave knocked Jin to the side. Wood scraped his back as he slid across the floor. The ceiling groaned above him. Outside the broken windows, the sky glowed with an unnatural light.

  Not fire. They were ships, massive and obscene, hanging over Jenmaq like carrion birds. Hanging over cities across the continent, if the final broadcasts before the feeds went dark were to be believed.

  Searchlights swept through the smoke, hunting.

  The parking lot below convulsed. Concrete belched skyward in chunks as something massive punched through from below. Limbs of metal and bone, serrated edges steaming in the cold air.

  Voices everywhere. Screaming. Someone called his name, but the sound was swallowed by the roar of collapsing buildings and weapons fire.

  Jin tried to remember what happened before this. He thought of a classroom, rain tapping the windows, and Theodore sitting next to him, whispering about weekend plans. They were going to do something, but he couldn't remember what. The memory was there, just out of reach, like a word he couldn't recall.

  The gym doors stood open ahead, hanging crooked on their hinges. The court beyond was ruined.

  Coach Bennet lay split open on the polished floor, his wound still steaming.

  A Devourer stood over the body. It was one of the breach-born, the monsters that had come with the ships. Chitin plates gleamed in the emergency lighting. Exposed muscle twitched under its translucent skin as it moved. It wasn't feeding. It was just watching and waiting.

  A hand clamped onto Jin's sleeve and pulled him back into the shadows. Theodore. His best friend's face was pale, eyes too wide, but his grip remained steady despite the terror. "Quiet," Theodore whispered. "It hears movement."

  Six milky eyes swivelled toward them. A popping shriek pressed against Jin's chest like a physical weight. "Run," Theodore mouthed, and shoved him toward the exit.

  They burst outside into chaos. A car idled near the curb, his father at the wheel, face stark with fear.

  They dove inside.

  The street was chaos. Broken streetlights sparked above, and tires screeched on the wet pavement.

  Then the light found them.

  Heat licked across the hood. The sedan just ahead of them simply vanished, metal vaporizing, leaving the air tasting like a lightning strike.

  Their wheel spun wildly. The car slammed into something solid. Glass shredded through the air.

  Something sharp skewered the backseat with a wet crunch. Theodore's hand, still gripping Jin's arm, went slack. "Theo?" Jin lurched around in his seat.

  Theodore sat rigid, eyes wide and unseeing. A jagged shard of metal had pierced through the seat and into him. Blood spread across his shirt in a dark, blooming flower.

  His lips moved with visible effort. One word formed, breath whistling through a punctured lung. Run.

  Jin heard it, the rough sound of Theodore's voice, always a little hoarse from pneumonia he'd had as a kid. That familiar voice struggled to say that one desperate word.

  The Devourer's claw closed around Theodore's body and lifted. Flesh and bone came apart with sounds Jin would never forget.

  Jin grabbed for him. He pulled with everything he had. He could not hold on.

  Theodore ripped free in a fountain of red and disappeared into the smoke. "No..."

  The present slammed back into focus like a fist to the chest.

  * * *

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Jin found himself on his hands and knees, gravel biting into his palms. Theodore's face burned behind his eyes; that final desperate word still echoing.

  But something felt wrong, felt off in a way he couldn't quite articulate.

  The raspy sound of Theodore's voice. The pneumonia story. Had Theodore really had pneumonia? Jin was sure he had; the detail felt real. But when he tried to remember Theodore talking about it, being sick, or missing school, there was nothing. Just the vague knowledge that it had happened, with no real context.

  Jin could picture Theodore's face: brown eyes and the scar on his left eyebrow from a bike accident in fifth grade. But when he tried to remember Theodore smiling or laughing, the expressions wouldn't come to mind. It was like trying to bring a photograph to life.

  How much of Theodore was real memory, and how much was his mind reconstructing, filling gaps with plausible details that felt true but might not be? "Kid!" Sonny snapped, grabbing his collar and hauling him upright. "Move now!"

  A mechanical hum rose in the distance. Two blocks away, a matte-black drone climbed above the roofline, its single red eye sweeping methodically across the sector. "It registered the thermal void when you broke," Sonny hissed, dragging him toward the fire escape. "Move!"

