Chapter 4:
The House of Daxin stood like a jewel in a desert of despair. To the Slumborns who saw it from afar, it wasn't just a mansion, it was a fortress wrapped in paradise. The outer walls soared high, crafted from polished marble veined with emerald and threaded with real gold. Sunlight caught the metallic inlays, making the entire structure shimmer like a mirage.
Dominating the main gate was the Daxin sigil: a spiraling design with the face of a stern demigoddess at its center. Her eyes, glowing a perpetual, unnatural red, seemed to follow you no matter where you stood. Some found it awe-inspiring. To Damon, it felt like a warning.
But the true mystery lay *inside* those walls. No Slumborn had ever seen it. The law was clear: men of the slums didn't pass the grand gates. Only a handful with the highest security clearances ever entered, and even they weren't servants or laborers, they were property, tools granted a fleeting glimpse of a world they'd never belong to.
Damon shuffled forward in a long, silent line of men. Ahead, matrons and overseers lounged beneath a shaded dome, sipping chilled water while the Slumborns baked under the twin suns. Sweat trickled down Damon's neck, soaking into the rough collar of his Jalo. The heat was punishing, a physical weight pressing down. He watched a matron laugh, tilting her head back as another refilled her glass. *Unfair* didn't begin to cover it. In this world, fairness was a dead language.
"**Next!**"
The overseer's bark snapped Damon out of his daze. His heart hammered against his ribs, a familiar drumbeat of dread. One stumble, one misstep during clearance, and you were sent to the back of the line. Another hour in this furnace. Another hour closer to collapse.
He stepped up to the checkpoint terminal. The overseer, a woman with thin lips and colder eyes, didn't look up from her screen.
"Well? Waiting for an invitation? ID yourself, maggot."
Damon's throat tightened. "I… F-L… 35—"
She slammed a hand on the console, making him flinch. "This ain't your first sunrise, is it? ID. NOW. Before I have you scrapping reactor sludge for a month!"
The threat sharpened his focus. "F-L N352," he stated, voice flat.
"Farm Labourer." She sneered, finally looking at him. Her gaze scraped over him like sandpaper. "Fitting. Step into the Illuminator. Don't dawdle."
The Illuminator. A gleaming chrome cylinder humming with quiet menace. Its creation was born from fear. A century ago, three Slumborn rebels, carriers of a mutated Flare virus strain, had breached the Capitol. They'd nearly unleashed hell on Astra City. The Illuminator was the answer: a sophisticated scanner ripped from old-world X-ray tech, rebuilt to hunt pathogens lurking in blood, bone, or breath.
For a while, it had been a twisted blessing. Slumborns, riddled with diseases festering in the filth of their homes, found it could cleanse them. A fleeting mercy.
The Matriarchs weren't fools. A new decree followed: detection of a Level-3 pathogen or higher meant immediate termination. "Damned" wasn't just a tag, it was a death sentence. Every morning, stepping into that machine was a gamble with your life.
Damon entered the cylinder. The door hissed shut, sealing him in sterile, chilled air. His heart pounded so hard he felt it in his temples.
Beep.
A pale blue light washed over his head. He held his breath. Seconds stretched into eternity.
Beep. Green light. Brain scan clear.
He exhaled shakily. The second scan began. Crimson light engulfed him, probing, searching. He imagined it peeling back his skin, examining his lungs, his blood. Would it find the cough he'd been hiding? The fatigue that wasn't just from labor?
Beep. Green.
The door hissed open. Cool relief washed over him, almost dizzying. Another day. Another narrow escape from the pyres.
---
The armored hover transport skimmed low over the cracked earth, kicking up a furious plume of rust-colored dust. Inside, the air vibrated with the engine's deep-throated roar. Sage sat strapped into a hard plastic seat, bouncing with every jolt. He stared at his hand terminal.
'Destination: Sector 7-Gamma'
'Distance Remaining: 50 km'
Fifty kilometers. Fifty kilometers closer to the place nightmares were made of. He dropped the terminal onto his lap with a sigh, the glow casting harsh shadows on his face. He tugged at the collar of his Jalo again, the rough fabric chafing his neck.
"Stars above, Sage," a voice grumbled beside him. Sachin, a burly Wastelander with a scar bisecting his eyebrow, nudged him hard. "If I got a credit for every time you fiddled with that Jalo since we met, I'd own a pleasure house in the Golden Quarter by now. Nightmare again?"
Sage didn't look at him. His eyes were fixed on the desolation blurring past the thick, scarred viewport. "The same one," he muttered. "Every damn night. The same blood, the same… teeth."
Outside, the world was dead. Nothing but endless, cracked plains the color of dried blood. No scrub, no twisted trees, no sign anything had ever lived here. Just dust, rock, and the oppressive, hazy sky. They were beyond Astra's borders now. Officially in the kill zone.
Being a Wastelander wasn't just a bad assignment, it was a death sentence on installments. The wastes didn't forgive. Every patrol was a roll of dice against a hundred ways to die.
Sachin followed his gaze, his usual smirk fading. "Teeth, huh? Sounds about right. Out here, everything's got 'em."
He wasn't joking. The wastes bred horrors.
Bloodthirsty Outcasts, Men and women exiled from the cities or born wild, who'd kill you for your boots, your water, or just for the scream you'd make.
The Savages, The Flare Virus's cruelest joke. Meant to create super-soldiers, it instead shattered minds. Victims became rage-filled monsters, impossibly strong and fast, driven only by a primal need to hunt, kill, and consume. They were walking plagues.
Mutated Beasts, the virus didn't stop at humans. It twisted animals, plants, insects. Things scuttled in the shadows with too many legs, too many eyes. Things flew on leathery wings that shouldn't hold air. Things burrowed beneath the dust, waiting.
And what were the Wastelanders searching for amidst this hell?
A myth.
Whispers called it The Cleansing Source, a relic or energy from the Old World rumored to neutralize the Flare's corruption. The Matriarchs scoffed at the tales, yet still they sent men out here. Why? Because wasting Slumborn lives costs nothing. Sage thought bitterly, watching the dead land rush by. And hope, even false hope, is a cheap currency for them.
The hover transport banked sharply, throwing Sage against his restraints. Ahead, through the swirling dust, jagged, unnatural rock formations began to rise like broken teeth against the horizon.
Sector 7-Gamma.
Sage tightened his grip on his Jalo collar, his knuckles white. The nightmare felt very close now.