Johnquis stayed frozen, eyes locked on the ceiling where the faint click had come from. The Runner crouched behind a tipped shelf, only the faint shimmer of its eyes giving it away.
Seconds dragged by.
A drip of water echoed somewhere behind the pharmacy counter.
No footsteps. No shadows moving.
Just a rusted pipe swaying slightly, bumping against a broken beam.
He exhaled, shoulders relaxing just a fraction.
"False alarm…"
The Runner crept up beside him, claws tapping softly on the cracked tiles. They moved deeper into the back room, past a toppled display marked
SUPPLIES: EMERGENCY USE ONLY.
There it was, half-hidden under a broken beam, a faded canvas loot bag stamped with the Guild's seal.
Blood packs, a few still sealed tight, others torn open and leaking, were scattered across the floor like crushed fruit. A few Organ Bites and a single cracked plasma flask lay among them.
Johnquis stepped closer. His breath caught in his throat.
It was fresh. Very fresh.
No mold, no rot on the packs. Some had been half-drained, teeth marks still visible where someone or something had ripped them open in a hurry.
He knelt down.
A wave of heat washed over him. His fingers trembled as he picked up a torn pack. A thin stream of deep red blood dripped from the corner, pooling on the dusty floor.
His stomach cramped painfully.
He could feel his veins pulsing, the dull ache in his bones. The chain at his wrist twitched, the Eater Stone faintly pulsing.
It wanted the blood too.
It needed it.
He tried to pull his eyes away. But they stayed locked on that drip, drip, drip.His breath grew shallow. He could feel the hallucination creeping in, the taste of warm blood in his mouth, metallic, rich, life itself.
He could almost hear a voice: Feed. Feed.
His fingers dug into the torn pack. He didn't care if it was on the filthy floor. Didn't care if it was opened by another's teeth.
He pressed it to his lips.
The first mouthful hit like fire down his throat, copper, salt, thick with that taste only fresh blood carried. His pupils dilated, the veins on his neck pulsing as the chain glowed faintly.
He sucked at the torn plastic, drops running down his chin, mixing with the dirt.
Behind him, the Runner shifted. It tilted its head, watching him with an unblinking stare, part curious, part wary, as if it understood this hunger too well.
He finished the pack, fingers squeezing every last drop. Then he pulled another one closer, half-full, leaking down a crumpled ration wrapper. He didn't care. He drank that too. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't dignified. It was survival.
When he finally pulled back, wiping his mouth with a trembling wrist, his eyes were glassy. His pulse slowed. The ache eased, just enough. The Eater Stone settled, almost content.
He looked at the Runner , a flicker of shame crossing his face before he buried it deep. He rasped, breath still heavy.
"Don't look at me like that, better my mouth than yours, right?"
He pushed himself up, gathering what little was left , a single sealed pack, two Organ Bites, one cracked flask. Not much. But enough to keep him moving for now.
He shoved the loot into his pack, voice low and hoarse.
"Come on. Before whoever left this decides to come back hungry too."
The Runner crept closer, sniffed the empty bag, then nudged it away.
Together, they moved away from the scattered blood packs. But then —
Crunch.
A footstep. Another. Slow, deliberate. Someone approaching from the front aisle of the pharmacy.
Johnquis stiffened. He grabbed the Runner's wrist.
"Up. Now."
The Runner blinked, then sprang silently up the broken shelves, talons digging into splintered beams until it crouched above the ceiling joists, half-hidden by the hanging drywall and loose pipes.
Johnquis wiped the last smear of blood from his chin with the back of his wrist.
A figure stepped through the broken doorway.
An Eater Blade, you could tell by the dark armor plates layered over ragged street gear. Dust-covered but functional. A rank stone embedded on the back of their right hand, glinting a dull steel in the gloom.
The stranger clocked the torn loot bag, the scattered blood packs then his eyes landed on Johnquis, standing there alone.
For a heartbeat, silence.
Then the newcomer tilted his head,
"Didn't expect to find another scrounger this deep in Sector 4. You got lucky?"
Johnquis swallowed the last tremor in his throat, forced a smirk.
