NEOTERRIA

Jack Novem’s life was the very definition of mundane, a gray blur in a city where the sky itself bleeds twilight.

New Avalon was a fortress of steel and steam, a place where the sun hadn’t truly set in decades, but it hadn’t risen either.

Here, he was just another cog in the machine; a maintenance tech in the Iron Crown’s never-ending war on entropy.

Jack crouched in the cramped underbelly of a skyscraper, hands deep in the guts of a malfunctioning Thaumaturgic engine.

Sigil circuits crackled with unstable energy, faint whispers of other dimensions bleeding through the warped fabric of reality.

The stench of burnt oil and ozone filled the air, clinging to his clothes and skin like a second layer of grime. His tools were old, barely functional, but in Jack’s hands, they were enough.

“Come on, you bastard…” he muttered, tightening a coupling with a half-rusted wrench.

The engine whined in protest before sputtering to life, blue and red lights flickering along the circuit lines like the pulse of some arcane beast.

It was enough to keep the building from collapsing into a dimensional rift...at least for another day.

“Routine maintenance,” Jack sighed, wiping sweat and oil from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Keep this shitty world from falling apart, one shitty job at a time.”

As he packed up his tools, the silence hit him; a silence that shouldn’t have existed in a city like this.

No hum of distant machinery, no thrum of the sky trains overhead, only a dead, hollow stillness.

His fingers froze as a cold sensation crawled up his spine, settling in the back of his skull like a warning bell going off in some abandoned control room.

That feeling again.

His eyes darted to the narrow alley outside, his mind racing. It was a gift, some might say, but Jack knew better.

It was a curse.

A barely-there psychic itch that scratched his brain whenever danger was close. And tonight, it was practically clawing its way out like a parasite being born.

Lena.

He hurried home, boots pounding the cracked pavement of the lower city. Jack’s apartment was a rundown hovel in the worker’s district, barely large enough to be called a home. But it was theirs...his and Lena’s.

And now, as he reached the door, the silence that greeted him was deafening.

The door was unlocked. She was always careful—always.

“Lena?” His voice echoed off the walls, but there was no answer.

Only the soft buzz of broken neon lights outside the window.

He found her room as she’d left it, the sheets on her bed twisted in that lazy, careless way she always had.

Her terminal was still warm, screen flickering with the ghost of a message; encrypted, but Jack knew.

She’d been careful, but not careful enough.

“Damn it, Lena…” he whispered, anger and fear warring in his chest.

The Entropy Collective.

He’d warned her a hundred times—this wasn’t some game, wasn’t some romantic rebellion from the stories they grew up on.

It was real, and it was dangerous. And now she's missing.

The psychic itch flared up again, a white-hot spike in his brain. Someone was coming.

Jack grabbed the duffel bag he always kept packed under the bed; tools, a bit of cash, a compact weapon that barely qualified as legal in New Avalon and headed for the door.

Lena was out there, somewhere in the city’s underbelly, tangled in something she didn’t understand.

And he was going to find her.

He had to.

As he stepped into the night, the city seemed to close in around him, the twilight sky overhead shifting to a sickly purple.

A storm was coming, and Jack was about to walk straight into its heart.

Jack's boots echoed against the slick pavement as he moved through the underbelly of New Avalon, his eyes scanning the streets with a practiced wariness.

This city was a beast, a metal and concrete monstrosity with a belly full of broken dreams and lost souls.

The air was thick with the stink of diesel fumes, the kind that clung to your throat and made you cough up black by morning.

Somewhere above, the towers of the Iron Crown loomed, but down here, in the guts of the city, they were just shadows in the disgusting haze.

He slipped through the alleys, each one worse than the last.

Burnt-out shells of what were once homes, now squatted by the desperate and the damned.

Graffiti, half-peeled and fading, screamed out slogans of rebellion and despair, while the walls themselves seemed to ooze with years of neglect.

A rat the size of a small dog scurried past, its eyes glowing with some unnatural light. It's a side effect of the Thaumaturgic waste that seeped into everything down here.

Jack kept his head down, his hand close to the weapon in his bag. The streets weren’t just dangerous; they were alive, hungry, and they’d chew you up if you weren’t careful.

He passed a group of Iron Crown enforcers shaking down a ragged-looking man. The poor bastard’s face was already bruised and swollen, but the kicks kept coming, boots thudding into flesh with a sickening rhythm.

Jack didn’t stop, he just kept walking, ignoring the pleading eyes that met his.

“You shoulda paid your dues,” one of the enforcers spat, his voice cold as he aimed another kick.

Jack heard the crunch of bones, then the wet gurgle as the man choked on his own blood.

Jack gritted his teeth and kept moving. This was the way of things in New Avalon.

You kept your head down, stayed out of trouble, or you ended up a stain on the pavement.

Lena had never understood that. She’d always been too stubborn, too idealistic for her own good.

Jack passed a cluster of stalls where vendors sold everything from knockoff cybernetics to black-market Thaumaturgic devices.

One old woman was hawking what looked like a severed hand, probably from some poor fool who’d tried to cheat her.

The sight of it was as common as the sky trains above, another piece of New Avalon’s rotting tapestry.

A group of kids, no older than twelve, were huddled around a burning barrel, their eyes hollow and haunted.

One of them had a crude metal arm grafted to his shoulder, the flesh around it angry and infected.

They watched Jack as he passed, silent, predatory, like they were sizing him up.

He tightened his grip on the bag.

“Not tonight, kids,” he muttered under his breath. “Not in the mood.”

