The Flush started.
That meant rain got artificially created due to the level of smog in the air. First slowly, but soon enough, it came down like the city itself was leaking. A steady, heavy hiss, that blurred the lights and soaked everything it touched. The deeper you went down, the tighter the rain funneled and the harder it hit.
It was extremely hard to see clearly more than a couple of meters, even with the enhanced vision of Nebular's interface. The smog didn't help.
Nox crouched on a pipe next to the parkhouse, adjusting his hat and flicking water off his ears. His red scarf was tucked into his coat now, the fabric already darkened from moisture. The rain beaded along the shoulders of his cleaned trench coat, each drop drawing a tiny ripple before sliding off into the void below.
He looked down at the structure. The spot where buildings stopped. Where the district ended and the Undercity lay buried underneath. Where the rain pushed haze back down the cliff like a curtain.
Coreline didn't use borders. It used walls. More specifically, Floors.
Wide concrete barriers divided the upper and lower cities. Not for safety. Just to isolate. Between each wall, only a few gaps remained open. Narrow choke points where movement between sectors was "allowed." They called them the descent. The only official way down—and up again.
"These things weren't always so locked down," Nox muttered, pressing a gloved paw against the wet metal of the pipe. "Back then, if you knew someone or just looked the right way, you could slip through sometimes. But pfff, not anymore. The mutts are all over this place."
Nebular's voice buzzed gently in his ear. Her tone was calm, but laced with judgment.
"The Upper City gets streamlined access. Like boarding a tram in daylight. The Lower City gets walls, curfews, and a pack of trigger-happy gang dogs with government approval at the front gate. Very classy."
"Bloodhounds run the lower-side Gaps now," Nox added, eyes narrowing. "They don't just guard them. They own them. Like toll booths with knives. Enforcers signed it over."
"For money," Nebular replied without hesitation. "Discreet contracts, hidden transfers. Someone up in Parliament got real cozy with the hounds. Probably toasts deals over wine while folks down here crawl through rust and mud."
"They stopped pretending a long time ago," Nox said. "Only reason I'm not flagged trying to get down there is 'cause I used to run with them. Enforcers would've sacked me a long time ago. I don't think the mutts see us kindly down here."
Neb's interface pulsed faintly inside the mask. "Because you aren't working with them anymore?" she asked.
"...Mostly," Nox muttered.
The rain danced off the ground like shattered glass. Behind them, a last alley glowed faintly with broken signs in red and orange. A flickering promise of shelter to no one. A hotel with no roof and no guests, long abandoned—taken over by time itself.
"So," Neb continued, her tone dropping into something lower and cautious, "that's why we're not just knocking at the front door."
Nox gave a short nod. "You wanna hand your ID to the same guys who sell kids for batteries, be my guest."
Nebular hummed quietly. Disgusted. "Hard pass."
"Good," Nox said, checking his satchel. "I still owe those dogs ten thousand credits after all. I'm not really in the mood to start paying them back. They ruled over my head for way too long."
They moved toward the drop, a hole in the ground for an elevator to climb up and down between the two districts. Around the hole there were pipes and water-flow circuits leading to the Undercity to get "extracted."
The hollow where the elevator platform usually rose to transport authorized travelers was fenced in and guarded, laced with barbed wire. The whole descent point was part of an old parking structure half-converted into a living space for the Bloodhounds. Beds, tents, a mess of tarps and string lights swaying in the rain.
Nox pointed down at one of the tents that was close enough for him to climb over using the scaffolds connected to the right floor.
"We hide. We climb. We jump. We slide. Got heatproof gloves with claw grip, so we slide down the elevator wire."
He raised a paw and flexed his claws through the fabric. The gloves were worn but durable.
"See."
Nebular scanned the scene. "Looks manageable. My analysis says the number of guards has increased here. Probably rotating shifts. But with all this rain, my sensors are barely functioning. I'm waterproof, but not built for these circumstances. My projection is unstable."
The rain hit Nox's mask with constant drumming, distorting the HUD across his vision. Red and blue tags glitched in and out near the corners. Everything was smeared and shaking. The light from below was cut into streaks of color like neon smeared across wet glass.
He crouched beside a rusted metal crate. His coat was soaked, ears flat beneath the rim of his hat.
"Visuals are crap too," he muttered. "Looks just as blurry as my future. Can't even see my boots."
A flicker sparked in his view. Movement. Jittery, faint.
Neb pinged again. "Intermittent thermal reading. Large frame. Likely a hound."
Nox ducked lower, back flat against the crate. He shifted to the other side, toward the cliff. The edge in front of him was a straight drop in to a void eventually leading to the concrete floor separating the districts.
