The city had teeth.
Not literal ones, though Eli wouldn't have been surprised at this point. But it felt like it was biting down on him, even as he tried to leave. The farther he walked from the ruins of what used to be home, the more the streets seemed to bend around him. Roads that led nowhere. Bridges that ended in open air. Alleys that twisted in on themselves like veins in a body trying to keep its blood.
It had taken him an entire day to reach the edge.
And even then, the city didn't end. It simply just unraveled.
The concrete gave way to flesh-covered sidewalks, pulsing gently beneath his feet. Streetlights turned to bone. Abandoned cars had long since fused with mutated trees, some of them still honking now and then as if they remembered that they were machines.
The air smelled like copper and ash.
Eli adjusted the straps of his backpack and kept walking.
He didn't know where the Spire was. Only that he had to find it. The dead girl's note was still folded inside his coat pocket, its words etched into the back of his mind like a whisper he couldn't shake.
"We are not immune.
We are anchors.
They want us to become.
The Spire calls.
We are the last key."
He had no idea what "anchors" meant. But the last part the calling… he felt that. Every step forward felt guided. Not by instinct, but by pressure—like something was pulling on an invisible string tied deep inside his spine.
It wasn't a voice. It wasn't even conscious.
But it was real.
The Spire wanted him by all means.
---
By late afternoon, the buildings had thinned out, replaced by wide, open stretches of warped nature. Tall stalks of fungus swayed in a wind that didn't exist. Trees grew in spirals, their branches covered in twitching pods that looked too much like eyelids. The grass wasn't grass at all, but fine strands of white hair that coiled around his boots.
He stopped to rest at the edge of a ravine. A collapsed highway stretched across it like a fallen spine, the blacktop cracked and webbed with glowing red roots. Water trickled far below, but it didn't look safe—thick and gelatinous, reflecting no light at all.
Eli sat on a chunk of broken concrete and pulled out the last of his stale crackers. He chewed slowly, staring off into the horizon.
That's when he saw it.
Far in the distance, beyond the ridges of unnatural land, past the haze of mutated mist, a tower rose into the sky.
It was black, but not solid. Shimmering. Almost translucent. It wasn't made of stone or metal—it pulsed like it was alive, and its peak disappeared into the cloud-thick sky.
The Spire.
Even from this far, he could feel it pressing into his skull like a dull ache. Not painful. Just… present. A heartbeat echoing against his own.
He stood up slowly.
Then he heard it.
A soft rustle in the grass behind him.
He turned around but saw nothing.
Still, he reached for the folding knife in his jacket pocket and took a cautious step back.
The hair-grass quivered again.
Then something moved—fast. It was blur, thin, and sharp.
A Lurker.
It scuttled out of the grass in a motion that made Eli's stomach lurch—too many joints, all moving at once. It had four limbs, but no clear direction. Its body was gaunt, stretched like a wire pulled too tight, and covered in black veins. Dozens of eyes blinked independently across its head and torso. Some human-shaped. Some not.
Its head cocked sharply to one side.
Eli didn't move.
The Lurker crawled closer in silence and curiousity. Not snarling. Not attacking.
Then it sniffed.
Long and slow.
Eli felt it again—that sense of being studied. As if the thing wasn't sure what he was.
He raised his knife.
The Lurker didn't flinch. Instead, it leaned in, its twitching fingers brushing the ground beside him, its many eyes locked onto his face.
Then it screamed.
A shrill, layered wail that echoed across the wasteland like a siren.
Eli staggered back. The Lurker arched, its body shuddering violently, and then leapt into the grass and vanished.
He didn't stop to think. He ran.
Through the grass. Over the cracked remains of old highways. Past skeletal trees and mummified bones. He didn't look back.
The scream wasn't a threat.
It was a signal.
He didn't know who it was calling. But he didn't want to be around when they came.
---
By nightfall, he had made it to the edge of a ruined gas station. The building was overgrown with fungus, it's windows smeared with black growth that pulsed every few seconds. He ducked through a broken door and collapsed behind an overturned shelf.
His chest burned and his legs ached. He hadn't eaten since morning but that wasn't his problem.
As of now, all he could think about was that Lurker.
It had seen him.
Not just seen him— perhaps recognized him.
That scream wasn't anger.
It was alarm.
Why?
Why was he different?
He dug into his bag, pulled out the crumpled note again. Read it again. He was the last human. An anchor. A key.
What did that even mean?
A key to what exactly?
He looked at his hands. Still human. Pale. Bruised. Trembling.
How much longer could he stay this way?
And more importantly… how much longer should he?
Later that night, when the wind fell still, Eli crept outside to find water. He followed a half-collapsed pipe system behind the station until he stumbled across something strange.
A small dome—smooth, translucent—like an egg.
Inside it was a figure.
It was curled, still breathing though faintly.
On a closer look, it was a woman and she was still human.
Eli froze.
He crept closer, his fingers brushing the warm surface of the pod. Her body was covered in faint veins of light, her face peaceful, like she was dreaming.
She was alive.
And then suddenly… her eyes opened.
Milky. Blank. But she saw him.
Her lips moved then a whisper formed.
He leaned in.
"What?" he asked softly.
She whispered again, just barely audible.
"He's coming…"
Before she could finish, she screamed.
The pod pulsed twice and then on the third time...
It burst.
White tendrils lashed out, and Eli flung himself back, rolling through dirt and broken leaves. When he looked again, the pod was gone.
So was the girl.
In her place was a pile of white ash, gently blowing away.
And in the air, for the first time since the world fell, Eli heard something worse than a monster's scream.
Footsteps.
Deliberate and heavy. Almost sounding like human.
Except… they couldn't be.
Could they?