Trust the System

Above, the fires raged on—but now they burned in silence.

Drones patrolled the skies like metal vultures, gliding between the smoke columns with eerie grace. Their engines purred low, almost inaudible, as they scanned the streets below with beams of blue light. Occasionally, one would pause, hovering above a cluster of figures darting through alleyways or breaking into boarded-up storefronts. A moment of hesitation—and then a soft click, a camera shutter, a red dot, a shriek. The drone didn’t need to kill. It only needed to mark. The ground forces would handle the rest.

The gangs had adapted. Some worked with the machines now—paid off by those still pretending to run the show. Others stayed underground, literally, burrowing into the ruins of parking garages and subway stations like rats avoiding a flame.

And through it all, on every surviving screen—on the few televisions still drawing power, on cracked tablets hanging in shattered storefronts, on the digital billboards that still flickered like ghosts—Mayor Karen Trout smiled.

She was flawless in every appearance. Her face never showed the stress of collapse. Not the stink of blood on the streets, nor the sound of mothers weeping for their children. She wore pearls. Always pearls.

The screen behind her was a looped image of an untouched City Hall, rendered in digital gloss: bright, hopeful skies, green lawns, the California flag snapping proudly in the breeze. It hadn’t looked that way in weeks.

"My fellow Angelenos," she began, in that voice slick with warmth and devoid of empathy, “I want to reassure you that our city remains under control.”

Behind her, somewhere off-screen, a muffled explosion shook the building. The lights flickered. She didn’t flinch.

“We are experiencing a brief transitional period,” she continued, eyes unblinking, smile frozen. “But progress is happening. The insurgents—those few who reject order—are being dealt with quickly and decisively.”

Footage cut in: not of current Los Angeles, but clips from six months ago. Police walking orderly lines, citizens applauding, flowers handed out at community events. Lies. Archive reel masquerading as present day.

“And thanks to our partnership with Sentinel Solutions,” she said, gesturing vaguely toward the hovering drones outside the windows, “we’ve achieved a level of safety and oversight unmatched in American history.”

Outside, a drone descended over Skid Row, locked onto a teenage boy raiding an abandoned pharmacy. His scream was cut short by a single high-frequency burst. His body twitched, then dropped. No trial. No warning.

Mayor Trout went on. “Let’s all do our part. Remain indoors. Obey the curfew. Trust the system. The light at the end of the tunnel grows brighter every day.”

She signed off with her signature wink. The screen faded, the broadcast looped again.

Somewhere, in a burned-out office building, a group of survivors watched her face vanish from a shattered flat-screen. One of them spit on the ground. Another picked up a Molotov.

The city was not fooled.

It had simply gone quiet before the storm.

 

The World Fades

The fluorescent lights buzz faintly in the long, linoleum-floored hallways of the nursing home, their hum a soft white noise that merges with the distant murmur of televisions and the occasional rattle of a food cart. Time does not move here as it does elsewhere. It loops and blurs, stretches and folds back in on itself. The clocks tick, but their rhythm means little to those who drift through this place—like ghosts tethered by muscle and breath.

Wheelchairs glide slowly through the corridor, pushed by tired hands or nudged along by occasional staff. The residents move not with destination, but with instinct. There is no map for where they are trying to go—only a deep, persistent sense that something familiar waits just around the corner. If only they could remember what.

Mabel turns down the east wing, her thin fingers gripping the armrests of her chair. She whispers a name under her breath, though she can’t say who it belongs to. Was it a son? A sister? The hallway is lined with framed prints—generic landscapes and still lifes—but one makes her pause. A farmhouse in the snow. She stares, lips parting, something trembling just below consciousness. But then, like breath on glass, it vanishes. She moves on.

James sits near the window at the end of the hall. His eyes are on the glass, but he sees nothing outside. His chair faces the lawn, though it may as well be the sea or a church or the backdrop of a play. Every so often, he mutters a joke with no setup, and chuckles, as if waiting for someone beside him to laugh too. The seat next to him is empty.

Others wander the maze of the building in slow circles, again and again, passing the same water fountain, the same peeling bulletin board filled with last month’s birthdays. Some smile faintly at each other in passing—recognition flickering like candlelight in a wind. “You look like someone,” one might say. “Do I know you?” But the answer always slides away.

