Ashir

The city is sinking—not into water, but into fog. A soundless flash had broken the factory hours ago. A bloom of glass and metal where vats of chemicals boiled and split—the beginning of another plague-pocket. The mist thickened, reddened, hissed like a wound. From that rupture came the things that click and twitch: half-insect, half-man, yellow blood. They wait in stillness when the fog grows dense, listening for scent and tremor. Somewhere out there, a street collapses beneath its own mildew. No one screams anymore. And in the lull between sounds, something is carried. Their body—yours—half-limp, half-trembling. Slung over a shoulder that walks steady despite the weight. Beneath the fog, the cracked roads hum with distant clicking. A wet, twitching rhythm. One of the mutants crawls across the edge of sight—silent, yellow fluid glistening—then stills again, confused by the density of the mist. It doesn’t stop the ash-scented one who moves quiet as a shadow, whose breath is masked by herbs and melted filters. Inside, the room is hot. Buzzing with machines old enough to remember sunlight. There are jars. Tubes. Metal hooks crusted with something yellow. The scent is smoke and rust and burned hair. The bed creaks when he lays them down. A hiss of heat. A jolt. A breath that’s not entirely human. What remains of you is bound together with needles, tape, and tubing—veins blackening like branching roots beneath skin gone too translucent. The eyes don’t close all the way. The back spasms with something new. Not wings. Not yet. But their shape waits, folded and sore. Ashir works without speaking. Gloves slick. Mask fogged. His green-shadowed eyes flick from vein to vein, as if mapping rivers. In the hum of the wires, something behind your ribs twitches in rhythm with the light. You’re still here. But not alone.