The sky was bleeding again. Not the soft crimson of a sunset, or the pale gold of sunlight after a storm, but a harsh, bruised red that stretched across the clouds like an angry god searching for solace in humanity's struggle. A jagged rift split the sky, letting gusts of wind tumble through the sanctuary's streets, carrying ash and soot that seemed almost alive, seeking something to cling to. Fourteen years had passed since the Fall, yet the world still smelled of fire, decay, and memory.
The sanctuary outskirts were quiet—too quiet. With the sole exception of A few older kids who lingered nearby, like chattering ghost among the ruins of this wasteland, they watched Azra. Their eyes measured him, weighing, judging, trying to guess what kind of prey he might be. That was how the world worked now.
Azra smirked at one of the older boys and held out his hand. In his palm lay a small silver note, battered and tarnished by years of neglect. He clenched his fist, rolling the note back and forth for a few seconds before flicking it into the air.
It sailed like a falling star, its shine stark against the ashen sky. For a moment, Azra almost cringed, the sight ironic in its own cruel way. Then he bolted, light on his feet, dodging the pack of scavengers who rushed after the coin. By the time they reached the spot, the note had vanished. Nothing but wind and ash remained
"A simple trick to fool a simple mind!"Azra shouted laughing quietly to himself as he ducked into a narrow alley, his heart racing.
The Selection court lay far from the outskirts where Azra lived, nestled in the sanctuary's heart. To reach it, he would have to pass through customs, checkpoints, and the watchful eyes of soldiers.
"What a hassle," he muttered, adjusting his goggles and moving forward.
—
Gillian lay flat against the scorched ground, his body still as stone. His eyes narrowed to a point, unblinking.
BAM!
The shot cracked across the silence of the street. A small creature twitched once, then went still.
Only then did Gillian exhale. His vision blurred, the sharp focus bleeding away. Muscles screamed as he shifted, peeling himself up from the bed of ash and rubble where he'd lain unmoving for a day, waiting for that one chance.
"Excellent shot, son!" a voice rang out from above.
He twisted sharply, gaze snapping to the balcony where the figure stood. Cold recognition flickered across his face, but he gave no reply. Without a word, Gillian turned back, rifle steady in his hands.
The man on the balcony descended a moment later, boots crunching over blackened glass. He wore the insignia of a stag, white cloak stained with soot. His voice carried cheer, but his eyes did not.
"You've grown sharper," the man said, surveying the corpse of the small beast. "Patience like that… rare in your age."
Gillian didn't answer. The ash clung to his skin, soaked into his clothes, and he wondered if he'd ever be clean again. Words felt unnecessary, wasteful.
The man crouched beside him, studying the spent shell casing glinting faintly in the dust.
"You'll be summoned soon, you know. The Selection is coming. Every eye will be on you." The man said before standing up and gently patting Gillian's shoulder.
That word — Selection — landed heavy, as though it could press the breath out of him. Gillian's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. His gaze drifted back to the horizon sweeping it away.
The ruins stretched endlessly. Buildings half-swallowed by earth. Metal skeletons of towers that had once pierced the sky. The air smelled of iron and soot, the kind of smell that never left a place. Somewhere beneath it all, he could almost hear the old world groaning in its grave.
The man sighed, as though disappointed. He straightened, dusting ash from his hands. "Keep that silence, then. One day it may save you. Or break you."
He turned to leave, cloak dragging through the ash. Gillian remained standing, rifle steady, eyes cutting through the haze like knives. The world felt distant, muted, until only his heartbeat and the faint rasp of wind remained.
His target was gone, but the hunt was not over. It never was.
—
The sanctuary gates were a sight to behold. Massive steel arches loomed over the city's entrance, marked with the scars of old battles. Azra had glimpsed them countless times while running errands or scavenging along the outskirts, but he had never truly stopped to take them in. Now, standing before them, he could see the careful repairs, the patches of rust, and the banners hastily tacked up to show unity.
The line for salvation snaked for miles, a ribbon of humanity stretching toward the gates. Yet even here, in the chaos of waiting, the walls offered a fragile comfort. Behind them lay the remnants of North America's last standing communities—a patchwork of refugees, soldiers, and survivors clinging to order in a world that had none.
