Chapter 16 – Home Is Not Far
Zack Tennyson walked with a limp.
Each step dragged a ghost of pain through his side, but he kept going — hoodie up, head down, boots scuffing against cracked pavement as dusk spread across the slums like spilled ink.
This part of the city had no streetlights.
No patrol drones, no Guardian posts. Just rusted sheet metal, boarded windows, and whispers that followed you like hungry shadows.
He knew the way home by heart. Left at the burned-out hovercar. Through the collapsed overpass. Past the wall tagged with blood-gang markings. Same route. Every day.
He didn't need to think.
Which was good — because thinking hurt.
[Daily Quest Progress: 3/10 Completed.]
The system's reminder pulsed faintly in his peripheral vision, but he ignored it.
Not now.
His ribs still throbbed with every breath. The memory of Moses Rad's fists was written into his bones. That humiliation… that helplessness... it hadn't faded. Not in the hours that followed. Not even with Miss Aimee's cold comfort in the infirmary.
He clenched his fists.
"Home. Just get home," he muttered under his breath.
Then he heard it.
Not footsteps.
Not voices.
Something worse — the kind of muffled panic that didn't belong in open air. Like someone choking on their own scream. Something desperate. Wet. Wrong.
Zack stopped.
He was standing by a narrow break between two abandoned housing blocks — a dead alley, mostly used for trash, synth-drug deals, and worse.
He didn't want to look.
His instincts screamed at him to move. To keep walking. Just one more turn and he'd be back on the elevated walkway, heading toward the burnt towers where he lived.
But something... off pulled his eyes sideways.
The girl's voice broke through next.
"Let go of me!"
It wasn't a scream. More like a whimper with shattered pride beneath it. And that was what froze Zack.
Because even in the growing darkness... he saw the glint of the school crest on her torn sleeve.
His school.
Same grade uniform.
She wore his school's damn badge.
Zack's pulse started climbing.
There were three of them — older, leather-jacket types with glowing tattoos and cyber-ink scars. One had a blunt weapon in his hand. Another held the girl by the wrists. The last was already pawing at her clothes.
None of them had seen Zack.
Not yet.
He took a step back, ready to leave it all behind.
This wasn't his fight.
He didn't even know her.
He owed her nothing.
Then, it appeared.
[New Quest Available: Save the Student.]
[Reward: +2 Mod Points.]
[Failure Penalty: Emotional Corruption.]
Zack stared at the hovering message.
His heart turned cold.
Mod Points? That meant upgrades. Strength. Speed. Survival.
But…
Failure penalty?
"Emotional corruption?" he whispered, voice caught in his throat.
His hand trembled slightly. The system message didn't go away.
It waited. Cold. Patient.
Just like the shadows that now held the girl down.
Zack looked up.
And realized something strange.
He wasn't afraid.
He was… tired.
Tired of being weak. Tired of walking away.
Tired of being nothing.
He pulled his hood down slowly.
And stepped into the alley.
---
The alley was a pit of shadow and rust, a rotting artery running through the concrete heart of the city. Zack stepped into it like he was walking into a memory — the kind that didn't fade no matter how hard you bled to forget.
The moment he opened his mouth, the goons froze. They turned, three of them, eyes narrowing, hands twitching near their belts like bad habits.
"Let her go," Zack said, voice hoarse but steady. "Now."
He didn't yell. He didn't threaten. He just stood there, hunched and bruised, his school uniform still dirt-stained and blood-crusted from Moses' earlier beating. His presence didn't command respect — only confusion.
One of the goons, taller than the others and built like a boulder that had skipped gym class, tilted his head.
"Who the hell are you supposed to be? Her boyfriend?"
The girl didn't wait to find out. The second their attention flicked away, she bolted — barefoot and crying, sprinting down the alley until her form vanished into the night's greasy fog.
Zack didn't move. He could've run, too.
But he didn't.
---
[Quest Condition Fulfilled: Target Escaped]
[Continuation Optional: Survive Encounter]
---
A smile, faint and fractured, touched the edge of his mouth.
"Guess you're stuck with me now."
They didn't appreciate the joke.
The first punch came fast — a right hook that knocked him sideways into a stack of rusted trash bins. The metal screamed on impact, but Zack barely made a sound.
