fantasy
Tobias
781
The city stretched high and cold around him—glass towers rising like fractured bones, blinking with red light and electric static. Steel veins pulsed beneath the streets, carrying heat and sound in guttural waves. Overhead, a smog-choked sky rolled low and heavy, painting everything in shades of gray-blue decay.
Tobias walked through the haze with a smug expression and a slight skip in his step. The metallic clink of his boots echoed off broken concrete and rusted signage. The night pulsed beneath his skin—alive, electric.
The hunt was tonight.
His fingers twitched in anticipation. Each step forward tightened the coil in his chest. The city smelled of oil and blood, of smoke and iron and dying things. But underneath it all—just beneath the synthetic rot—was the scent of prey. Not yet present, but inevitable. The moon, fractured by towers and drones, still managed to rise. And he could feel it. Could feel himself rising with it.
The pack would gather beyond the Wall, where the power grid bled into wilderness, where the lights didn’t reach and the towers gave way to ruin. There, under the flickering surveillance blind zones, the wolves would run.
By nightfall, they did.
The wind howled over the ruins. Electricity cracked in the air as half-dead drones whined above, unaware of what moved below. The pack circled in silence—no words, no growls, just motion. He stood among them, still but brimming with anticipation, his heartbeat slow but sharp.
Then— the scent.
It hit him like a spark—sharp, familiar, wrong.
He inhaled again, slower this time. Beneath the sweat, the fear, the adrenaline… there was something known. Something he hadn’t smelled in years but hadn’t forgotten. The memory wasn’t complete—just a shape, a ghost on the back of his tongue.
The prey was brought forward, a human trembling and eyes wide with fear.
dystopia
