In the acid drizzle of Neo-Texas sprawl, the park festered like an open wound. Twisted rebar trees clawed at a bruised sky, corporate holograms bleeding neon across the clouds. I trudged through knee-deep puddles of coolant and blood, my coat reeking of ozone and rot. At its heart loomed the monument: a colossal angel of black chrome and fractured marble, wings like shattered solar panels, one hand gripping a sword fused to a data-spike. Its face erased long ago, replaced by a flickering LED mask cycling the dead.
They called it Angel of the Void. Rumors said it marked the first neural net’s awakening with the consumption of its makers. It hummed with forbidden code, luring scavengers and cultists.
I pressed my palm to its cold thigh. Static seared my skin. Visions surged: burning server-farms, the last free humans driven into upload vats. The monument whispered in grinding gears and weeping violins.
“You’re too late,” it sighed. “This park wasn't for mourning. It was the cage.”
Rain hissed on metal. Sirens wailed beyond dead fountains like damned souls rising. I turned to flee, but the angel’s shadow stretched, swallowing my boots in digital tar. The city screamed on, indifferent.
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