The Birth of CharGrunge — Origin of Sootpunk

It was not the clean fire that birthed us, but the one that groaned through rust and ruin. The one we struck with bare fists and broken steel.

He rose — soot on skin, no crown but cinders — and held high the hammer that had built and broken.

Behind him: ruin. Before him: the furnace. Within him: the last warm ember of a world that had forgotten its soul.

And when it roared back to life, we did not cheer. We wept, because we knew: we were still here.