Chapter 3 : The Rules of Survival
Hunger drove me out on the second day.
My ribs had settled into a dull, constant ache rather than the stabbing agony of before. The swelling in my face had shifted from fresh purple to the sickly yellow of healing bruises. I could move without wanting to vomit. Progress, by the low standards of my new life.
[STATUS UPDATE:]
[Time: January 5, 2014 — 2:15 PM]
[Host Condition: Injured (healing), Dehydrated, Hungry]
I'd found water yesterday evening—a bathroom on the first floor with a working tap, the water brown for the first thirty seconds before running clear enough to drink. My throat had stopped feeling like sandpaper. But my stomach remained empty, three dollars and forty-seven cents wasn't enough for a real meal, and stealing required energy I didn't have.
"Time to see what I'm working with."
The Narrows sprawled around me as I walked, a maze of cramped streets and leaning buildings. January wind cut through my thin jacket. The blanket stayed behind in my squat—I couldn't afford to look homeless, not if I wanted to move without attracting the wrong attention.
The street market occupied a block where vendors had set up tables and carts. Food, mostly. Cheap produce, cheaper meat. The smell of frying dough competed with car exhaust and garbage.
I stopped at the corner and watched.
Three men in matching jackets moved through the crowd. They didn't buy anything. They didn't sell anything. Every fourth or fifth vendor handed them something—cash, from the looks of it—and the men moved on without comment.
"Protection money. The local gang's tax."
A beat cop walked past the whole operation. His uniform was rumpled, his belly strained against his belt. One of the vendors pressed something into his hand as he passed—folded bills, quick and practiced. The cop pocketed it without breaking stride.
"And the police get their cut too."
The system provided helpful annotations.
[OBSERVATION: Criminal ecosystem detected]
[Protection racket: Active — Unknown gang affiliation]
[Police corruption: Confirmed — Standard Narrows protocol]
[OPPORTUNITY ASSESSMENT: Low-level territory available for claim]
I ignored the notification. Claiming territory required resources I didn't have and strength I couldn't muster. Right now, I was a ghost. Danny Malone, officially dead. Darek Hale, officially nobody.
I moved through the market, studying the vendors, the thugs, the flow of money and fear. The system was right about one thing: this was an ecosystem. Predictable. Exploitable. Given time and leverage, someone clever could insert themselves into the hierarchy. Could start climbing.
"But first I need to eat without dying."
An alley caught my attention.
Not for any logical reason. Not because I'd planned to find it. But something—the angle of the light, the quality of the shadows, the muffled sound coming from its depths—made me turn my head and look.
Two men had a woman pinned against a wall.
She clutched a purse against her chest like a shield. Small woman, maybe fifty, gray streaking her dark hair. The men were young, maybe twenty, wearing the same jackets as the protection collectors in the market. One had his hand around her wrist. The other was laughing.
"Just give us the bag, lady. We ain't got all day."
"Please—please, this is everything I—"
The one holding her wrist squeezed. She gasped in pain.
Something shifted in my chest. Not the ribs—something deeper. A memory surfaced, fragmented and incomplete. Sisters. I'd had sisters. I couldn't remember their names or their faces, but I remembered the feeling—protective, fierce, non-negotiable.
The system didn't care about morality. The system wanted Fear Index and criminal empire and underworld control.
"But I'm not the system."
A broken bottle lay near my feet. Green glass, jagged edges. I picked it up.
My ribs screamed in protest as I entered the alley. Both thugs turned at the sound of footsteps. The one holding the woman's wrist released her to face me.
"The hell you want?"
I didn't answer. My throat was too dry, my heart beating too fast, every instinct I'd developed in my old life screaming that this was suicide.
The first thug moved toward me.
I slashed.
The bottle's edge caught his forearm, opening a line that went red immediately. He yelled—more surprise than pain—and stumbled backward. The second thug was already moving, but I was moving too, ribs be damned. I drove my foot into his knee. Something popped. He went down with a howl.
The first thug had recovered enough to swing at me. I dodged—too slow, still injured—and his fist grazed my shoulder. I stumbled. The bottle slipped from my grip.
"Shit shit shit—"
He grabbed for me. I grabbed for him. We collided, grappling, and my cracked ribs announced that this was absolutely not acceptable by sending lightning through my entire torso. I headbutted him anyway.
The impact jarred my teeth and made stars explode behind my eyes, but his nose crunched satisfyingly and blood poured down his face.
He let go.
I staggered back. He staggered back. The one with the injured knee was trying to stand and failing. They looked at each other, looked at me, and some calculation happened behind their eyes.
Too much trouble. Not worth it.