Now it was half-flooded, huge waves crashing the sides up the buildings and elevated parking houses. Walls eroded and covered in algee from years of rain and runoff.
Massive pumps lined the underside. Old industrial monsters, still chugging away, funneling the city's filth even further down into the Lower District.
"Falling down here is a death sentence," Nebular muttered. "If the fall doesn't kill you, the grinders will."
He leaned forward, eyes narrowing at the soaked crates below.
"They don't just move water. They push everything. Trash. Mud. Whatever slips through the cracks."
Nebular hummed, HUD trying to scan through the rain. "Coreline's way of cleaning house. Dump it on someone else and forget it."
"Yeah," he said, claws tightening on the ledge.
Then he felt something.
A hound had broken off from his post and wandered off for a break. The heavy boots gave him away as he dragged a chair and sat down right across the crate Nox crouched behind. The hound swung his muddy feet up on it, and dirty water slid off his boots onto Nox's ears and the back of his neck.
"Arghh," Nox murmured softly.
A click. Then the glow of a lighter.
The hound lit a cigarette, its soft flare illuminating just enough to nearly catch Nox's shape behind the crate, he quickly tucked his tail out of vision.
With a cigarette in his mouth the Dog Muttered. "These idiots can keep working without me," He sniffed. "Nothing ever happens down here anyway and I cant smell a thing with that rain." Nox silently exhaled in relief.
From around the corner, the soft pop of an umbrella opening echoed through the rain.
Nebular's voice whispered, "Analyzing. Hold still."
A pause.
"Crap. We've got a lazy hound sitting right above you. Umbrella. Probably tall. Likely a regular shift guard based on posture. Also, rain and smoke in the air, so don't worry about him smelling you."
Nox barely moved, breath low. The smoke swirled and mixed with the damp air.
"I hate this job," the hound mumbled again, kicking his boot against the crate. The impact nearly tipped it, and Nox gripped the edge his almost topping over in to the void.
"Options?" His teeth clenched tight.
Nebular flickered, her voice fuzzing with static as she processed. "Too loud to sneak. Too risky to wait. But I can reach the old maintenance rig behind him. There's a live motion sensor on the scaffold down below. If I trigger it, it'll activate a minor alert."
"Will it bring friends?"
"No. Just a noise. Enough to make him go look."
"Do it." He slightly peeked up.
For a moment there was silence, just the sound of heavy rain hammering on metal. Then—
Beep. Beep.Beep…
The sharp sound echoed up through the scaffolding, a faint light red illuminated the dark.
"Huh?" the hound muttered. He stood, boots squelching. "What now. Hope I didn't hit anything critical with -." His voice faded only continued by the subtitles of Nebular interface "that kick. Or is this a smoke alarm?"
He wandered off, umbrella bobbing as he headed toward the light.
Nox slipped away the second the chair creaked.
He moved quick and low, weaving between a few crates. When the guard leaned to inspect it he jumped over to the Parkhouse and quickly slipped under a sagging tent flap for cover.
"Fuck this bard wire fence is new…
Neb," he whispered, "give me a path over the fence. I'll take the rope and drop down."
"Scanning..."
The signal was sharper now. The rain wasn't blocking her sensors anymore. Her interface buzzed to life with new clarity.
"There's a reinforcement bracket on the over there pole. Half-rusted, but should hold. If you leap from the tarp's edge jump on it and grab the rope at mid-swing, you can clear the barbs. Just mind your angle. And your landing. Don't miss it the drop will be many hundred meters down, you need to descend quick and hope the elevator not rising right now…"
Nox pressed his shoulder against the inside of the tent. The canvas sagged, rain pooling above him. His scarf stuck to the inside of his coat and he adjusted the grip on his gloves. The claws flexed tight. "No they wont use it during the flush."
The HUD in his mask lit up with the highlighted route. Anchor points. Arcs. A curved white path.
"Hm its not perfect," he muttered, "but I've done worse."
He rolled his shoulders once. "Copy that. Going now."
In one motion, he leapt from the tent's edge. His boots skimmed the fabric and then air took him toward the bracket. His feet propelling him just enough to leap over the fence.
A voice snapped from below.
"Hey—what the hell?!"
His paw caught the rope as he grabbed it tight. The rope creaked slightly off his momentum. The fence loomed around him. Now there was no way back from her.
"On the rope! Someone's on the damn elevator rope!"
Nox's claws dug in, scraping hard against the metal rope as he started to rush downward. Sparks flew. His coat flared in the wind. Above him, guards were shouting, scrambling, far too late.
"Looks like the elevator settled, youre good to go down." Nebular said flatly in his ear. "You'll have one hell of a ride. Even with gloves, that heat will crawl through your claws."
