The Broken World

The Earth Kael grew up in was unrecognizable to those who had known it before the war. What had once been a planet teeming with life and beauty was now a fractured shadow of its former self. During the Days of Light, the sun’s glare was so intense that the sky seemed to shimmer like molten glass. The ground was cracked and dry, scorched into a brittle landscape where the slightest spark could ignite wildfires that raged for days. Rivers and lakes evaporated under the unrelenting heat, leaving behind salt-encrusted basins and ghostly reminders of what had once been.

The Days of Moon brought the opposite extreme. The sky turned a deep, endless black, punctuated only by the faint glow of stars. Snow and ice consumed the land, creeping into every corner as the temperatures dropped to lethal lows. The icy winds howled through the ruins of cities, their sharp cry echoing through the bones of humanity’s greatest achievements. Roads became treacherous ice sheets, and survival required finding shelter well before the freeze set in.

Yet life, in its stubborn way, adapted. Plants mutated to endure the extremes, growing with uncanny speed during the brief transitional periods between light and moon. Animals, too, had evolved, their forms and behaviors alien to what they had once been. Kael often saw massive, fur-covered beasts with glowing eyes that hunted in packs under the pale moonlight. By contrast, nimble lizard-like creatures darted through the sweltering heat of the Days of Light, their scales shimmering like liquid metal.

For humanity, survival hinged on scavenging and improvisation. Ruins of old cities became both a haven and a trap. These were places where supplies could be found, but they were also the hunting grounds of the Nexus. Kael had learned this the hard way during his first encounter with the patrol drone. The Nexus’s machines moved with a terrifying precision, their glowing red sensors scanning tirelessly for any sign of life. They were tireless, patient predators in a world that had become a battlefield.

Every day was a struggle to endure, but for Kael, it was also a reminder of why he needed to fight back. The broken world was all he had ever known, but deep down, he believed it could be more. It could be better. And he was willing to risk everything to make it so.