Tacoma was colder than usual that morning.
A northern wind had settled over the coast, dragging ocean air down through broken alleys and flooded underpasses. It smelled like old rust and salt. The sky was heavy with low-hanging clouds, dark and unmoving.
I moved early, just after dawn, with my gear packed tight and balanced. One axe. One utility knife. Two ration packs. Four throwing spikes, shaped from bone and rebar. I wrapped them in cloth to keep the metal from clinking.
The route I chose wasn't the shortest, but it was the quietest—through the alley grid behind the old elementary school, past the burned-out firehouse, then across the skybridge connecting two collapsed towers.
The smoke trail I saw the day before was steady. Still there.
That meant whoever lit it had a supply of clean fuel—or something else entirely.
The rail yard was dead quiet.
Freight cars stood rusting in crooked lines, some tilted from cracked foundations, others blown open. Feral ivy ran through their hulls. Piles of unrecognizable cargo were scattered across the asphalt—bags of seed, twisted bicycles, stacked wooden crates with foreign markings.
The fire had been burning on top of a two-story dispatch tower overlooking the western yard.
I circled wide before approaching.
Didn't touch the center of the yard.
Didn't walk between the cars.
Too many blind spots. Too many echoes.
I moved with the wind, letting it mask my steps, keeping my scent carried ahead.
The tower itself was old brick and reinforced steel. The exterior stairs were partially collapsed, but the back support rail was still intact.
I climbed carefully, boots silent on the steel, knees bent low.
Each floor had been gutted—no furniture, no machinery. Just dust, moss, and silence.
At the top, I found what I was looking for.
But not what I expected.
The fire wasn't real.
It was a projection.
A tall radio tower jerry-rigged to a broken drone core and a concave lens mirror, angled toward the skyline. Someone had built a light relay that mimicked fire smoke from a distance—clever. Simple physics and atmosphere manipulation.
A fake signal.
A trap.
Or a decoy.
Near the edge of the platform, a single steel chair faced out over the yard. On it sat a man.
He was already dead.
His body was slumped sideways, half-fused into the metal rail from prolonged decomposition. Dried blood crusted along his neck. A makeshift blade—a screwdriver sharpened to a point—was embedded in his throat.
His fingers were blackened. His lips cracked. He had bitten off one of his own fingernails.
A message was carved into the cement wall behind him:
"Tried to bring them together. They chose to turn."
Another line was scratched beneath it, almost unreadable:
"They don't want help. They want a god."
I checked the body for infection markers—none. Just old blood and the smell of fear, dried and locked into flesh.
Beside the corpse was a torn backpack.
Inside: a cracked emergency transponder, two cans of sealed meat, a manual on amateur radio frequencies, and a small waterproof notebook.
Most of the pages were smeared or torn, but I read what I could:
"They built something below the shipping tunnels. Not human anymore.""Anyone still using light is being tracked. It's not safe to be seen.""One of the Sins lives beneath the hill with the sunken church. They call it 'Pride.'"
No maps. No names. No survivors mentioned.
Whoever this man was, he'd tried to rebuild something.
And failed.
I took what I could carry.
Left the body undisturbed.
And climbed back down.
The silence in the yard felt heavier on the way out.
As I passed between the freight cars, I noticed scratch marks on the steel. Long. Parallel. Too clean for rust.
Signs of movement.
Not recent, but not old either.
The kind that came from something with claws—and purpose.
I didn't stop to investigate.
I just moved.
By the time I returned to the church, the clouds had thickened.
The light from the steeple windows turned gray, filtered through dust and bone-colored glass. The candles I'd left burning in the altar nook had gone out, their wax hardened and cracked.
I re-secured the barricades.
Checked the motion lines.
Nothing had been disturbed.
But I still felt watched.
I returned to the basement.
Sat at the crate I used as a writing desk.
And opened my journal.
Day 13. Smoke signal was false. Fire was projection. Relay source deceased. Likely suicide.Signs of prior group activity. Possibly a failed settlement attempt. Dead man left warnings. Mentions of tunnel systems—unknown coordinates.Word used: 'Sin.' Context unclear. Possible nickname for evolved. Or something worse.He warned about 'Pride.' If that's a designation, there may be others.I didn't see any gods. Only bones. And bad ideas.
I closed the journal.
Unwrapped a strip of dried meat.
Chewed slowly.
Let the silence return.
Not because I liked it.
But because it was mine.