Morning came without fanfare, the same as every other morning in the Garbage of Humans.
No bell rang. No gentle light filtered through clean windows.
Instead, the first sign was the scraping sound of the heavy outer door being unlocked, followed by the low curses of the guards as they dragged in the daily ration cart.
The noise spread slowly through the hall like a ripple in thick mud people stirring, groaning, shifting on their straw mats.
Some sat up immediately.
Others stayed flat, eyes open but bodies still, waiting to see if today would bring food or only more waiting.
I had not slept.
Not truly.
The body rested, the mind did not.
I had spent the night cataloging the room: who moved first when the guards approached, who stayed hidden, who tried to edge closer without being noticed, who had the strength to push others aside.
Patterns emerged even in sleep.
The strong woke early.
The weak waited until the strong had taken their share.
The clever pretended to be weak.
Jasmin stirred beside me.
She had slept lightly, one hand on the blanket, the other near her face as if ready to cover it from a blow.
She opened her eyes, looked at me, then looked at the door.
"You didn't sleep," she said.
"No," I answered.
She gave the smallest nod, as if that was the expected response.
Then she stood, shaking out her limbs, folding the blanket into a tight square she tucked under her arm.
"Rations first," she said.
"Always rations first. If you wait, there's nothing left but crumbs and spit." The cart had stopped in the center of the hall.
Two guards flanked it.
Harg was one of them.
He carried a wooden club that looked worn from use, the handle dark from sweat and blood.
The other guard was thinner, younger, with a face that still carried some youth but eyes that had already learned cruelty.
They did not smile.
They did not speak unless necessary.
Behind the cart stood an old woman with a bent back and hands covered in scars.
She was the cook, or what passed for one.
She ladled thin porridge from a massive iron pot into cracked bowls.
Next to the pot were loaves of hard bread, already broken into uneven pieces.
The smell was faint—oats boiled too long, a hint of mold, the metallic tang of old water.
The line formed quickly.
Not in order.
Not with fairness.
The bigger boys moved first, shoving past the old and the small without hesitation.
A girl with short hair and a bruise on her cheek tried to slip in behind one of them; the boy turned, grabbed her wrist, twisted until she dropped back with a hiss.
Jasmin watched it all without expression.
Then she moved.
Not to the front.
Not to the back.
She angled to the side, staying near the wall, waiting until the first rush passed.
I followed her lead, one step behind When we reached the cart, the old woman barely looked up.
She scooped porridge into two bowls, pushed them forward with the heel of her hand.
Then she tore off two fist-sized chunks of bread and dropped them on top.
The bread was hard enough to hurt if thrown.
The porridge was gray and thin, flecked with bits of something unidentifiable.
Jasmin took her share with both hands.
She did not thank the woman.
She turned immediately and started walking back to our spot on the wall. I took mine the same way.
We sat again.
Jasmin broke her bread first, dipping half into the porridge to soften it.
She ate slowly, chewing thoroughly.
I did the same.
The taste was nothing.
The texture was nothing.
Around us, the hall filled with the sounds of eating: slurping, crunching, the occasional cough.
A fight started near the cart—two boys over the last piece of bread.
One had blue essence, faint but visible in the way his skin hardened when struck.
He won.
The other boy ended up on the floor, holding his face.
Harg watched from the side, club resting on his shoulder.
He did not intervene.
He looked mildly amused. Jasmin saw me watching.
"Happens every day," she said between bites.
"Strong ones eat. Weak ones learn to eat faster or go hungry. You'll figure it out." i nodded once. She swallowed, then added, "You're not eating like you're starving. Most new ones gulp it down in seconds." "I'm not starving," I said. She studied me for a moment.
Then she leaned back against the wall.
"You really are strange, Germain." I did not disagree.
The rations vanished as predictably as they had appeared, leaving only the residue of necessity behind. The porridge clung to the sides of the bowl like a thin film of obligation, a reminder that sustenance was not a right but a temporary concession granted by those who controlled the flow.
I scraped the last of it clean with the edge of the bread, not out of hunger but out of efficiency waste was a luxury for those who could afford to ignore the arithmetic of survival.
Jasmin finished before me, her movements precise, her gaze already shifting to the room's dynamics as if mapping the next few hours. She was not sentimental about the food
A boy approached us then, one of the larger ones I had noted earlier. He was perhaps twelve, with arms thickened by whatever blue essence he possessed—likely something minor, like enhanced endurance, enough to bully but not enough to escape this place. His face carried the marks of past fights: a scar across his cheek, a bruise fading under his eye. He stopped a step away, looming without effort, his shadow falling across our spot like a claim being staked.
"New kid," he said, voice low but carrying the weight of habit. "You got extra bread there. Hand it over."
Jasmin tensed beside me, her hand inching toward the folded blanket. She did not speak. She knew better than to waste words on inevitability.
I looked up at him, not with defiance or fear, but with assessment. His stance was wide, balanced for a quick grab. His eyes held no real malice only the mechanical drive of self-interest. He took from the weak because it cost him nothing and gained him something. Simple equation.
I held the remaining bread in my hand, weighing it literally and figuratively. It was half gone, worth perhaps a few hours of energy. Giving it would establish me as prey, inviting future takings. Resisting might invite violence, a cost in pain or injury that could compound over days. But pain was temporary; reputation was longer-lasting. And in this hall, reputation was currency.
"No," I said, voice flat.
