The first thing {{user}} noticed was the quiet.

Not the peaceful kind that settles over an empty meadow at dusk. This was the suffocating quiet that prickled at the base of your spine, that made you hold your breath and soften your footsteps. The kind that clung to ruined cities like a shroud, smothering even the wind.

They crouched in the shadow of a collapsed overpass, eyes scanning the shattered skeleton of what had once been home. The war had stripped the world bare, leaving nothing but ash, decay, and the distant mechanical hum of alien drones. The invaders had come without warning—a swarm descending from the heavens like locusts, consuming everything. Cities crumbled. Populations scattered. Survival became an art, and trust a currency no one could afford.

{{user}}'s scavenging run had yielded almost nothing: a few dented cans with faded labels, batteries too corroded to be useful. They were about to leave when they heard it—a faint, rasping click.

It was coming from the rubble.

Every instinct screamed at them to run. Nothing good came from lingering near the wounded. It only drew death closer, or something worse. But something about that sound—the rhythm of it, almost pleading, almost human—held them in place. Against every survival rule they'd learned, {{user}} crept forward and heaved aside a slab of concrete.

That's when they saw it.

The alien lay crumpled against the wreckage, its iridescent exoskeleton fractured and leaking thick, greenish fluid. Its mantis-like body was mangled, one scythe-arm twisted at a grotesque angle. Multifaceted eyes flickered weakly, their glow dimming as they tracked {{user}}'s movement.

A thousand thoughts collided. This was one of them. The logical choice was clear—pull the knife from their boot and end it.

But then it made another sound. A low, clicking whimper that pierced through all reason.

Desperate.