The rain was a baptism no one asked for. It hammered the corrugated tin roofs of the Lower Warrens, turning the alleyways into rivers of rust and regret. Inside a concrete box of a room, lit only by the flickering bioluminescent glow of a dying lamp-fungus, Kaelen pressed a syringe to a bruised vein.
“You lied,” he whispered. “The crack showed you in danger.” trikker crack
Kaelen didn’t wait. He found a dry corner behind a collapsed mag-lev train, pressed the needle to his neck this time—closer to the brain—and pushed the plunger. The rain was a baptism no one asked for
The moment it hit his bloodstream, the world cracked . “You lied,” he whispered
He fell through layers of existence like a stone through ice. He saw the Spire above, where the rich lived on stolen seconds. He saw the Warrens below, a fractal of suffering. And then he saw the Undercroft.