"She’s not a statistic," Elias muttered, his voice muffled by the mask.

The fall wasn't a clean drop; it was a desperate scramble. He caught a rusted service rail, the jolt nearly tearing his arm from its socket, and began the long climb into the belly of the world.

Eventually, the vertical tunnels opened into a vast, silent cavern. At the center sat an old atmospheric processor, humming with a soft, bioluminescent glow. And there, sitting on a heap of scrap, was Lena. She was covered in grease, her eyes fixed on a small, green sprout growing from a crack in the floor—the first real life Elias had seen in years.

He looked into the abyss. It was a throat of twisted metal and steam, miles deep. Most people spent their lives looking up at the spires, dreaming of the sun. Elias only cared about the shadows. "Then I’m changing direction," he said. He stepped off the ledge.