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Ghost at the Water Plant
Image prompt:

Generate an illustration for a choose-your-own-adventure story. Theme: desert. Arid desert landscape, warm earth tones, sand dunes, dramatic sky. Style: Digital illustration, vivid colours, suitable for a web story. Do not include any text or lettering in the image. A rusted, abandoned water-processing facility at the edge of a vast desert flat, with corroded catwalks and massive cylindrical tanks casting dramatic shadows under a harsh midday sun. A distant figure sprints through the industrial wreckage below, dust rising at their heels.

Ghost at the Water Plant


The abandoned water-processing facility squats at the edge of the flats like a broken jaw, its rusted tanks casting long shadows across cracked earth. You've tracked Eli Cord's trail here through three relay stops and a bribed mechanic — and the fresh bootprints in the dust confirm he arrived recently. Your hand rests near your holster out of habit, not intent. Not yet.

Then you see him. A lean figure scrambling across the upper catwalk, moving fast — too fast. He's already spotted you. Three years of running have made him sharp.

He vaults a railing and disappears into the maze of corroded pipework below. The facility groans around you, wind threading through gaps in the corrugated walls. You have seconds before he finds an exit you don't know about.

Your next move matters. Eli Cord is the only person alive who knows exactly what happened at Colvin Station — and right now, he thinks you're here to make sure that stays true.


© 2026 Evan Prael