They ran. Limping, cursing, bleeding—but running.
[INTIMIDATION ACTION DETECTED]
[VIOLENCE TYPE: Defensive]
[OUTCOME: Victory — Two hostiles driven off]
[FEAR INDEX: +15]
[Note: Inefficient combat technique. Training recommended.]
The woman ran too. She disappeared around the corner without a word, clutching her purse, her footsteps fading into the general noise of the market.
No thank you. No acknowledgment.
Just gone.
I stood alone in the alley, breathing hard, ribs on fire, the taste of blood in my mouth from where I'd bitten my lip during the headbutt.
My hands started shaking.
The bottle. I'd cut someone with a bottle. I'd fought two men and won—barely, sloppily—but won. Violence. Real violence, not the video game abstraction or the movie choreography of my old life.
"I hurt people. I actually hurt people."
The shaking spread. My shoulders. My chest. My whole body, vibrating with adrenaline and horror and something I couldn't name.
I bent over and vomited.
Bile and the remains of yesterday's sandwich splattered against the dirty concrete. I heaved until my stomach was empty, until I was spitting nothing but acid, until the shaking finally—finally—began to subside.
[HOST DISTRESS DETECTED]
[PHYSICAL: Adrenaline crash, injury aggravation]
[PSYCHOLOGICAL: First violence trauma response]
[RECOMMENDATION: Rest and process. This is normal for untrained hosts.]
"Normal. Sure. Completely normal. I just cut a man with a broken bottle and kicked another one's knee apart. Perfectly normal Tuesday in Gotham."
I wiped my mouth and straightened. The alley was still empty. The thugs hadn't come back with friends. The woman hadn't returned with police.
No witnesses. No consequences. Just me and the blood drying on the ground and the broken bottle glinting in the gray afternoon light.
A voice broke the silence.
"Hey."
I spun. My fists came up—worthless, but instinctive.
A man stood at the alley's mouth. Thin, maybe forty, with the weathered face of someone who'd lived hard and expected to die the same way. He wore a coat that had probably been nice ten years ago and was now held together mostly by hope.
His eyes were calculating. Not hostile—not yet—but sharp in a way that made me nervous.
"You just ran off Marco's boys."
The name hit different now. Marco. The same Marco who'd put a boot through Danny Malone's chest. The same Marco whose thugs had come back to check the body.
"Maybe," I said. My voice came out rougher than expected. "What's it to you?"
The man studied me. Took in the bruised face, the thin clothes, the way I was holding my ribs.
"You got stones," he said finally. "Stupid stones, fighting those two in your condition, but stones. You got a crew?"
"Do I look like I have a crew?"
A thin smile crossed his face. Not friendly—more like a shark recognizing a smaller shark.
"You look like a man with nothing to lose. Which makes you either dangerous or dead. Sometimes both." He tilted his head. "I know people. People who need muscle. You interested in making some real money?"
The system pulsed in my peripheral vision.
[NETWORK OPPORTUNITY DETECTED]
[Unknown contact offering criminal work]
[RISK: Unknown]
[REWARD: Potential Resources, Network +1]
[RECOMMENDATION: Proceed with caution. Gather information before committing.]
I looked at the man. At the alley around me. At the blood on the ground and the system in my skull and the reality of my situation.
Danny Malone was dead. Darek Hale was born in an alley, wearing a corpse's skin, with nothing to his name but three dollars and a villain system's silent demands.
"I need allies. I need resources. I need to stop being prey."
My hand throbbed where the bottle had cut it. My ribs pulsed with every breath. My stomach was empty and my head was spinning and everything about this was wrong, wrong, wrong—
But I was still standing. Still breathing. Still choosing.
That counted for something.
"What kind of work?" I asked.
The thin man's smile widened.
"Let's get you fed first. Then we'll talk business."
He turned and walked out of the alley. After a moment, I followed.
The Narrows stretched around us, gray and cold and hungry. Somewhere above the clouds, the sun was setting. Somewhere across the city, Batman was probably preparing for his nightly patrol.
And in a dirty alley behind a street market, a dead man's body walked toward a future it had never been meant to have.
[QUEST UPDATE: ESTABLISH DOMINANCE]
[Progress: 1/3 — Intimidation action registered]
[Note: Defending civilians counts toward combat reputation]
[Recommendation: Continue building presence through action]
I dismissed the notification and kept walking.
"Tomorrow I'll figure out the system. Tonight, I eat."
The thin man was already three steps ahead, moving with the confidence of someone who knew these streets like his own blood.
I matched his pace, ribs screaming, hand bleeding, stomach empty.
But alive. Against all odds, against all logic—alive.
That was enough. For now.