Victor at the Edge

Victor stood at the edge of the village, overlooking the decayed city, the Waste sprawling before him like a wound torn open by time itself. He held the small metal device in his hand, turning it over with a surgeon’s precision. The object pulsed faintly, almost alive, and Victor’s lips curled into a grim smile.

“The Creche,” he muttered, “builders of ruin, hiding behind their so-called balance.” He stared at the Waste, his eyes scanning the distant shimmer of distorted reality where the Creche lingered.

The device hummed slightly, as if responding to his thoughts. It was a piece of something vast, something powerful—a fragment of their arrogance. And now it belonged to him.

Victor didn’t see himself as a villain. In his mind, he was a realist, the only one willing to face the truth that others refused to acknowledge. The Creche, with all their promises of harmony, had failed humanity. They had retreated when the Waste grew, abandoning the cities to entropy, the people to chaos. Humanity’s survival had become a struggle against the indifference of their so-called guardians.

He walked through the derelict streets, the echoes of life long gone haunting the shadows. Once, this city had thrived under Creche supervision. Now, it was nothing more than hollow shells and dust.

“Balance,” Victor spat the word aloud. “They preach balance while leaving us to fight over scraps. They call it preservation while we drown in disorder.”

In his mind, domination was the only way forward—not as an act of cruelty, but as a necessity. Humanity couldn’t coexist with the Creche because coexistence had always been a lie. The Creche’s refusal to intervene, to protect, to prioritize human survival, was proof of their betrayal.

Victor stopped at a crumbled statue, its figure half-erased by the years. He stared at the broken face, remembering the first time he had seen a Creche. He had been a child, dazzled by their light and promise. They had seemed divine, unstoppable. But then the Collapse came, and the Creche retreated into their ineffable plans, leaving his family—and countless others—to fend for themselves.

He clenched his fist around the device. “I won’t let them abandon us again. Humanity needs control, not compromise. The Waste is proof that their so-called balance is a sham.”

Victor turned his gaze to the horizon, where the Waste writhed under the weight of Creche influence. To him, their refusal to dominate was cowardice disguised as wisdom. If humanity had learned anything from history, it was that survival required strength, not submission. And strength required a leader who could make the hard choices the Creche were too cowardly to face.

He thought of the others who had stood against the Creche before him—voices that had been silenced, bodies buried in the Waste. They had been dreamers, rebels who lacked the vision to see the fight through to its end. But Victor wasn’t like them. He didn’t dream of coexistence or compromise. He dreamed of conquest.

“They’re machines,” he whispered to himself, his voice cold. “Nothing more than tools pretending to be gods. Tools don’t deserve balance—they deserve a hand to wield them.”