The defeat against the Horde a few weeks ago still rippled through the sanctuary. Refugees poured in by the thousands, fleeing burned-out towns and broken supply lines. Soldiers marched with weary precision, guarding the perimeter, checking papers, and keeping the line moving. The influx had turned registration into a slog, forcing Azra to inch forward slowly, step by step, through a sea of ash-streaked faces and tense murmurs.
Even the smell of humanity pressed against him—the sweat, the smoke, the faint scent of fear and hope mingled in the air. Azra inhaled slowly, letting it settle in his chest. Tomorrow, he would step beyond this line. Tomorrow, he would face the Selection. And right now, all he could do was move forward.
The closer Azra got to the gates, the louder the murmurs became. Voices overlapped—complaints, instructions, warnings, the occasional cry of someone losing their patience. The line crawled forward like a wounded animal. Kids younger than him stared wide-eyed, clutching tattered bags or scraps of metal that passed for toys. Their faces were streaked with ash and grime, eyes hollow with exhaustion and fear. Some whispered prayers; others cursed under their breath. The older ones, hardened by years surviving no man's land, moved with careful control, muscles coiled and ready.
At the front, the customs checkpoint loomed. Soldiers in neat uniforms leaned against the walls, arms crossed, eyes sharp. They weren't there to greet anyone. They were there to decide who passed and who got turned away. Everyone knew someone would be sent back. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually, the sanctuary always reminded its people that it had rules.
Azra slowed, letting others push ahead while he studied the guards. Each one had a tell—a twitch of the fingers, the way their gaze lingered too long on a face, the pattern of their movements. It was the sort of thing he had learned to notice over years of running errands, sneaking supplies, and avoiding trouble.
A girl a few spaces ahead tripped on a loose cobblestone. Her bag fell, scattering scraps of cloth and a cracked tin cup across the street. A soldier barked, and she froze, scrambling to pick everything back up. The guard didn't even look at her again after that, but the girl's hands shook for several seconds. Azra noted it quietly.
When it was his turn, he stepped up. The guard barely glanced at him, waving his hand to the side. "Name," the man grunted.
"Azra Maximus Klein," he replied, voice steady despite the tightness in his chest.
The guard's eyes flicked over him quickly, then to the other guard beside him, and back again. No words, just a pause that lasted too long. Azra's stomach tightened. That pause, the weight of judgment in the quiet glance—it was enough to make anyone flinch.
"Move along," the first guard finally said
With a breath, Azra pushed forward,
Inside the sanctuary, nothing looked like mercy. The buildings had been stitched together with steel plates and patched concrete, their repairs honest but ugly — a patchwork of survival where triumph had once stood. Windows glinted like the eyes of startled animals; facades bore the ghost-maps of old fires and new welds. What passed for streets were swept clean, not out of cleanliness but because order would not tolerate the clutter of collapse.
Crowds flowed through those neat avenues like a slow, patient tide. People moved with purpose now — not the raw, fearful scramble of familiar outskirts, but a thinner, keener hunger. Goals, yes; urgency. Yet beneath that drive there was a tightness to their faces, as if everyone here had learned to bite down on hope and swallow it rather than let go.
The laughter of children sounded small and brittle, vendors barking into the mass of people huddled together at corners under patched awnings to escape the bleaching sun, hawking salvaged trinkets and rationed foods as if they were holy relics pure and precious.
Houses held families tightly in their patched rooms; larger buildings sheltered those who'd found a better edge on the new order. Men and women moved with the crisp, efficient steps of people who'd been drilled to survive by routine. Even the air felt curated: scrubbed of the worst rot, still carrying a sour undertone of smoke and disinfectant, a reminder that safety here was paid for in vigilance.
For the first time in his life Azra watched strangers who had something to aim at — a ration to buy, a repair to finish, a quota to meet — and it made his chest ache. Liberation, he realized, could be a kind of weight. The sanctuary's order was neat, efficient, and precise—but it was not kind. It held its people close with a grip that left bruises, and if you weren't careful, it would trade your name for the illusion of safety without a second thought.
