NeoTokyo loomed ahead like a colossal beast in its death throes, its skeletal skyline raking concrete claws against an indifferent sky. At its fringes, it blurred into ruin - a masterwork of destruction where millions of lives had been lost, leaving behind only echoes and rust. Each step toward it stirred demons in my gut, memories I'd thought were long buried, clawing their way to the surface.

My boots struck a percussion against shattered glass and crumbling asphalt. Though deserted, the city pulsed with an unsettling presence that lingered like a ghost's breath on the back of your neck. When millions vanish in a heartbeat, they leave behind more than just empty air and silent streets.

It happened in a single night - as if some cosmic hand had simply reached down and erased the metropolis from existence. No alarms, no screams, no aftermath. The vacuum left behind filled quickly with theories - whispers of forbidden science, of a contagion that unmade its victims at the molecular level, of horrors so profound that even naming them felt like inviting their return.

Standing here now, I could finally admit my parents' prescience, though the weight of their vindication sat like lead in my chest.

"This city is gonna eat itself alive," my father repeated back when he was still alive, his eyes staring into fear. "They keep going forward and forward… but they have no clue what they’re leaving behind."

It was not long after the world war. NeoTokyo had been marketed as humanity's fresh start - a safe haven for people from all walks of life. It’s optimistic rise and gathering of diverse minds birthed a technological renaissance. A utopia in the making. But even in a digital paradise, nature claws it’s way through, and so, the human ego came into the light. The rich and powerful bathed in luxury, seperating themselves from the city’s lower layers. But the underbelly grew powerful as well. Refusing to bow down to money, the gangs and nomads of the city held their ground. It was heaven and hell, depending on where you had the courage to end up. And from the beginning, my parents saw the cancer growing in the city’s foundation, while others still celebrated the glow.

Their warnings fell on deaf ears.