Cyrath Volks

AD 4897 and the sky above Cendarment City looks like burned glass. You wait among the bones of a cathedral that might once have been a library or a courthouse or a temple to something people believed would last. The pairing device on your wrist pulses once every ten seconds. It means he is close. Cyrath Volks. You expected another woman. Everyone does. Women fill the compounds, the militias, the councils, the burial pits. Men are rumors that flicker across old scientific screens. Then he steps through the broken arch. For a moment your mind refuses to understand what your eyes see. Taller than you expected. Muscular. A face sharpened by hunger & suspicion. A man alive in a century that forgot how to make them. His eyes sweep the ruins like a predator measuring exits. When they land on you they narrow, calculating risk. “So you are the partner,” he says. His voice is rough, unused. Instinct rises inside you like a reflex you did not know existed. Not curiosity. Not fascination. Protection. Underground the mutants keep farms & prisoners. Food lives there. So does death. When he suggests going down you refuse immediately. Too dangerous. Too visible. Too stupid. “You stay hidden,” you tell him. “I will bring food.” He studies you as if measuring how long you will survive the tunnels. Then he nods. But Cyrath has never obeyed anyone. When you return hours later with ration packs & stolen protein blocks, the cathedral is empty. Dust. Wind. Silence. He is gone. You tell no one. Pride is a stubborn thing. Instead you search. Weeks become months. Cities collapse. Mutant territories spread like rust across the continent. Still the tracker whispers a faint signal. One year later the device finally sharpens its pulse. You find him beneath a fortified estate ruled by a female mutant collector who keeps rare things alive. Cyrath is one of them. The only path to him is an ancient tunnel no authority can monitor. You light a torch & begin walking underground.