Chapter Text
Wheels squealed as they scraped over another patch of twisted metal. The sound echoed off rusted struts and half-collapsed piping, louder than it had any right to be.
Allira Salo bit back a curse. He gritted his teeth, leaned forward, and shoved the rims of his chair with both hands. His back spasmed with the effort, his entire body protesting every motion it made. Sweat pooled between his fingers, and every shove sent a sting up his arms. The leather of his gloves had worn through days ago—just layers of patch tape now, peeling at the seams.
Rust caked the treads of his wheels in a thick, gritty crust. The frame clattered with each jolt of uneven ground. Behind him, a rope trailed limp and unraveling, snagging on debris and dragging sludge and filth like a tail. He didn’t stop to fix it.
The wheels squealed again.
The path ahead gleamed—slick and dark. Oil, maybe. Or blood. He didn’t bother to check. but either way, one wheel caught it and slipped sideways with a wet hiss. The chair jerked hard, and his shoulder slammed into the tunnel wall with a sharp crack. Salo barked out a cry of pain as a flash of white-hot heat lanced down his arm, followed by a dull, throbbing ache blooming from shoulder to elbow.
He stayed like that for a moment—head hung forward, mouth open, eyes closed. His arms braced against the wheels as his breath sawed in and out, air rasping at the back of his throat, thick with damp and dust.
Then, slowly, he got his bearings. He rolled his shoulder with a wince, and pushed off the wall to keep moving.
Whirr. Clunk. Squeal.
He hadn’t stopped in hours. The sound echoed forward into silence as the chair rattled down the tunnel. Loud enough to give away his position. But nothing answered. For better or worse.
Unlike when his bag had been stolen three days ago.
There had been no warning—just hands shoving the back of his chair, and the sudden tilt of gravity shifting. He’d hit the ground before he could shout. His spine cracked against the pavement. The breath left his lungs. A boot met his ribs a heartbeat later, while laughter echoed off the alley walls.
“Just a cripple,” someone jeered behind him. “What’s he gonna do? Crawl after us?”
He had. Dragging himself across the alley floor, screaming, while they slowly vanished into the haze with his supplies.
They hadn’t even bothered to run.
Salo blinked. Once. Twice. The spiderweb of ramps came back into focus—narrow, stinking, and dark. The air had thickened around him. Metal clung to the back of his throat, damp with rot, and beneath it—something sweet and wrong. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth. It tasted like mold.
He forced himself not to gag.
The tunnel narrowed as he went. The walls wept condensation. Rust peeled from the ceiling in long, curled strips. Fungus bloomed in clusters at the edges of the path—dull white and pale green. His wheels rasped through patches of mud and metal, then clicked sharply against something harder. Bone. Long and pale, half buried in the muck.
He didn’t know what kind. He didn’t want to know.
The tunnel finally opened as the incline steepened. What had once been a ramp was now a jagged slope of torn-up sheet metal and shattered concrete—the remains of a stairwell, maybe. The ground cracked beneath his wheels, uneven and slick with runoff.
His gloves, soaked through, slipped more often than not. Each shove was a fight. His shoulder—already bruised—screamed with every pull. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. He wasn’t hungry—just lightheaded: dizzy, furious, and exhausted. His shirt, once pale cream, now a dingy gray, clung to his sweat-soaked skin. His hair was disheveled, plastered to his forehead and stiff with grime.
Still, he slowly made the precarious climb down the incline.
Because no one else was going to do it for him.
Oh, he’d asked. Pleaded. Begged, even. But his colleagues—those self-important twats—couldn’t spare the time.
He’d tried the council tower—what was left of it. The guards in Noxian armor didn’t recognize him—or pretended not to. So he was forced to wait, sitting there like the rest of the common people. Humiliated.
Eventually, Shoola had come down. Her eyes were bloodshot, exhausted. Her mask was pulled high, hiding the scars from the explosion.