"Lucky enough. Saw the bag half-buried. Figured whoever left it was dead or gone."
His eyes flicked to the Eater Blade's Eater Stone.
"You alone?"
The stranger took a few steps closer, boots crunching on a trail of broken pill bottles.
"Should ask you the same, huh?"
His eyes narrowed behind the visor, scanning Johnquis from head to toe — the faint smear of blood at the edge of his collar, the half-empty pack slung over his shoulder.
Up above, hidden in the shadows near the ceiling, the Runner watched silently, its face tense, ready to strike if anything went wrong.
The man spoke, "Blood packs are rationed, you know. Out here? Loot bags don't respawn for days. Some folks get real… territorial."
Johnquis answered, "You staking a claim? It was half-empty. If it was yours, you should've carried it tighter."
The stranger let out a low, dry laugh, more like a cough.
"Fair point. But you know how it is. Sometimes you gotta run. Things chase you. You drop the bag, come back later… and find a hungry rat tearing into it."
He stepped in closer, close enough that Johnquis could see him tilt his hand just slightly, showing off the steel-colored Eater Stone embedded in his palm. The faint glow pulsed like a heartbeat, a silent warning.
"You got a squad? Haven't seen your face on the Leaderboard."
Johnquis' jaw clenched. He did his best to keep his own Eater Stone hidden as he lied, voice steady.
"Just got promoted. Running solo missions for now. Barely scraped enough feed count, that's why you never saw me up there."
The man held his stare for a moment longer. Above them, the Runner tensed in the shadows, a strand of drool slipping past its fangs… almost dropping… before it slurped it back silently.
The man finally shrugged, letting out a long, shaky breath like he'd been holding it for days.
"Alright, congrats on bagging some loot. I'm just trying to find one too… for someone."
He paused, tapping his chest.
"Name's Rex, by the way."
Johnquis blinked. Something in his chest pinched at that name, faint recognition, but it slipped away.
"Rex…"
He nodded, careful not to glance up at the ceiling where the Runner waited like a shadow above.
"Johnquis."
Rex's eyes crinkled faintly. He gave a low chuckle that didn't quite match the tension in his jaw.
"Didn't expect to bump into anyone this deep. This zone's like a dead rat rotting in the corner, not much left to pick at. Hard to believe you scraped a bag here."
"Got lucky, you?"
Johnquis said. He felt the faint stickiness of dried blood on his chin, resisted the urge to wipe it again.
"Just looking for a bag, same as you. Not for me though."
He hesitated, his fingers twitching.
"It's for my little sister. She's an Eater Blade too. I ditched her last night. Thought I'd… bring something back to make up for it."
Johnquis tilted his head, searching Rex's eyes. They were too bright, too watery. The man looked like he hadn't slept in days.
"For your sister? She an Eater Blade like you?"
"Yeah. She's Bronze. I'm Steel. Should've moved up by now, right? But I couldn't. She's all I've got left."
Rex's shoulders drooped, the tough front slipping.
"What kind of brother would I be if I left her here? This zone chews up the unranked. Bronze won't last alone."
Johnquis shifted his stance, "So you stayed. You watched her back."
Rex's mouth twisted into something like a smile, but it didn't last.
"Last night I thought she'd come with me. I thought she'd always follow me. But she stayed behind. For him."
His voice dropped to a cracked whisper.
"Some guy she just met. Some big meathead who acts like he knows her better than me. He doesn't."
Johnquis looked him over again, the tight fists, the restless eyes, the bruised knuckles on his free hand.
"Your sister got swept up, huh?" he said carefully.
Rex let out a bark of laughter that broke halfway through. "Yeah. Love at first sight, I guess. I thought she'd run after me, beg me to come back. But she didn't. Turns out I'm the one begging."
He sniffed, voice shaking. "She's supposed to miss me, damn it. Not him. Me."
Johnquis swallowed, uneasy. "Rex… What's her name?"
"Lex. Her name's Lex. She's— She's—"
Johnquis's spine stiffened. The name slammed into his skull, a sudden, cruel flash of memory: that last night, Lex's final scream, the blood, the massacre he could not stopped.