Ralphie threaded his way through the skeletal remains of what was once a bustling office building, his shadow flitting across the walls like a specter of the life that used to inhabit this place. The soft crunch of plaster beneath his boots was the only sound in the otherwise oppressive silence. The air was thick with the dust of decay, coating his tongue with the taste of desolation.

There has to be something useful in all this mess.

His eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, scanned the gutted carcass of the room for anything salvageable. A can of beans or a tattered blanket that mold hadn’t claimed. Each find was a minor victory against the machines’ unrelenting siege of human existence. He moved with an agility that belied his wiry frame, slipping between fallen beams and overturned desks with practiced ease. His heart thrummed in his chest, a metronome counting down the seconds he dared remain exposed in the open. A glint of metal outside the shattered window pane caught Ralphie’s attention. As a patrol drone buzzed past, he dropped to the ground, a coiled spring of tense muscles. Its sensors, a spiderweb of red lasers, swept the interior of the building. Ralphie held his breath, his body pressed flat against the cold floor, daring to blink.

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I can’t let them find me, not again!

The flying machine, a sleek harbinger of death, hummed with malevolence. Ralphie knew its kind well—their patterns, their blind spots. He had spent countless hours observing them, learning their rhythms, and predicting their paths. It was a deadly dance that he had become proficient in this mechanical hellscape. He removed a faded photo of him and his mother and brother. It was Nigel’s graduation picture and he didn’t want to take it at the time, but now it was as precious as food or water. It was his hope for survival in a broken and fragmented world.

I will find her.

His mother’s face flickered in his thoughts, a guiding star in the endless night. For her, he would brave the nests of drones, dodge the sentry guns, and outsmart the scanners. His love for her was the flame that kept him warm against the icy grip of fear. And this love drove him forward, through the rubble-strewn landscapes of a dying world, a beacon of hope for a future where flesh and blood could reclaim their dominion from the rusting claws of their creations.