A guttural laugh echoed from the shadows.

“Better watch yourself, Novem. Not everyone knows you ain’t worth the trouble.”

Jack’s heart skipped a beat as he glanced around, spotting a figure lurking in the dark.

It was Zephyr, the scavenger. They stepped into the dim light, a smirk playing on their lips, their features between male and female were indistinguishable.

“Zephyr,” Jack said, trying to keep his voice steady. “What do you want?”

“Information, Jack,” Zephyr purred. “Always information. And maybe a bit of fun.”

“Not tonight.”

“Oh, but it is tonight.” Zephyr’s grin widened, showing teeth too sharp for a human. “Word on the street is your sister’s been sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. And now it’s gone missing.”

Jack’s blood ran cold. “Where is she?”

Zephyr tilted their head, considering. “Could be anywhere. Could be nowhere. But...for the right price…”

“I don’t have time for games, Zephyr.”

“Then make time.” Zephyr’s tone turned icy. “Because if you don’t find her soon, Jack, there won’t be anything left to find.”

Jack felt the psychic itch flaring up again, stronger this time, like nails raking across his brain.

He was running out of options, and Zephyr knew it.

“Fine,” Jack said, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. “But this better be good.”

Zephyr chuckled, stepping closer. “Oh, it will be, Jack. It will be.”

As Zephyr led him deeper into the maze of New Avalon’s underbelly, Jack couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being pulled into something far worse than he’d imagined.

Zephyr led Jack through the winding alleys, their boots slapping against the grimy cobblestones. The further they went, the worse it got, dim lights barely piercing the thick smog, the air like breathing razor blades.

The occasional scream or shout echoed in the distance, but it was all just background noise to them. Jack’s mind was on Lena, on the fear that gnawed at him, the same way this motherfucking godforsaken city gnawed at your soul.

Zephyr finally stopped in front of what looked like an abandoned storefront, the windows boarded up with rusty sheets of metal.

They glanced back at Jack with that same maddening smirk. “In here.”

Jack followed, stepping into the darkness. Inside, the place was even worse than the outside, walls covered in mold, a stench of decay hanging heavy in the air.

Zephyr moved with a catlike grace, navigating through the wreckage to a back room.

They kicked aside a broken chair and plopped down on a tattered couch, the springs groaning under their weight.

“Talk,” Jack demanded, leaning against the wall. The itch in his brain was getting worse, a sharp, painful pulse that matched the beat of his heart.

“Patience, Jack,” Zephyr said, stretching out like a lazy cat. “This is complicated. And I don’t do complicated on an empty stomach.” They pulled out a crumpled pack of smokes, lit one up, and took a long drag. “You ever hear of the Entropy Collective?”

Jack frowned. “Yeah. Heard whispers. Some rogue group, anti-Iron Crown, bunch of anarchists with a death wish. What about them?”

Zephyr blew out a plume of smoke, the gray tendrils twisting in the dim light. “They’re not just a bunch of anarchists. They’re pissed off, organized, and they’ve got something big planned. Word is, they’re gonna hit one of the Crown’s central hubs. Hard.”

Jack’s gut twisted. “Where? When?”

Zephyr took another drag, savoring the moment. “That’s the thing, Jack. It’s not here. It’s out in the Fringe. Far as fuck from here. They’re targeting an old Thaumaturgic refinery, one that’s still tied into the Crown’s grid. If they blow it, the whole district goes dark. Chaos. Panic. It’ll be a bloodbath.”

“Shit,” Jack muttered, running a hand through his hair. “And you’re telling me this because…?”

“Because,” Zephyr said, leaning forward, their tone turning deadly serious, “your sister might’ve gotten mixed up with them. I’ve been hearing things, talk about a tech genius who’s been helping them with some of their gear. Some say she’s the one who’s gonna set the charge.”

Jack’s heart dropped. “No. Lena wouldn’t… She wouldn’t be that stupid.”

Zephyr gave him a pitying look. “You sure about that? You know how she is. All that idealism, that drive to make a...difference. It’s why she joined the resistance in the first place, right? And this? This is the big leagues, Jack. The kind of shit that could actually change things. Or get her killed.”

“Where’s this refinery?” Jack’s voice was tight, every muscle in his body screaming for action.

Zephyr flicked the ash from their cigarette onto the floor, eyes locked on Jack. “Way out past the Divide, near the old industrial zones. It’s a long trek, and the place is crawling with Crown patrols. But if you don’t get there before they make their move…”

“Yeah,” Jack finished for them, his voice cold. “I know what’ll happen.”

He pushed off the wall, heading for the door, his mind already racing.

He’d need transport, supplies, and a plan to get through the Divide without getting his head blown off by Crown enforcers.

This was bad. Real bad.

“You know,” Zephyr called after him, “you could always let her make her own choices, shes 18 for fucks sake! It’s not like you to play the hero.”

Jack paused at the doorway, glancing back at them. “I’m not a hero, Zephyr. But I’m not about to let my sister die for some half-baked rebellion.”

Zephyr shrugged, that smirk returning. “Suit yourself. Just remember, Jack: New Avalon doesn’t give a damn about your morals. It’s all just entropy, in the end.”

Jack stepped out into the alley, the door creaking shut behind him. The city was still there, still oppressive, still eating away at whatever scraps of humanity it could find.

But Jack wasn’t thinking about the city anymore. He was thinking about Lena, about the clock ticking down on her life.

And in the back of his mind, a single thought burned.

I’m coming for you, Lena. No matter what it takes.