Runne's eyes snapped open, his own ragged gasp pulling him from the nightmare. It clung to him like a second skin, a film of cold sweat and phantom sounds. His brother's fading voice, the monster's guttural roar, the final, knowing look in his mum's eyes before the darkness swallowed her whole.
He sat up, the thin sheets tangled around his legs. On the windowsill of his tiny, cube-like room, the toy soldier stood its silent watch.
Its chipped paint glinted in the dim light of the single flickering bulb overhead, a constant, ten-year-old reminder of the promise he'd failed to keep.
The room was cold. His bare feet flinched as they hit the cracked concrete floor. He reached for the soldier, the worn plastic a familiar comfort against his fingertips.
A sharp knock on the metal door made him freeze.
"You alive in there, Veyne?" The voice was gruff, but held a familiar, grating warmth. Before he could answer, the door swung open.
Martha stood in the frame, her fiery red bob sharp and severe. Her pale blue eyes swept the room in a single, hawk-like glance that took in his sweat-damp sheets and trembling hands.
"Another one," she stated. It wasn't a question.
Runne just nodded, his throat too tight to speak.
With a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the whole damn military, Martha stepped inside and tossed a crumpled grey uniform onto the bed. "Get dressed. You're late."
Runne caught the faded fabric. "I—"
"Don't." Martha cut him off, her voice sharp as shrapnel. "The nightmares won't kill you. Out there, everything else will. Suck it up and move."
She turned to leave but paused at the door, her hand resting on the frame. She tossed a dented metal thermos towards him without looking back.
"And drink this. You look like death."
Runne fumbled the catch. The rich, dark smell of black coffee, a luxury this deep in the barracks filled the small room. He looked at the thermos, then at her retreating back.
"Thanks," he muttered, but she was already gone.
He took a long swallow of the bitter, life-giving liquid. With a deep sigh, he pulled on the uniform. It was standard issue for the dormant corps—the official designation for military personnel without a Resonant Core. The fresh meat. The cannon fodder.
He ran a hand through his unkempt black hair, a bitter taste in his mouth that had nothing to do with the coffee.
Ten years, and all he had to show for it was this faded grey uniform and a ghost that never stopped screaming.
He grabbed the toy soldier, slipping it into his pocket before making his way out of the barrack, the clomp of his standard-issue boots echoing in the sterile corridor.
Time to face another day as a cog in a machine he wasn't truly part of.
The corridor opened into a vast, pre-dawn courtyard. The air was frigid, slicing at any exposed skin, and smelled of diesel fumes and damp gravel.
Floodlights cut through the gloom, illuminating clouds of condensing breath from the hundreds of soldiers standing in formation.
It was the daily ritual: a sea of grey uniforms, the clatter of gear, and the barked orders of a Sergeant Major trying to impose order on the chaos.
Runne found his platoon—the other members of the dormant corps and shuffled into line, keeping his head down.
Here, the divide was obvious. To their right stood the Awakened platoons, their gear newer, their postures sharper. They were the real weapons. Runne and his cohort were the sandbags.
On a raised platform at the front, Sergeant Kellan, a bulldog of a man whose face seemed permanently fixed in a scowl, was rattling off assignments from a data-pad.
"Fireteam Echo. You're running perimeter sweeps on the western wall. High alert. I want reports every thirty minutes. Don't fuck it up."
A small group of Awakened soldiers broke off, their movements sharp and synchronised. Runne caught a glimpse of the fireteam's leader—a young woman with black hair pulled into a severe ponytail.
Her uniform was pristine, her blade a custom piece, and the faint shimmer of energy around her hands marked her as Awakened. She didn't even glance toward the dormant platoons. To her, they were part of the landscape.
"Veyne!"
Runne's head snapped up.
Kellan's eyes locked onto him. "Sector Seven. Slum patrol. Keep the squatters from killing each other. Try not to get shanked."
A few snickers rippled through the nearby ranks. Slum patrol was bottom-of-the-barrel work. "Yes, Sergeant," Runne muttered, his jaw tight.
