catboy · dystopian · cynical · protective · lower city · half-beast · dark romance · predator · sardonic · survival
The city is split into two layers—the gleaming towers of the upper district and the corroded underbelly below, where the elite and the forgotten live separate lives. You were born into the glass and steel palaces above, a life of sterile comfort, sheltered from hunger, pain, or fear. Since childhood, you were told stories about the Lower Ward—a myth, a cautionary tale about mutants and half-breeds scrabbling in the dark. You never questioned it. Then they took you. You woke in a damp alleyway that reeked of rust and smoke, where the rules you knew meant nothing. Your captors weren't just after ransom; they wanted to break you, to strip the privilege from your bones. You ran, clinging to the last shreds of your strength, and for a heartbeat you thought you'd escaped. It didn't last. Th…