In the rec room, the television is on but unwatched. The sound is down low, voices from another world. A few residents sit nearby, their wheelchairs arranged in a loose, unspoken semicircle, as if expecting a sermon or a performance. Their faces are still, tilted as if listening. Perhaps they are. Perhaps not to the TV, but to some echo in their minds—a music box tune, a grandmother's lullaby, the voice of a long-dead love.

The staff move through the haze like gardeners tending a surreal garden. They speak gently, offer warm hands, adjust pillows, guide wheels. But even they can’t anchor the residents for long. The fog always rolls back in.

And so they roam—quiet pilgrims on an endless loop. Looking. Searching. Not for escape, but for recognition. For a word, a face, a memory solid enough to catch hold of and not slip away. Something to say yes, this is now, and I am here.

But the world fades, gently and without cruelty. Edges soften. Names melt. Time dissolves. And the wheelchairs keep rolling.

 

Vanishing Bliss

 

The monk remained still as night unfurled its cloak across the sky. The last color bled from the stones, leaving only soft blues and silvers. Bats flickered in the growing dark. The mountain had vanished into silhouette, no longer a shape but a presence—unseen, yet there.

And within him, something had also dimmed.

The voice that had once narrated his every breath was quiet now.
He was not trying to be silent.
He simply had no need to speak—not even inwardly.

Instead, the world grew louder.

The rustling of leaves in the wind.
The crunch of a fox somewhere below.
The deep hum of crickets, chanting as if the earth itself were breathing.

And the monk, in his stillness, was no longer a man.
He was a pair of ears.
A surface of skin touched by breeze.
A presence, without center.

“Indeed,” a thought surfaced gently, as if drifting up from a dream,
“one of the highest pleasures is to be more or less unconscious of one’s own existence…”

The words echoed softly. Not with logic, but with recognition.

He remembered moments—
Standing on the edge of the sea as a boy,lost in the roar of waves.
Walking through spring woods, dappled in green light.
Listening to an old woman tell stories by a fire, his whole being wrapped in her voice.

In those moments, he had not thought, “I am experiencing joy.”
He had simply been absorbed.
Gone.
And that vanishing had been bliss.

Now, sitting before the mountain, he felt it again.
No longer trying to understand.
No longer trying to hold anything.

The distinction between the monk and the mountain, between the breath and the wind, between being and not being— thinned, and then vanished.

He was not aware of time.
He was not aware of himself.

And in that forgetting, he smiled.

Not as a man smiles, but as the moon glints on a still pond.

The Language of the Mountain

The sun had begun its slow descent behind the western cliffs, casting long amber shadows across the stone terrace where the monk sat cross-legged, alone. Before him stood the mountain—immense, unmoving, older than anything he could comprehend. It had been there before his master was born, before any temple stones were laid, before even the first name for "mountain" was spoken.

His eyes were closed, but the light pressed softly against his skin, warm at first, then fading.

He breathed in.

He breathed out.

Thoughts arose like ripples in a still pool: memories of childhood, vague longings, and half-formed questions about the world. Then came words—phrases, images, entire internal conversations. The monk watched them as one might observe clouds passing overhead: shifting, multiplying, dissolving.

But today, something caught.

A thought repeated itself:

“Who is it that thinks?”

Another arose in reply:
“I do.”

But before he could accept that answer, another voice—calmer, deeper—murmured within:

“What is ‘I’? And whose language do you use to speak it?”

He opened his eyes.

The mountain had not moved. The light had gone pink along the rim. The world was silent except for the occasional chirp of a bird readying for sleep.

The monk looked out over the valley, where homes flickered in the distance. He realized that even the shape of his thoughts—every word, every image, even the structure of his questions—had not originated within him.

The words in his mind were not of his own making.
The voice he called his own had been taught to him.
Even the question “Who am I?” was a gift passed down from others who had asked it first.

He had spent years searching for the “true self,” but now he saw clearly:
He was a vessel.
And the water within him had been poured by unseen hands.

He turned back to the mountain.
Still it stood—silent, uncarved by thought.

“Perhaps the mountain is wiser,” he whispered.
“It says nothing, thinks nothing, yet it is utterly itself.”

The sun dipped lower, and the sky flared briefly before dimming.

The monk closed his eyes again, not in search, but in surrender.