He blinked, as if the word was unexpected. Most new arrivals complied. Most saw no benefit in resistance. He leaned in closer, breath sour from the porridge. "You think you're special? Noble rags don't mean shit here. Give it, or I take it and your spot too."
Jasmin shifted, whispering under her breath. "Germain, just give it. He's got essence. You don't."
Emotion whispered caution; logic calculated odds. He was stronger, yes. But strength without surprise was predictable. I set the bread down beside me, deliberately slow, drawing his eyes to it. As he reached, I moved ; not to fight, but to observe.
His hand closed on the bread. He straightened, smirking.
"Smart choice."
I said nothing.
She did not argue. Instead, she glanced at the boy, now sharing the stolen bread with two others. They laughed, low and mean. Jasmin's face hardened slightly, a flicker of something resentment, perhaps.
But she suppressed it. She was learning, even if she did not yet see it fully.
The meal ended the same way it began.
Bowls were stacked on the cart. The old woman wheeled it out.
The guards followed. The door locked again. Silence settled over the hall once more.
The guards assigned chores: scrubbing floors, emptying waste buckets, carrying water from the well outside. Harg pointed at groups, his club gesturing like an extension of his will. The old were spared the heaviest; the young took the brunt.
I was assigned to scrub a section of the hall near the door, where mud from outside had caked into layers. The brush was worn, the water dirty. I worked methodically, not fast, not slow. Speed invited more work; slowness invited punishment.
Balance was my key.
As I scrubbed, I reflected on the larger structure. This place was a microcosm of the empire: hierarchy enforced by strength, resources doled out by the indifferent, the weak subsisting on the edges.
An old man nearby struggled with his bucket, spilling water across the floor I had just cleaned. He muttered an apology, eyes downcast. I did not respond. Apologies were meaningless; the spill was fact. I scrubbed it again without complaint. He was weak, his actions predictable. No benefit in anger.
Jasmin worked across the room, carrying slop buckets. She glanced my way once, then looked away.
By midday, the chores ended. The hall returned to its stagnant quiet. I sat back against the wall, body tired but mind clear.
The guards collected the buckets and brushes without comment, their movements mechanical, their expressions blank. The hall returned to its default state: a low hum of breathing, occasional coughs, the soft scrape of bodies shifting on straw. Most people collapsed into corners or along the walls, conserving energy for the next demand. I remained seated, back against the stone, cataloging the fatigue in my limbs without letting it influence my thoughts.
Jasmin returned shortly after, wiping her hands on the hem of her ragged tunic. She sat beside me again, closer this time, though the distance remained deliberate close enough for quiet speech, far enough to deny closeness if questioned. She smelled faintly of sweat and the damp rot of the buckets, but beneath that was something cleaner, something that had not yet been entirely ground down by this place. I noticed it. I noted that I noticed it. The observation itself was a variable I would monitor.
For several minutes neither of us spoke. Then she broke the silence, voice low, almost casual, as if mentioning the weather.
"When people here turn fourteen," she said,
"they do an evaluation."
I turned my head slightly. "Evaluation?"
She nodded once, eyes fixed on a crack in the opposite wall.
"Every year, around the solstice, every temples send representatives. They line up everyone who's reached fourteen. They test for essence strength how much blue or white you have left, how well you can use it, whether you've got any hidden talent. They measure will, too. How long you can hold focus under pain. How much you can endure without breaking. The best of the best the ones who score highest—they take them."
She paused, letting the words settle.
"They send them to the capital. Not as servants. As students. They give you clean clothes, a bed that isn't crawling, teachers who actually teach. You study essence theory, combat forms, politics, history the same things the noble children learn. Some of them even rise. Become scribes, officers, minor officials. A few… a very few… climb higher. But most just disappear after the first year. They say the training breaks them. Or they say the nobles don't like common blood rising too close."
I processed the information without reaction. Opportunity. Risk. A ladder out of this pit, guarded by tests, pain, and selection. Probability of success low. Probability of death or permanent damage high. Yet the alternative was stagnation until decay claimed you. A calculated gamble.
"How often do they take someone?" I asked.
"Once every two or three years, maybe one or two from this place. The rest get sent back. Or worse. Some don't come back at all."
She turned her head toward me then, green eyes steady.
"You'd do well in the tests. You don't break easy. You think before you act. That's what they want they want people who can endure without wasting energy on useless feelings."
I looked at her fully now. The light from the narrow windows had shifted again, catching the side of her face, turning the dirt-smudged skin almost golden. Her expression was matter-of-fact, but beneath it was something else: a flicker of hope so faint it might have been imagination.
She was telling me this not out of kindness.
And yet the pressure in my chest returned, sharper this time. It was not gratitude. It was not pity. It was recognition of her as something irreplaceable. Not merely useful. Not merely an asset. Something I did not wish to lose, even if logic demanded I prepare for the possibility.
I dissected the sensation once more. It had form now. It had direction. It pointed toward her.
Love. The word surfaced unbidden, cold and analytical. An evolutionary mechanism to ensure cooperation, reproduction, resource-sharing. A chemical imbalance that reduced rational assessment. A liability in most circumstances. Yet in this moment, it did not feel like weakness. It felt like clarity. Like seeing a piece of the board that had been hidden until now.
I would not act on it. Not yet. Not until I understood its full cost and benefit. But I would not suppress it either
"You will be fourteen soon," I said.
" next 4 years."
"Then we will prepare."
She looked at me for a long moment, searching my face. "We?"
"Yes."
She did not smile. She did not thank me. She simply nodded once, as if the decision had been inevitable.