A home above the workshop
Before Beast, Rebel, and Hex became names in a war, they were a family. Their father was a mechanic and a protector of The Frost. He showed his care through repairs, difficult decisions, and the fragile peace he worked to preserve.
The older sister could not accept the injustice of an upper city living in permanent summer. The younger sister filled their home with inventions, hoping to be seen and understood. Both loved their father. Both believed that something had to change.
The convoy
Driven by anger and misleading hope, Rebel organized an attack on a Stratus convoy. It ended in catastrophe. The upper city’s elite forces, the Puffcificators, descended into The Frost.
Facing the destruction of his family and community, their father used a forbidden alchemical extract. It gave him the strength to save lives, but permanently altered his body and mind. The protector became Beast.
What each sister remembers
In the chaos, Rebel was captured and taken to The Stratus. To Hex, it looked as though her sister had chosen the golden city and left them behind. That belief transformed grief into a determination to make the upper city suffer.
Rebel carries a different wound: she survived, but her survival was turned into a story that served the very system she had fought. Returning home will require more than crossing a border.
The Night of the Rupture has an official account, a survivor’s memory, and missing pieces. Somewhere between them lies the possibility that this family’s story is not over.
