A rotting bird beat its ragged wings, sweeping across the dim gray sky with the breath of death.
As it flew, feathers fluttered down like dead leaves. It sped through the ruined city before finally landing on a rust-covered iron railing outside a fortress building, raising its head to give a low, hoarse cry.
Its hollow, lightless eyes turned toward the tightly shut metal gate.
Bang!
A gunshot abruptly shattered the silence, tearing through the heavy air.
The reddish bullet cut through the gray dusk and struck the Immortal Bird precisely. Its body instantly disintegrated, rotten flesh and shattered bones spraying everywhere, turning into a cloud of black smoke violently torn apart.
"Hey, pretty good shot, right?" A thin, humanoid man emerged from the swirling windblown sand, spinning a revolver-like handgun around his index finger.
"Hei Pi, save your bullets. The underground fortress barely has any left in stock. We should be spending them on those damned raiders instead."
Another small, thin figure emerged from the billowing yellow-brown dust. He carried a heavy pack on his back and a large modified weapon in his hand.
The two figures reached the rust-covered metal gate.
Listening to his friend continue complaining beside him, the figure called Hei Pi pulled down his face covering and grinned, revealing white teeth.
"We had a good haul today. Stop fussing over that."
As he spoke, he looked up at the camera above the metal gate and waved.
Before long, the metal gate gave a low, grating scrape, like a giant beast waking from its slumber.
As the metal gate moved, flakes of rust showered down onto the dust piled before it.
The hinges creaked under the strain, as though they might give out completely the next second.
The metal gate stopped after opening just half a