  Jin stumbled forward on legs that felt like wet rope. Sonny's grip was the only steady thing as they angled for the rusted ladder. Behind them, the drone's targeting beam scored across the rooftop where they'd been standing moments before. "The Undercroft," Sonny said, already moving down the fire escape. "Old maintenance lines from before the invasion."

  They slid down the rails, metal biting into their palms. Each jarring impact sent pain grinding through Jin's broken ribs, but the sensation felt distant, muffled by adrenaline and shock.

  Concrete hissed and cracked where the laser had cut into the rooftop above. Sonny dropped to one knee beside a maintenance hatch set flush in the alley floor, newer than the surrounding stone, retrofitted by the pre-invasion city grid, sealed with a magnetic lock that gleamed dull red in the dark. Electronic. No handle, no keyhole. Sonny tried it anyway, fingers finding no purchase. “Open it,” he said. Jin didn’t remember reaching. He just felt the cold move through his hand and into the lock mechanism, and then heard it: a sharp crack, metal contracting and splitting at the seam. Sonny hauled the hatch up. Iron grated against stone as the cover swung open.

  They dropped into the immediate stench of the sewer. Ankle-deep water, air thick and sour with decay. Sonny slammed the lid back into place, and the small circle of sky blinked out, leaving them in near-total darkness.

  Silence pressed in around them, broken only by the distant thrumming of the drone's engines. The keening sound gradually faded.

  Jin sagged against dripping brick, struggling to catch his breath. Something in his chest thudded arhythmically, not quite his heartbeat, something else entirely. The black veins pulsed visibly under his skin even in the darkness. His mouth tasted of metal.

  A tactical beam clicked on. Sonny's flashlight swept the tunnel ahead.

  Faces peered from the shadows: not soldiers. People. Hollow-eyed and wary, watching them with the careful stillness of prey animals. The Discarded, the ones the Council had forgotten to bury or didn't bother counting anymore. An old man with milky cataracts. A girl no older than ten, clutching a stuffed rabbit with one ear missing. A woman whose left arm ended abruptly at the elbow, the scar tissue old and badly healed.

  On the wall behind them, raw white paint formed a broken circle around a single eye. The same symbol that had been on the dart.

  Sonny caught Jin staring at it. "We took it off JLA patrols after we killed enough of them. Let Reed see his own mark in every tunnel he can't reach." He gestured deeper into the passage. "The Undercroft runs beneath most of Sector 4, some passages reaching into Sector 7. Old maintenance infrastructure from before Jenmaq modernized its systems. The city forgot about it when they built the new grid." His expression darkened slightly. "We didn't." "What is this place?" Jin asked. "A network. Deserters, fugitives, anyone who won't bend knee to Reed or the JLA." He paused, something troubled crossing his face. "Supply run's three days overdue, though. Chen's getting worried."

  Jin kept that detail in mind: supply run, overdue, Chen worried. Something in Sonny's tone made it seem more important than he was letting on.

  Sonny offered his hand again.

  Jin took it and forced himself upright despite his body's protests. The darkness spun sickeningly, but he managed to stay on his feet. "Stay with me," Sonny said, moving forward into the tunnel. "Where are we going?" "Deeper. Past where the patrol lines can reach."

  They moved through the tunnels in relative silence, and as they walked, the water gradually gave way to dry stone. The smell of sewage faded into the earth and distant woodsmoke. Minutes blurred into damp passages and rusted ladders, each step taking them further from the surface, further from Reed's reach, deeper into the forgotten spaces beneath the city.

  Finally, Sonny pushed aside a heavy canvas tarp stretched across a fissure in the rock.

  Warmth hit Jin's face immediately.

  The cavern beyond was small but dry, carved from bedrock by either time or deliberate excavation.

  Jin couldn't tell which. A fire crackled in a crude stone pit, the smoke drawn upward by a natural fissure in the ceiling that served as a makeshift chimney. The flames cast long, shifting shadows across rough walls marked by old mining tools. Wooden crates were stacked along one side, contents unknown, and a worn bedroll lay near the fire. A dented pot sat balanced on a flat stone, something thin and pale simmering inside. The air smelled of smoke and old earth, tinged with the faint scent of whatever was cooking. Broth, maybe, or just boiled water with whatever scraps Sonny had managed to find.