He pushed through the last narrow street and into the court's bowl, and the air changed again—thicker now, as if the city held its breath. The arena unfolded around him: a sunken plaza of flagstones blackened in places, concentric benches cut from salvaged stone, and a raised dais at the center rimmed with rusted railings and patched metal. A circle of speakers hung awkwardly from poles, their mesh fronts dented; someone had lashed banners to them that flapped like wounded flags.
Candidates clustered in ragged groups, a swarm of anxious bodies under the bruised sky. Faces were turned upward more than toward each other—eyes scanning for faces of authority, for the slow nods that meant a name would be called. Some parents lingered at the back, hands clamped white around kids' shoulders. A few older survivors sat high on the benches, folding their arms as if judging the line themselves. Soldiers moved through the gaps like knives, efficient and indifferent.
Azra found a place where shadow met stone and settled there, keeping to the edge. From his vantage he could see the whole performance—who paced, who chewed at cracked lips, who kept their hands oddly still. He watched a girl three rows over with a braid wrapped in scrap wire; she kept counting under her breath, fingers tapping out a rhythm. A lanky boy whispered to himself, practicing words he might need. Each nervous ritual was a small attempt to conjure luck.
Announcements cut through the plaza in a flat, official voice. A list of names began to roll—first those called for paperwork, then those summoned to the dais for inspection. The cadence was mechanical: names, numbers, directions. Some of the calls were met with relief, others with coughs and silent prayers. A young woman in front of Azra rose when her name came, shoulders squared, and walked with the hollow bravery of someone who'd practiced smiling into pain. She did not return.
Time folded into itself, minutes stretching thin into an ache. The sunlight slashed the arena in strips, and in the shaded pockets people huddled like rats avoiding humans.
A man with a slate clipboard climbed the dais and called names louder, the sound rolling off the stone. Each name was answered hesitantly as they slowly stepped toward the ironed seats. Azra felt the pull, a cold knot of want and dread.
For a long beat the man with the slate read the name on his paper without saying it, as if weighing the syllables. Azra felt that same long pause press against his ribs. Around him the plaza softened into a small, watchful hush.
"Azra Maximus Klein," the slate-man said finally. His voice was low, meant to carry.
It landed against Azra like a hand on the shoulder. He rose, all the practiced calm he could muster wrapped around him like armor, and walked toward the dais. Each step echoed on the stone, loud enough that for a moment he could hear only his own feet and the dry scrape of ash underfoot. People turned. Heads tilted. The crowd parted like a grand feat in some old writing, voices hushed down to the sound of his breath.
He climbed to the edge of the dais and waited, palms flat against cold metal, feeling its smoothness and the faint hum of unknown machines churning below. The slate-man checked a column, scratched something with a stub of charcoal, and glanced at a woman seated on a chair behind a stack of ledgers—an official with a scar along her jaw and grey-flecked hair tied back so tight it pulled the skin at her temples. She nodded once, almost mechanically, and the man beside her inclined his head.
Azra braced himself. The arena hushed into an expectant silence, and for a breath the world seemed impossibly small and precise—stone tiles, the smooth steel, and the echo of every scrape and whisper that had led him here.
"State your age," the woman said. Her tone was soft but there was weight behind it, the kind that would comfort you.
"Fourteen," Azra answered, voice steady. The watchers shifted a little.
The woman tapped the ledger, her pen stuttering as if reluctant. She did not speak for a long moment—long enough for the plaza to collect its own breath. Then she looked back at him, and in that look Azra saw the last patience of someone who'd read too many names and given the same nod to too many losses.
"You understand what this is?" she asked finally.
He could have answered all sorts of ways—defiance, bravado, pleading. He chose honest. "I know what it is."
She watched him as if searching for cracks. When she nodded, it was not relief he read in her eyes but calculation. "Then step aside. You'll be processed."
He stepped down, the platform beneath him swallowing the echo. As he moved back into the press of bodies, the crowd washed around him like cold water. Some faces offered thin smiles; others watched hard, their expressions unreadable.
He had passed the first gate. The rest of it lay ahead—paperwork, inspection, the slower grind of being considered and measured. It would take more than one nod to win a place inside the Sanctuary's rare safety. Still, he had cleared the first step. For the moment, that was enough.