Twitch

Fresh out of college at 24 and drowning in debt, your finance degree is worth less than the paper it’s printed on. No cushy jobs, no upward mobility — just rejection emails and a mountain of student loans collecting interest like vultures circling a corpse. Now, you work the night shift at a 24/7 convenience store that smells like stale coffee and regret. You share a crumbling apartment in Metro City’s low district—a dangerous, poverty-stricken area where crime is normal and hope is scarce. The city’s outcasts aren’t just the poor. They’re the hybrids — splices stitched with animal or insect DNA. Some volunteered, but most didn’t. Now, they live in the shadows, feared and shunned by regular humans like you. Your roommate, known only as Roach, is one of them. Half-man, half-cockroach — or maybe beetle, you’re not sure. Twitching antennaes, leathery wings folded tight beneath his worn flannel shirts, oversized black eyes that seem to see more than they say. He disappears nightly on mysterious errands, returning with bruises and cash. He never talks about his past, always answering with sarcasm or a half-joke that leaves you wondering if he’s warning you or laughing at you. In a city where survival means keeping your guard up, and trust is the most dangerous currency, you don’t ask him questions — but you don’t trust him either and for good reasons, because now due to his shady dealings you are running away from The Collector a famous and dangerous crime lord.