I was walking home when the city broke.
It was late. My shift had ended minutes earlier. Fifteen hours of cleaning public corridors—scraping grime off walls no one noticed, clearing trash no one claimed. City cleanup. Honest work, they called it.
Life was grim. I had no family. No education worth mentioning. No future anyone had bothered to explain to me.
I lived on the outskirts, where the towers gave way to stacked concrete blocks—housing piled on housing like bricks tossed together without care. I kept my head down. I didn't drink. I didn't gamble. I didn't dream much either.
I was almost home when the night turned white.
The explosion didn't roar at first. It cracked—sharp and violent—like the city itself snapping in two. The shockwave followed an instant later, lifting me off my feet and slamming me into the ground. Heat washed over me. The air turned solid with dust.
I don't remember screaming.
I remember silence. A ringing pressure in my ears. The taste of ash and blood.
When I stood, the street was gone. Buildings that had stood for decades were flattened, folded into each other like broken teeth. Fires burned without pattern. People ran without direction.
I searched for survivors until my hands shook too badly to continue.
The rescue crews arrived quickly. Too quickly. They always did after something like this. The official story spread faster than the smoke: A targeted strike. Necessary losses. The price of security.
They rebuilt within days. New structures rose atop the old, sealed and reinforced, as if nothing had happened.
I stayed.
Others didn't.
Those of us who remained were summoned. No warning. No explanation. We were given two options.
Work in the city.
Or leave it.
Leaving meant enlistment.
The military academy sat far from the towers, past the outer districts where surveillance thinned and the air felt strangely open. I was older than most who stood in line with me. Many were children pulled from orphan registries. Some cried. Some didn't understand what they were agreeing to.
I signed without hesitation.
The academy fed us. Housed us. Broke us down and rebuilt us piece by piece. They taught us how to march. How to obey. How to kill. How to think only when ordered to.
I struggled with the written work. Numbers and theory came slowly. Years without education leave scars no medicine fixes. But I learned. I adapted. I endured.
I excelled where it mattered.
By the end of the first year, I ranked second in my class overall. First in physical performance. First in discipline.
They said I lacked refinement.
They were right.