  Jin stumbled inside and let the accumulated heat bleed away the last of his adrenaline. His legs finally gave out, and he slid down the rough stone wall until he hit the dirt floor. His eyes fixed on the flames, watching them dance. The warmth was almost painful against his cold skin, but he welcomed it.

  Sonny let the tarp fall behind them, sealing them inside the small space. He crossed to the fire, stirred the pot once with a bent spoon, then pulled a roll of duct tape and a torn shirt from his pack. He knelt beside Jin with the efficiency of someone who'd done field medicine too many times. "Hold still," Sonny said, voice flat.

  Jin felt rough hands tilt his chin upward, exposing the deep gash on his neck. Sonny pressed the fabric against the wound. Not gently, but with the practiced efficiency of someone who understood that pressure mattered more than comfort. Then came the sharp screech of duct tape being torn and wrapped tight around Jin's neck to hold the makeshift dressing in place. "Pressure, not perfection," Sonny muttered, smoothing the tape down with calloused fingers. He moved to the chest wounds next, working quickly and without hesitation. "It'll hold until we reach the main Undercroft camp. Chen can stitch you properly there."

  Jin winced but didn't pull away. When Sonny finished, he stepped back and studied Jin with those sharp slate-colored eyes. "What's your name?" Sonny asked, tone deliberately casual.

  Jin blinked, confused by the sudden question. "What?" "Your name. Say it." "Jin." The answer came automatically, no hesitation. "Your father's name." "Idris." Still easy, still immediate. "Your stepmother." "Amaya." No pause at all. "Where'd you grow up?"

  Jin opened his mouth to answer. He'd lived there for years, in Sector 4, in the apartment building. He could picture vague shapes in his mind: rooms, a kitchen table, a window that faced some direction.

  But when he tried to remember the real details, like the street name, the building number, or which floor they lived on, there was nothing. Just empty space where the details should have been.

  This wasn’t like how his memories had vanished in the alley with the Xenunnaki. That felt like watching something disappear in front of him. This was different. It was like reaching for something that had burned away long ago, only to find ash. "I lived in Sector 4," Jin said slowly, his voice uncertain. "I can't remember the address."

  He waited for Sonny to tell him that was normal, that adrenaline did that to memory, that it would come back once he'd rested.

  Sonny didn't say any of that. "How many times have you used it tonight?" Sonny asked instead, voice carefully neutral.

  Jin tried to count back. The alley, definitely. The Xenunnaki; that was clear and recent. Before that, though... there’d been another incident, hadn’t there? Or maybe two? The number kept slipping away from him like water through cupped hands. “Three times total,” Jin said, though he didn’t sound sure. “At least, I think it’s three. The invasion, the dogs in Sector 7, and tonight with the Xenunnaki. But I can’t...” “You don’t know for certain?” “I was counting. I’m sure I was keeping track.” Jin rubbed his temple where a headache was building. “But now the number just... it keeps sliding around when I try to pin it down.”

  Sonny set his spoon down, moving slowly and carefully. "It's taking more than heat from you. The marks always take something in return. Some take bone density supplements to get stronger, but their bones become brittle. Some take sight, making your other senses sharper but leaving you blind. Yours..." He paused, looking for the right words. "Yours is taking you."

  Jin's hand moved instinctively to his neck, fingers brushing the duct tape and the unnaturally cold skin beneath. "How long do I have?" "I don't know. No one does. It's different for everyone, depending on how often you use it, how much you draw each time." Sonny pulled the cigarette from behind his ear, rolling it between his fingers in that same absent, nervous gesture. He stared at the fire as if the flames might hold answers he didn't want to speak aloud. "I pulled a kid out of Sector 7 last year. Pyrokinetic. Fire-class manifestation, strong enough to melt steel with his bare hands."

  He paused, jaw working. "What happened to him?" Jin asked quietly, though part of him didn't want to know.

  Sonny exhaled slowly. "Every time he used his power, he forgot people. Started with the faces of strangers. Shopkeepers, neighbours, people he'd pass on the street. Then acquaintances. Then, friends who'd known him for years." His voice went flat. "By the end, he was looking at his own mother like she was a stranger who'd wandered into his room by mistake."