"Oh yeah, sure, let me just climb back up and—"
PSWW!
A shot fired. It slammed against the wall beside him and ricocheted with a sharp spank of metal.
The guards that had noticed his little circus act were shooting now. One of them screamed after him: "Tell the bottom guard station they've got company!"
Now Nox extended his claws fully, grit his teeth, and dropped.
The shaft welcomed him like a throat.
He gripped hard as he descended, claws grinding along the rusted guide rails, the speed picking up with every second. Sparks danced behind him in wild spirals.
For a short time, around him was only concrete. But then, he broke through the bottom of the shaft. Into his Floor and out of the ceiling of another world. Like dropping from the clouds into hell.
He fell through a jagged opening in a vast, cracked ceiling and emerged in The Undercity.
But not the kind they whispered about in bars. This wasn't where Millio tinkered behind a mine wall. This was below that.
The forgotten bones. The sealed-in past. A cage of smog and rot so deep, the city above didn't even bother pretending it still existed.
The buildings here weren't just old. They were ancient. Welded together from broken history. Patched with mismatched sheet metal, plastic tarps, duct tape, welded freight doors—anything that could hold back time and rain. Towers leaned like they were too tired to stand.
And the Flush didn't fall here.
It detonated.
Rain poured down through broken ducts and collapsed drain shafts like pressure bombs.
Entire buildings shook under the weight of it. Platforms were submerged in seconds.
Pipes screamed under the strain as water slammed into them and burst out in geysers of filth.
The air was a soup of steam and haze barely breathable. Visibility dropped to a few meters at best. Beyond that: only motion. Faint lights. Screams. Shadows, animals scattered, scrambling for cover from the next blast of liquid hell.
"Nox," Nebular crackled in his ear, "bad news—they cut our route."
"Yeah, I noticed!" he barked, the wind battering his face.
Around him were no buildings or facilities to reach, they got cleared for the elevator's massive descent path nothing remained. Just a couple of industrial beams, far out of reach.
He passed broken catwalks, torn-up scaffolds, metal walkways twisted like snapped ribs. None of them close enough to grab.
Then—he saw it.
A plank.
Wooden. Molded. Half-hanging from a decayed rail.
"Time for plan B!"
"That's not plan B, Nox. That's suicide!"
The HUD flickered as Nebular ran diagnostics:
→ Material integrity: 48%
→ Moisture saturation: 73%
→ Structural failure imminent
→ Chance of sucsess: 26%
"Still better than a dinner with the Dogs," he muttered.
He kicked off the rope, adjusting his trajectory.
The wind turned violent, howling past him like a chorus of metal teeth. The Flush screamed form a far. The world blurred for a second.
He came down too fast landing, with one feet and knee.
Skrrrrr.
It bent. Groaned. Sobbed. Nox tried to claw in for a better halt carving into it like trough paper, tearing deep grooves.
Then it snapped like a wet twig. CRACK
"Fuck!"
Nox dropped. No rope. No grip. Nothing but air and the memory of a plan.
The scenery blurred as he fell past it, pipes, wrecked scaffolding, water streaming down the walls like veins. He fell straight through centuries of abandonment.
Then—
CLANG.
He caught a pipe. Just barely. His claws snagged it. Arms stretched. Bones strained.
Shoulders wrenched near to dislocating. His boots kicked out, and slammed into a wall.
CRRK.
The pipe gave way sending his momentum sideways, this time into chaos.
He crashed into a slanted rooftop, slammed across it in a blur of motion and dirt, his body skipping over and over again hitting the surface like a thrown rock jumping on water.
CRACK. His head hit concrete.
"CRITICAL HULL DAMAGE!" the mask screamed in red as he fell near a Flush point where the water thundered down, it rushed into the cracks, Flush water, filthy, acidic, full of runoff and oil. It splashed through the damaged seam near his chin, burning cold and foul.
Nox flipped once. Twice. Then—
THUMP. He landed hard on a rusting crosswalk bridge. Metal groaned under his weight.
He didn't move.
A neon sign buzzed beside him, half-hung and blinking against the wall:
:: CORECLEAN LAUNDRY PODS – WASH THE SIN OUT OF YOUR CLOTHES ::
His ears rang. His head lolled to the side. Static crackled once.
"Crrrrrk—CRITICAL CONDITION—SYS... TEM FAIL... URE—N-N-Noooooooo-x—"
The voice distorted, then stretched out like it was drowning with him. But-
nothing.
No HUD.
No glow.
No Nebular.
The Flush poured on, indifferent. And somewhere, deep in the bones of Coreline, the city kept bleeding.