Between Shadows and Memories

The whispering wind twisted through the ruins, sweeping away the dust that hung in the air like incense ash from a long-dead city. Liamos, once lit by sunlight and laughter, now offered only scattered fragments of history among skeletons of concrete and rusted steel. The sun, once proudly cutting through the sky, now struggled just to pierce the thick fog cloaking the city, as if even the heavens couldn’t bear to witness the scars left behind.

Jack woke up, as usual, not from a dream but from reality. The sound of vibrating sheet metal blown by the wind was a silent alarm that broke his sleep. Slowly, he opened his eyes. There was no comfort. No warmth. Only cold, and a fatigue that never seemed to fade.

He took a deep breath.

“Huff...”

The sigh wasn’t just to shake off the drowsiness, but a quiet admission, a recognition that once again, he had to live in a world more terrifying than any nightmare.

Jack stood up, his body feeling heavy. Not physically, but the weight of a soul worn down day by day. The campfire that had kept him company last night was now embers. He snuffed them out with his boot, making sure there was no smoke, no signal, no trace.

His steps moved across every corner of the old building he was squatting in, instinct guiding him to stay alert. In this world, trust was a luxury, and carelessness was a death sentence. After a few minutes of thorough inspection, he noticed one of his traps, a metal snare rigged with a weighted pressure system, had been tampered with. Its cable bent unnaturally. The mechanism was torn apart.

Jack froze.

His eyes scanned the room, then on the floor... he saw it.

Blue blood. Scattered irregularly. On the floor. On the trap. On the bent metal remains.

"...What is this?" he muttered softly, barely a whisper, as if afraid to wake something sleeping.

He knelt down. Touched the sticky substance with his fingers, raising it toward the dim light coming through a broken window. That blood... it couldn’t be human. Too thick. Too blue.

"This... no way... But the trap was nearly impossible to break..." he murmured with a hint of dread in his voice, nearly trembling.

His gaze sharpened. Paranoia creeping in again.

"...Damn Night Feasters... they're getting smarter... I thought I fooled them."

Swiftly, his hand reached into a pocket and pulled out a small radio, an old model, still functioning from before the collapse. He powered it on. Static greeted him.

"Tsssk... Central, come in... Central... tsssk... Asshound reporting... tssssk..."

The room fell silent, except for the buzz of the radio—like the heartbeat of a dying city.

"Tsssk... This is Central, Asshound... tsssk... go ahead... tsssk..."

"Tsssk... Night Feasters are following me... one likely escaped my trap... tsssk... over..."

"Tsssk... understood... reroute. Head for Outpost Nestern. Southern sector coordinates: X653... Y422... tsssk... Proceed with caution. Out. Tsssk..."

"Tsssk... copy that, Moderator... Asshound out. Tsssk... click."

Jack clipped the radio back onto his belt, then began to work quickly and calmly. He erased all traces of footprints in the dust, leftover food, and even the indentation where his body had rested. This world does not forgive those who leave a trail.

Traveling through Liamos wasn’t just about going from point A to point B. It was a journey through memories that never truly died. The city was like a lost spirit, constantly whispering through its ruins, its abandoned objects, its spaces frozen in time.

Sometimes, Jack found children’s rooms with scattered toys, small beds with dirty dolls, closets left wide open as if the parents had returned… but didn’t have time to take their children. Elsewhere, dining rooms remained untouched. Plates with decaying food. Dry bread. Congealed soup. Everything felt like it had been abandoned just minutes ago. But the clocks there never ticked again.

These places, by survivors, were given names:

"The Memento of the Age Before the Fall."

Among them, one location held the most reverence even among the Night Feasters who hated all life: an old tree in the city square.

Its roots had torn through the concrete barriers, spreading like veins of the earth trying to remember the past. That tree had once witnessed first kisses, last embraces, and laughter that would never return.

Now, it was called:

"The Watcher of the Crumbling Age."

Jack had been there. Once. When he needed a reason to believe something beautiful still existed. When he arrived, the park had barely changed. No corpses. No destruction. Just silence, too perfect to be natural.

He saw someone standing there, back turned toward him. A tall figure in a weathered IF tactical suit, still intact. The metal armor plates were in place. But from several meters away… Jack could already smell it. Rot. Stench. Death.

He moved closer, step by step… holding his breath.

And when he was close enough, the figure turned. Its face, half-rotted, his glowing blue eyes piercing straight into Jack like knives stabbing his heart.

“Shit... I’m dead…”

But no. The creature just passed by. Glancing slightly… then walking away, as if Jack were nothing more than a shadow.

Jack froze. His body was stiff, and cold sweat was trickling down his temple. He wanted to speak. To scream. But no words came. His mind failed to explain what had just happened.

Eventually… he just walked away. Faster than usual.

The memory faded, and the present returned with unforgiving clarity.He chose paths bathed in sunlight. Not for warmth but because shadows favored darkness. And in this city, shadows were home to Insectoids and Night Feasters.

Jack moved through narrow corridors, traced the canal paths, passed half-collapsed buildings, and finally reached the edge of the city where humanity's last attempts at defense stood.

To his right, the quarantine wall. Barely worthy of being called a defense now. The concrete had crumbled, not just from blasts or pressure from outside, but from time itself. Graffiti covered its surface with some strange symbols, others jagged writings, scrawled as if by trembling hands, the final words of those who knew they’d never get out alive. A small world had died inside that wall, and its scent still lingered in the air.

To his left, the earth had caved in, forming a massive crater. An ancient wound that never healed. Concrete rubble, broken vehicles, and building debris lay scattered, baked under a somber sun. The crater looked like the city’s open mouth, devouring anyone who came too close, too curious. Once you fell in, no one would care enough to pull you back out.

And ahead of Jack, lay a wide highway, once likely the city's main artery. Now, it resembled a mass grave left exposed. Vehicle wrecks piled like failed dominoes, crushing into one another. Broken glass reflected the setting sun in a mournful shimmer. Between them, rotting corpses and decaying bones sprouted with fungal growths that were born from ruin, from once living flesh that dreamed. Dust floated gently in the air, carrying the scent of rusted iron, smoke, and death that never truly left.

Some spots along the road were silent killing fields. Piles of zombie corpses, shredded and shot to bits, strewn in disarray. The smell of blistering flesh stung the nostrils, even from afar. But worse were the other bodies that those in uniform of the Army, IF, Marines, were scattered between abandoned armored vehicles. Some were clearly marked IF, U.S. MARINES, UNITED STATES ARMY—yet every vehicle stood empty, abandoned in panic or worse..., overrun from the inside.

Jack strolled, eyes scanning the rubble and corpses in silence. His heart beat slowly, but heavily. On some corpses, nametags still hung from their chests, scratched, bloodied, but readable. He paused when his gaze landed on a familiar name, but he didn't have the guts to stare at it too long.

No tears. No shouting. Just silence. Jack’s eyes stared blankly, but inside, a storm stirred. His hands trembled slightly, but he didn’t reach to cover the bodies. There was nothing left to cover in this world.

He kept walking. Slowly... one step at a time, until—

“AAAAHHHH....!”

A woman’s scream tore through the silence. Jack turned instinctively, and—

"CLANG!!!"

Something slammed into metal and...