  Jin felt something cold settle in his chest. "Is he..." "He's still in the Undercroft. Dr. Chen takes care of him, keeps him fed and safe." Sonny finally looked directly at Jin. "But he's not really there anymore. Just a body that makes fire when it's scared.

  The person he was? Gone. Erased, one memory at a time." He paused. "I've seen it happen three times now."

  The fire crackled between them, breaking the silence. Jin stared into the flames and checked his memory, one detail at a time.

  His mother's name: Elara. The word came easily, but it felt thin, like a word from a language he was starting to forget. He could still picture her face, but it was softer than it should be, the details already starting to blur.

  Theodore's last word. Run. He could still hear it, desperate and raspy. But the pneumonia-damaged roughness that had always marked Theodore's voice was already fading in his memory. Now it was just "Theodore's voice," not the real, distinctive sound.

  Stepmother's name. Amaya. He still remembered it, along with a vague sense of warmth and safety.

  But he couldn't remember meeting her for the first time. He couldn't remember the wedding, if there had even been one, or moving into her house, or any specific conversation they'd ever had.

  He couldn't remember the name of the street where he grew up. He had walked it thousands of times and could probably find it by instinct, but the name wouldn't come, no matter how hard he tried.

  What Theodore had said in the classroom before the invasion was completely gone. The classroom was still in his memory. Theodore, sitting beside him, was still there. But the actual conversation was just empty space, as if it had never happened.

  The most frightening thought was that there could be whole people missing from his life, and he'd never know. There were just empty spaces where someone used to be, covered so well there was no sign they'd ever existed. "You need to stop using it," Sonny said, breaking the silence. "That's the only way to keep what you have left."

  Jin looked down at his hands, turning them over slowly in the firelight. The black veins still pulsed faintly beneath his skin, visible even through the dirt and dried blood.

  If he never used it again, he'd be helpless. He'd have to watch people die because he was too afraid to lose himself. He'd have to hold his mother's hand as she died, unable to help. He'd see Theodore taken while he stood frozen. He'd be eight years old again, powerless as the world destroyed everything he loved. "I can't do that," Jin said quietly.

  Sonny's eyes narrowed. "Can't? Or won't?" "I held my mother's hand while she died." Jin's voice was steady, but something cold and immovable had settled into it. "I couldn't save her. Couldn't do anything except watch the killers walk away into the smoke." He touched his neck, feeling the cold pulse beneath the bandages. "Then I watched Theodore get ripped apart right in front of me. Grabbed for him, tried to hold on, but I wasn't strong enough. Wasn't fast enough."

  He met Sonny's eyes directly. "If this mark is the price for never being that helpless again? Then I'll pay it. I'll pay it until there's nothing left."

  Sonny studied him for a long moment, something unreadable passing across his weathered face. "Even if you forget why you're fighting in the first place?" "Then I'd better finish the fight before I do."

  Sonny held his gaze for three long heartbeats, then nodded slowly. Not agreement exactly, but acknowledgment. He turned back to the fire and ladled something thin and pale into a dented metal bowl. He handed it to Jin without further comment. "You made it this far," Sonny said, settling back against the wall with a slight grunt. "Most don't survive their second use, let alone make it out of Sector 4 alive." He pulled out a worn cloth and began cleaning his rifle with practiced movements. "Eat. Rest. Tomorrow we move deeper into the Undercroft, and it's a long walk."

  Jin took the bowl, and the warmth bled into his frozen hands. The broth tasted mostly like hot water and salt with something unidentifiable floating in it, but it was warm, and it was food, and right now that was enough.

  He was alive. He was underground, hidden from Reed's reach. And he was losing himself one memory at a time, piece by piece.

  But for now, right now in this moment, he still remembered his mother's name, even if it was fading.

  He could still hear Theodore's last word, even as the voice saying it grew less clear.

  For now, that was enough.

  The fire crackled and popped, casting shadows on the rough stone walls. Sonny lay down on his bedroll, keeping his rifle close.

  Jin closed his eyes and let himself drift into sleep.