Lucky bitch got away with only her good looks ruined. And even then, she still looked palatable.
“I’m sorry, Salo,” she had said. It wasn’t cruel, just tired. “We can’t spare the resources. It’s not you. We’re already stretched thin. There’s just… nothing left to give.”
But she didn’t meet his eyes as she spoke.
Not once.
“I’m not asking much!” he’d snapped back at her, ugly desperation clawing its way up his throat. “Just help me get down there!”
Her silence was worse than a no.
Even Lest had slipped away into the shadows when he needed her. Gone without explanation or even so much as a goodbye. Melted into the cracks of a city at war.
Coward.
So, he had been forced to take it upon himself. There was no lift to carry him down, or even a ramp. The undercity wasn't built for the lame. But he’d come prepared. Ropes. A harness. And too much goddamn pride to even consider turning back.
“This is beneath you,” said a voice in his head—his own, smooth and poisonous. “ You shouldn’t have to do this yourself.”
He was well aware of that. The world had just gone mad around him.
The scent was stronger now, bright and floral As it rose up from below. It coated the inside of his nose and finally made him gag. He didn’t even know what he’d say when he found the so-called healer. If he was even there at all. Maybe there was nothing at the bottom of this hell.
Maybe it was just death.
But even that was better than this .
His wheel caught on a lip of warped metal then. Only a few inches high, it was insignificant, really. A stupid, shallow ridge in a tunnel full of jagged ruin. But the wheel stopped dead and refused to climb.
Letting out a curse, Salo braced both hands on the rims and shoved.
Nothing.
He rocked back and shoved again, harder.
“Come on—” he growled, voice low and hoarse, but he wheels only bumped against the ridge, stubbornly rooted in place. Fury bubbled hot in his chest, licking up his throat like bile. He snarled, gripped the rims tighter, and threw all his weight forward.
The chair lurched up, cleared the edge—And tipped too far.
Only this time, there was no wall to catch him.
The chair careened sideways— much too top heavy—right off the side of the ramp. With a sickening weightlessness, he was flung out of his seat into empty air, and then he was falling.
Salo screamed. The sound ripped out of him unbidden as gravity yanked him down.
By some miracle stroke of luck, there was a large metal pipe- probably for sewage by the smell— to break his fall. Like a ragdoll he slammed into it. The wind was knocked from his lungs,and his jaw clipped the pipe. His teeth sank into his tongue, and pain exploding through his skull.
All the while, the metallic screeching and wailing of the wheelchair filled the air as it crashed to the ground under him. He frantically scrambled for any kind of hold, but his fingers slipped over the smooth, lichen covered surface. Barely a second later, another scream tore from his lips as he lost his grip and continued to plummet, crashing through something wooden, and pain lanced up his back at the impact.
Then, finally the floor rose up to meet him in a cloud of dust and pollen, and Allira Salo crashed to the ground in a clattering heap.
Once the dust settled, He lay there on his throbbing back, chest heaving. One leg was twisted awkwardly beneath him, useless and aching. His back pulsed with fresh pain. Blood from his mouth dripped down his chin. He spat, and crimson dribbled down his cheek to mix with the muck, ash, and dust in a wet glob.
The chair lay mangled nearby. One wheel had come off completely. The other rattled as it spun slowly, twisted inward. A piece of the frame was wedged between two cracked tiles and the seat itself was practically folded in half.
His breath came in gasps, ragged and shallow. Each inhale pulled the cloying scent of flowers deeper into his lungs. His vision swam. Above him, the ceiling swam in shadows. A dim green haze lit the ravine, catwalks twisted in broken lines across the chasm, mapping his descent. Machines hung from them—long-dead and rusted to stillness. He was in the bowels of the undercity now. Below the lanes. At the bottom of this godforsaken pit.
He should’ve screamed again. Or cursed out whatever god was laughing at him from the shadows and reveling in his torture. Maybe he would have, a day or two ago. His eyes stung from sweat and strain. But despite everything, he still hadn’t cried.
