Claggor didn’t tell anyone about the stairwell behind the old refinery.

Not because it was particularly well-hidden—anyone with half a brain and a good pair of boots could’ve found the warped metal hatch tucked behind the graffiti-smeared vent shaft—but because no one ever looked there. And more importantly: no one ever thought to linger.

But he did.

He did most mornings now, before the buzz of the city came back online, before the kids started sparring out in the yard or the runners started shouting about deliveries. Before the day could ask him to be brave again.

The stairwell led to an old storage loft three stories above the world, half-collapsed, full of rust and filtered sunlight. No doors. No functioning tech. Just beams, ivy tendrils pushing through cracks in the brick, and a quiet so complete it made your ears ring.

Claggor sat with his back against the wall, goggles pushed up into his curls, hands dusted with soot from the climb. He’d meant to just rest a minute. Just long enough to shake the memory of last night’s argument—Powder and Mylo going at it again over projects and tool placemets, each word sharp enough to cut. He hated being in the middle of things. He hated having to take sides.

So he hadn’t. He’d just left.

He didn’t like to run, but sometimes walking away was the only way to keep his feet under him.

Claggor exhaled slowly, watching a shaft of light slice across the floor, catching on a line of shattered glass from some bottle long-since forgotten. It looked like stars. Or maybe teeth.

He didn’t touch it.

Instead, he let his shoulders sag, arms draped over bent knees, and let the silence settle back around him like an old coat. Safe. Familiar. Heavy in a comforting way.

No one expected anything here. He didn’t have to be the cautious one, the careful voice in the storm. Didn’t have to wonder if he’d said the right thing, or if he’d said enough. No one here would call him a coward for hesitating. No one here needed him to be more than a boy with a pulse and a long memory.

Claggor picked at a scab on his thumb, then stopped himself. That was a bad habit. Vi had told him that once, before—

He shut that thought down before it could bloom.

She was gone. Vi was gone. The old days. All of it folded in on itself like paper soaked through.

But he was still here. Somehow. And some days, he didn’t know how to carry the weight of that.

Claggor leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling. It was mostly sky, now, framed in warped metal and ivy vines. It looked like something out of a storybook Powder used to hoard, back when fairy tales still felt like promises instead of lies.

He didn’t know what he wanted, sitting up here. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Maybe just one damn hour where his heartbeat didn’t feel like a countdown to something else going wrong.

Whatever it was... this place gave it to him. At least for a little while.

And that was enough.

Until the quiet shifted. Until the air changed.

Claggor’s eyes flicked sideways, breath catching just slightly—soft and sharp, like a spark skimming the surface of oil.

He wasn’t alone.

Not anymore.

But he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just listened.

Just waited.