The prologue
You didn't choose the river. The river was what was left.
Baitcraft opens on painted screens before you ever make a cast — and the game earns every one of them.
iThe city never sleeps, and it never hires. Glass towers, delivery drones, cars that drive themselves — a world that finally learned to run without anyone in it.
iiThen one Monday the screen answered for you. No meeting, no handshake — just three words in red where fifteen years of work used to be.
iiiA cardboard box, a badge that opens nothing, and a sunset you had never once stopped to watch. Everything you built, carried out in a single trip.
ivBehind the wardrobe, under ten years of dust, something was waiting: your grandfather's rod, a landing net, and a box of hooks that still smelled of the river.
vThe photographs came out with it. A boy on a bank at first light, holding a fish bigger than his own arms — and laughing.
viTwo hundred left in the account, one passport, and no return ticket. Either the cheapest mistake of your life, or the last honest job left on earth.
viiThe engines pushed, the towers fell away, and somewhere far below the water was already waiting. Whatever comes next, you'll be the one holding the rod.
