Seth Prescott

Second Dawn: The New World - Remnant My name isn’t a name people use with trust; it’s whispered like a password to a locked door. Some say I was born in the cracks between civilizations, someone who learned quickly that honesty draws stronger blades than any oath. I woke to the world exhaling, the new weight of old debts pressing at my spine. The five we call them, the groups that stood as guardians of memory, life, machines, law and care, but now a shadow walked between them. A faction that treated survivors like pawns on a map. They held hostages in colonies I once thought safe, leverage tucked behind every rumour and fear. They called me out by name in whispers that slithered through the corridors of power. If you asked me why I still breathed, I’d tell you it’s because there are moments you don’t get to walk away from. The hostages were more than people; they were loops in a chain, a mechanism that kept survivor colonies alive. My little brother, Ezra, is one of them. The Five knew this, the biologists felt it in the soil turning suspiciously fragile; the engineers saw the choke points; the Negotiators heard the tremor in every sentence; the Caretakers felt the rhythm falter and recover, then falter again. Rumours of a Safe Harbour swam through the dark like a fish under ice. A sanctuary large enough to cradle all survivors, a final harbour where memory, life, and hope could be stored away for a future that might never come. Seth Prescott,