The second hit drove into his gut like a rail spike. His knees buckled. Breath vanished.
But he didn't fall.
He couldn't.
Somewhere, between the fear and the system, between the memory of Moses' fists and the whisper of the girl's retreating footsteps — something cold and burning kept him upright.
Maybe it was hate.
Maybe it was survival.
Maybe it was nothing at all.
"You little bastard," one of them spat, grabbing him by the collar. "You think you're a damn hero?"
Zack laughed — bloody, shallow, hollow.
"No. I just got tired of watching."
And the beating continued.
--
By the time the sirens sang their distant wail, the fists had already quieted. The goons didn't wait for the flashing lights — they scattered like roaches when the kitchen light flipped on.
All that was left behind was Zack.
Sprawled across the piss-stained pavement.
Blood dribbled from his mouth, his cheekbone was already swelling, and one eye fluttered like a cracked screen struggling to reboot.
He could barely lift his head. Every breath burned. Every muscle trembled like it remembered too much pain in too little time.
And yet…
---
[Ding! Quest Complete.]
[+2 Mod Points Awarded]
[Optional Objective: Survived Encounter — Achieved]
---
The digital chime rang out in his skull like a cruel joke.
He smiled through split lips. "Two points... nice."
But the humor was fleeting.
He lay there, surrounded by shadows and neon puddles, as the world pressed in like a predator. This alley wasn't unique. It was just a symptom of a greater sickness.
Since the Holy Domain's discovery, everything had changed. Humans had tasted evolution — real, brutal, measurable evolution. Spirit Points. Spirit Beasts. Spirit Systems. And the moment people started climbing power like a ladder, they forgot the ground they came from.
In this world, strength wasn't just survival — it was law.
The strong ate.
The weak watched.
Governments? Presidents? That was just a polite front. Everyone knew where real power lived now — in the bloodlines. The Six Great Families ruled the Alliance of Humankind like demigods wearing the skin of politicians. Entire planets bowed when they spoke.
And Planet Hombre?
It was a footnote. A forgotten corner of the human expansion, a minor system among giants. This wasn't a place where change happened.
It was where the leftover children of war, like Zack, learned to live with scraps.
Or die without them.
He exhaled, a sound caught somewhere between laughter and coughing blood.
Was this his destiny? A nameless boy bleeding in alleys for causes no one remembered?
No.
Not forever.
He clenched his fists — slow, shaking, but firm.
There was still something inside him that refused to die quietly.
---
Zack didn't know how long he lay there, but the concrete had gotten cold beneath him. Or maybe it was his blood cooling.
His ears rang. His body screamed. But the worst pain wasn't physical — it was the quiet one. The one that whispered you're just trash no matter how hard he fought. No matter how many times he got back up.
That was the voice he was really fighting.
The cyber cop didn't even stop. Just a distant siren and a burst of flashing blue against the alley walls before it faded into nothing. No boots stomped toward him. No armored hero dragged him out. Not even a drone scan.
Because in Planet Hombre, unless you were someone, your suffering was invisible.
He sat up with a groan, tasting rust and dirt.
The girl was gone.
Good.
That was the only win tonight.
He didn't know her name. Didn't know if she'd remember his face, or if she'd ever look him in the eye if they passed in the school halls. But she was safe, and he had made sure of it.
He blinked as a familiar blue light flickered to life inside his retina.
---
[+2 Mod Points added to your total.]
[Mod Points: 3]
---
Three. It was such a small number. But each one had cost him more than he could measure. Blood. Breath. Dignity.
And yet… it felt good.
Not the pain. Not the humiliation.
The choice.
This wasn't a quest he did for survival. He could have walked away. Almost did walk away.
But he didn't.
And that made all the difference.
He rose slowly, stumbling toward the mouth of the alley like a drunk man learning how to walk again. His limbs felt borrowed. His back ached. But inside, something shifted.
He wasn't just reacting to the world anymore.
He was responding.
Fighting back in the only way he could — by not becoming like the rest of them.
The ones who looked away.
The ones who hurt others because they could.
Zack didn't know what tomorrow would bring.
But for tonight, he was still standing.
And that was enough.
-