They said the Chains were built to keep monsters out.
They lied.
The monsters were already inside. And the Chains were meant to keep them in
Beneath the rotting cities and golden spires of the Surface, the Chains stretched like veins through the dead belly of the world. Cracked stone tunnels, rusted pipes, and iron doors that hadn't opened in a hundred years.It was always dark here.
The kind of dark that felt heavy, like it was watching you.
And the ash never stopped falling. Not from the sky, but from the walls, the ceilings. It drifted like snow, soft, silent, and grey. No one knew where it came from. No one dared to ask.
Down in the Chains, questions could get you killed.
A boy moved through the shadows, barefoot and small. Maybe twelve. Skin pale under the dirt. Eyes sharp, not because he was strong, but because the weak had to see danger before it saw them.
He didn't have a name.
Names were for citizens. For people with homes, with records, with rights.
Down here, you were what you could carry and what you could take. And the boy had nothing. No family. No papers. Just a tattered cloak wrapped around his thin frame and a crust of stale bread clutched in one hand.
He slipped through the cracks in the market square, if it could even be called that. It was just a flooded chamber with broken crates and people sitting in the mud, whispering trades through cracked lips.
"Two sips for a button."
"Half a rat for half a bandage."
"Don't touch the guards. They bite worse than the dogs."
He passed a man selling teeth, and a woman trading nightmares, if you believed in that kind of thing. The boy didn't. He couldn't afford belief.
A coughing fit echoed from behind a broken pillar.
The boy hurried over.
A small figure was curled there, shivering under a thin blanket. She looked about his age. Her hair was tangled, eyes dim, and her hands trembled as she held them to her mouth.
"Lira," the boy whispered, crouching beside her. "You didn't eat yesterday."
She tried to smile, failed, and shook her head. "Didn't want you to starve."
He broke the bread in half, pushed it into her hands.
"I told you, we share," he said. "Always."
They ate in silence. Chewing slow, like every bite might be the last. It wasn't dramatic. Just the way things were.
After a while, Lira asked, "Do you think there's really a sky?"
He blinked. "What?"
"A real sky. Like… blue, not flickering. With clouds. And birds." She closed her eyes. "I dreamed about it."
The boy didn't answer. He didn't like dreams. Dreams made the fall harder when you woke up.
That night, the guards came.
Boots in the sludge. Metal collars. Shackles jangling.
The boy woke to shouting. Then crying. Then nothing.
He ran out of the alcove to see a group of enforcers in black coats dragging people out of the shadows. One of them had Lira by the arm.
"No!" he shouted, rushing forward.
A hand caught him by the throat, slammed him into the wall. Stars burst behind his eyes. He struggled, gasping, but the grip didn't loosen.
"You wanna join her?" the guard sneered.
Lira's eyes met his, wide with terror.
"I'll come back," she mouthed. "I'll find you."
Then they were gone.
And the boy, for the first time in years, cried.
Not because he was scared.
Because he knew she wouldn't come back.
No one ever did.
That night, he sat alone in the ashes.
And for the first time, he began to understand the truth.
Kindness doesn't survive down here.
Only hunger does.
Only silence.
Only ash.