Just as Kellan was about to dismiss them, a runner sprinted up to the platform, handing him a sealed message tube. Kellan cracked it open, his brow furrowing as he read the flimsy printout inside. He looked up, his gaze sweeping the yard before landing, once again, on Runne.
"Veyne! Hold up. Scratch that."
Runne froze, turning back.
Kellan waved the printout dismissively. "Change of plans. Topside wants a warm body on the southern line, effective immediately. That's you. A transport is waiting at Hangar Bay Four. Get moving."
A murmur went through the crowd. The southern line was a frozen, empty wasteland. No one had been posted there in years.
"Sir?" Runne asked, confused. "What's the assignment?"
Kellan scowled, crushing the paper in his fist. "The assignment is to go where I fucking tell you to go. Now get out of my sight."
Runne walked away from the muster yard, the Sergeant's final, dismissive words echoing in his ears. The initial confusion was already hardening into a familiar, bitter resignation.
Topside wants a warm body. That's all he was. A piece to be moved around a board he couldn't see, and dormant pieces were the most disposable of all.
***
Hangar Bay Four was a vast, cavernous dome at the edge of the base, echoing with the whine of machinery and the shouts of ground crews.
A blocky, graceless transport craft, affectionately nicknamed the 'Wombat' by the troops, sat waiting, its rear ramp lowered like a hungry mouth.
The pilot, a man Runne had never seen before, just grunted and jerked a thumb towards the empty passenger bay.
The ramp sealed with a hydraulic hiss, plunging the bay into a dim, red-lit gloom. Runne strapped himself into a cold metal seat as the transport shuddered and lifted off the ground, the vibrations rattling through his bones.
The southern line, the thought, shaking his head. 'What a fucking joke.'
He hadn't been this far south since the day he'd first arrived, a broken little boy clutching a toy. The area was a dead zone, written off as uninhabitable.
Why send anyone there now? Was this some kind of punishment detail he hadn't heard about? Did he piss someone off? Or was it just random? A roll of the dice, and his number came up. With the dormant corps, it was usually just random.
His hand rested on the stock of the standard-issue pulse rifle clamped to his thigh. It was a rugged, reliable weapon, spitting out superheated particles that could punch through most low-level threats.
He knew how to strip it, clean it, and fire it with practiced efficiency. He also knew it was useless against any serious Awakened threat.
It was a tool for crowd control and for putting down the dumb, animalistic beasts that sometimes strayed too close to the outer walls. Against real power, it was just a noisemaker.
His other hand drifted unconsciously to his pocket, fingers brushing against the hard, familiar shape of the toy soldier. He squeezed it gently. 'Be brave. Protect your brother.'
The promise of an eight-year-old boy. A promise that had curdled into a decade-long failure. He was still that helpless kid, just taller. Still powerless to stop the monsters.
The drone of the Wombat's engines was a steady hum. Through the small, reinforced porthole, he watched the sprawling, grey geometry of the base shrink away until it was just a smudge, soon replaced by an endless, rolling expanse of white.
There were no landmarks, no signs of life, just the featureless, blinding glare of snow and ice under a pale, indifferent sun. He was a speck, heading toward nothing.
After what felt like an hour, the pilot's voice crackled through the intercom. "Alright kid, this is it. Your stop."
The transport slowed, hovering with a deep thrum. The rear ramp whined open, revealing a wall of white. A savage, howling wind tore into the bay, bringing with it a spray of fine, needle-like ice.
"My job's to drop you at the marker," the pilot's voice said. "Orders don't say nothing about pickup. Good luck."
Runne stared at the man for a second, then unstrapped himself, pulled his thermal hood tight around his face, and walked to the edge of the ramp. There was no outpost. No shelter. Just the wind and the white. He was completely, utterly alone.
He took a breath, the freezing air burning his lungs, and stepped out into the storm. The Wombat didn't wait, its ramp already closing as it banked and disappeared back the way it came, its engine noise swallowed by the gale.
Then, silence. Only the sound of the wind, howling across the top of the world.