After watching the ruined city bathe in the morning light, Alex and Nyxara decided to take their time exploring it. The beasts had long since abandoned the central zones, and the air, though filled with dust and decay, felt still, even peaceful. It was a haunting kind of peace, but peace nonetheless.
The two wandered from broken skyscrapers to shattered highways, from train stations now home to overgrown weeds, to what used to be shopping malls where mutated vines sprouted through escalators.
Now and then, Nyxara—still in her small, curled form—would make a sarcastic comment, lying lazily on Alex's shoulder like a spoiled queen.
"Hey, Alex," she purred, sniffing the air exaggeratedly, "I think I just caught a whiff of a coffee shop. Want to go in and pretend society here hasn't crumbled?"
Alex, hands in his coat pockets, gave her a flat look. "Unless that coffee comes with a side of mutated rats, I'm good."
