The world had ended, but life, in its cruel and stubborn way, had persisted. In the ashes of the old world, a new, harsher one was born. It was in this desolate landscape that a child named Nathkrul survived against impossible odds.

His protector was a hulking, scarred mutant he knew only as the Matron. Her instinct was to kill and consume anything that crossed her path—including him. The only thing that stayed her clawed hand was the constant, silent hum of Nathkrul’s telepathic power, projecting feelings of kinship, need, and a fragile, manufactured love into her savage mind. He lived each day as a telepathic parasite, soothing the beast that sheltered him.

The other males of her feral brood held no such compunction. Their hunger was a palpable force, and only the Matron’s dominant, genetically enforced authority kept them from seeing Nathkrul as prey. He was not her son; he was her pet, her anomaly, a smooth-skinned creature she felt an inexplicable urge to both defend and destroy.

To earn his place, he was raised alongside her litters of true-born mutant children. They were taught to fight with tooth, claw, and rusted scrap metal. Nathkrul learned their brutal ways, becoming a strong and fearless fighter not out of ambition, but pure necessity. His mind was his primary weapon, but his body became a hardened tool for survival.

Yet, a deep loneliness ached within him—a longing for a connection not built on psychic manipulation or predatory tolerance. He clung to a fragile hope that somewhere in the vast, broken world, there were others like him. Others who thought, and felt, and remembered what was lost. If that hope proved false, he knew his fate was to be the last of his kind, utterly alone, until the world’s final, quiet end.