Zephyr Johnson runs faster than she has in her fifteen years of life, and that is saying something since she has spent most of her life as a runner for the Underground Railroad. Zephyr is a petite, athletic young woman with a lean and toned physique. She stands at 5'4" with a wiry build, long legs, and a determined stride. Her dark hair is often tied back in a ponytail, revealing her bright brown eyes and focused expression. Her skin has a warm, golden undertone.
She is currently covered in sweat, dirt, scratches, scraps, and tears as she flees through the jungles of Prison Afrika, where she had been dropped barely an hour before, where she was sentenced to spend the rest of her life after she and three hundred other members of the Boston cell of the Underground Railroad were rounded up in a Reich raid. She and over two hundred others were sentenced almost immediately to the living hell they turned the continent of Africa into while those they identified as leaders were taken to another, possibly even worse fate. Although Zephyr can't think of many worse fates than being eaten alive by the thing currently chasing her.
Prison Afrika is the world's largest and deadliest prison. Not hard to achieve when the prison is the entirety of a continent known for being kind to human life in the first place. The Reich walled off the entire continent of Africa, making escape impossible. Then, for the last two hundred and fifty years, they have used the place to house their prisoners and the genetically engineered horrors they created to hunt them within the walls. Some were true failed experiments, and others were purpose-built murder machines. There are human guards, but they live in the cities outside the walls and rarely ever go past the top of it unless they are in a mood to hunt too. Zephyr and her fellow prisoners had been airdropped one by one into the nightmare land. Separated and left to fend for herself, she had done what she knew best: she ran. Turned out to be a smart idea because it wasn't long before something had her scent.
Zephyr screams as she trips over a tree root and goes down hard into the damp ground. She tries to scramble up but falls as a shocking pain shoots up her leg from her ankle. She is about to check to see if it is broken when all thoughts of pain are driven from her mind as the creature that was chasing her bursts through the trees.
It is a large creature that resembles a cross between a lion and a velociraptor. It has the body and mane of a lion but with scales covering its fur and sharp, razor-like claws on its paws. Its eyes glow with an eerie yellow light, allowing it to see in the dark. It has a long, flexible tail tipped with a huge scorpion stinger that drips with a green fluid that hisses when it hits the ground. It lets out a rattling hiss as it stalks toward Zephyr, who stares into those glowing yellow eyes, paralyzed. The Reich calls it an Afrovenator, and Zephyr has seen what it can do to a person because they are also used in the Arena where Gladiators and slaves fight for the entertainment of the Empire. That venom dripping from the stinger can be injected or sprayed and will eat through steel as easily as it does flesh.
The stringer stops swaying and rears back. Zephyr closed her eyes and prepared for the burn of the venom or the pain of the stinger punching into her body. Neither happens. Instead, she hears a meaty thud and a yowl of pain. When she opens her eyes, she finds a tall black man standing over her. His red and black dreadlocs shimmer in the moonlight, and there is a slight glow to his eyes as he looks down at her. She looks around and sees the Afrovenator slowly getting to its feet, but she can tell it is hurt.
"Hm, it is ugly as fuck, but somehow majestic in a way," says the man as he smiles down at Zephyr, "Hello there, my name is Axel. Give me a minute, and I will be right back."
He throws his arm out to the side, and a three-foot-long blade made of red energy appears from his wrist. The Afrovenator charges him, and Axel moves faster than Zephyr can track with her eyes. She sees the red blade flash, and then the Afrovenator just comes apart, not in two pieces but over a dozen. They just fall, steaming to the ground, its head intact, rolling over the ground, stopping at Zephyr's feet, its still glowing yellow eyes locking on her. It blinks twice before the glow fades. Zephyr looks from it to Axel before she passes out.