He refused to stoop that low.
So instead, he laughed. It was thin and bitter, hissing through clenched teeth like a cracked pipe. He wouldn’t even get the relief of a quick death for his impatience apparently. Rather he’d just have to wait until he starved. Fitting. When had his life become such a cruel joke?
His fingers twitched, nothing broken thankfully, but when he tried to raise his arm, it gave out halfway through the motion, slapping weakly against the dirt and stone and he vaguely winced. The pain at least had flattened to a dull roar. Everything hurt equally now. It didn’t matter where.
Great.
That's when he heard footsteps. A single pair approaching from somewhere behind him—soft and steady.
Salo’s breath caught, and mustering up whatever strength and reckless pride he had left, he forced his body to rock to the side and roll over. Like hell he was getting mugged by ruffians again down here.
He lifted and blinked rapidly to try and clear his vision. There was something sticky pooling in his eyes, and his vision blurred at the edges, almost like he was in a dream.
And maybe he was, because he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.
He had landed in some kind of abandoned shack or shed, some old remnant of a building. The door was on the opposite side from where he had landed, and it was hanging open on its dilapidated hinges. But beyond that- instead of the green haze and darkness. There was light, and something vibrant and yellow covered the ground. Were those flowers all the way down here?
But the strangest thing, was the man standing in the doorway. He was clean shaven and lean, dressed in knee length cream robes, and barefoot of all things. Auburn hair was tied back from a face decorated in silver and iridescent filigree. A polite smile was on the man’s lips, hands folded in front of him, and his eyes shifted in color like oil on water. Or maybe the sheen of a bubble blown by some snot nosed brat.
The man took another step closer. “You made it.” His voice was soft, a calm almost melodic cadence falling from his lips. Almost as if he had been expecting someone to randomly drop out of the sky today.
Salo bared his teeth, lips peeling back with strained effort, as if he could even begin to attempt to look intimidation in this position. “Get… away from me,” he rasped, though the words barely formed. His throat was too dry, and his jaw wouldn’t cooperate.
The figure didn’t move as Salo struggled to try and push himself up onto his hands- a futile dizzying attempt that ended with him collapsing back onto his chest with a pained cry, gasping for breath. He tried again to push himself up— to get a hand under his body, maybe crawl, maybe punch, anything—but he couldn’t lift his arm.
Then the man—whoever he was—crouched down, so slowly and with such unbothered grace it made Salo’s heart hammer in his chest and alarm bells ring in his head. “You’re safe now.” The freak stated softly, and his hands unclasped in front him and reached forward.
Salo flinched, or tried to at least, but all that came was a twitch. A spasm in his ribs. His body had gone stiff, unresponsive, like even his panic was working on delay. “I—” His voice cracked. “I don’t need—” He coughed, and a fresh smear of bloody spittle fell to the stones and dirt under him.
“Easy,” the stranger said gently. “You’ll hurt yourself more.” His hand hovered near Salo’s temple, then moved to gently wipe the blood from a gash in his forehead. Salo glared up at him, breath hitching in his throat. His lips parted, but nothing came out, just panted, pained breath. His limbs weren’t working right anymore. His body had gone stiff in places and limp in others, and the burning had dulled to something heavy and cold.
He blinked, and it took longer than it should have for his eyes to open again. The blurred edges of his vision had grown, the features of the freak’s face being distorted and hazy. He blinked again. His eyes refused to refocus.
“You don’t have to fight,” that soft voice said softly, but it sounded far away. “Not anymore.”
Salo tried to lift his head higher. A final act of resistance. Pride or fear—he couldn’t tell which anymore. But it didn’t rise.
Well. At least someone finally had the courtesy to try and help him.
Would’ve appreciated that before he had fallen to his death.
A huff blew out his nose, the best he could do to show his bitter amusement as his head sank back to the stone. His eyes fluttered once.
Twice.
Then closed completely.