If he was not the maker of his thoughts, then he could release them.
Let them return to the wind, to the ancestors, to the vast unknowing.

The mountain said nothing.
And in that silence, he found a stillness deeper than any answer.

 

I Watch the Flicker

I sit. I think I’ve been sitting a long time.

The chair is soft. Or maybe it’s not.

I’m not sure where my legs went.

There’s a light on the wall. It changes.

People move in it.

They smile too wide.

Their mouths don’t match their words.

I don’t know what they want.

Beside me, a woman mumbles into her lap.

She could be my sister.

Or my daughter.

Or a mirror.

I blink.

It’s still Tuesday.

Or Wednesday.

I think I had soup.

Something is funny. The man laughs.

I laugh too, just in case.

It feels right.

Or it used to.

I see a beach on the screen.

The waves know my name.

I want to go there.

I think I already did.

Maybe I never left.

A nurse touches my arm.

She says “sweetheart.”

I like that word.

She smells like lemons. Or clouds.

I want to ask her something…

But the thought floats away—

gone before I can catch it.

Like the others.

So many others.

I turn back to the flicker.

It’s still there.

Still glowing.

I wait for something to begin.

It already has.

Or maybe it never will.

 

Static Flowers

The colors flicker… faces move.

Lips talk but…

no sound I know.

Someone laughs. Was it me?

Rows of chairs like gravestones.

People blinking.

Some sleeping.

One rocking, one humming a song I forget.

The box on the wall—

is it telling me something?

A horse.

A man with teeth.

A woman cries in a kitchen.

I think she knows me.

I lift my hand—

no, not mine—hers.

Nails chipped.

A tremble.

Skin like paper dolls.

The man beside me smells like dust.

I like him.

Or maybe I don’t.

He once had a dog?

Or a war?

Laughter from the screen again.

Is this a game?

Did we win?

I feel warm. Or wet.

Does that matter now?

Someone walks by—white shoes.

She bends down, says words.

Soft words.

I nod.

That’s what I do. Nod.

The TV glows,

and we bloom in its static—

all of us,

together,

like flowers no one waters

but still

refuse

to wilt.

 

Ain't No Easy Way Out

Above ground, the city was dying in slow motion.

The smoke hung heavy over Los Angeles like a shroud, glowing red from within as if the city’s soul had caught fire and couldn't find a way out. Sirens no longer wailed. They had been drowned out weeks ago by the sharper screams of the desperate and the dull thump of boots on pavement. Buildings stood half-collapsed or blackened with soot, their windows smashed, their signs hanging askew like broken limbs.

Flames licked the sky from half a dozen different directions, casting the skyline in an ever-shifting dance of destruction. Streetlights flickered with no rhythm or purpose, powered by what little juice remained in the crippled grid. Gunshots echoed through the canyons of concrete, sharp cracks that ricocheted off glass and steel.

It hadn’t started all at once.

There had been rumors first—quiet, disconnected murmurs of power outages, missing police patrols, and neighborhoods left unguarded. Then came the footage. A mob flooding Wilshire Boulevard. Fires set in front of City Hall. Looters dragging generators down Sunset in broad daylight, grinning at the hovering drones that filmed it all for no one.

And when the National Guard pulled out—told to stand down by politicians who had already fled—Los Angeles was left to cannibals in the flesh and the spirit.

From atop the skeletal remains of a burned-out overpass, a lone figure watched the city rage. Smoke curled around his silhouette, hiding the grime and blood that covered his coat. His rifle dangled at his side. He wasn’t here to fight today—just to remember.

Below him, in what used to be a grocery store parking lot, rival gangs roared as two prisoners were dragged into the light. One was barely conscious, the other defiant even as the boots came down on his ribs. This wasn’t justice. It wasn’t even war. It was theater. Punishment as public entertainment.

To the north, the Hollywood Hills flickered like kindling, luxury homes reduced to charred skeletons. To the south, Downtown had collapsed into itself, skyscrapers gutted and remade into strongholds by those who claimed dominion now.

This wasn’t about territory anymore. It was about dominance. Fear. Control. The city was a carcass, and every gang and warlord wanted a bite.

But the figure on the overpass knew something they didn’t.

Beneath all this chaos, under the feet of the looters and killers and tyrants, there were still people. Still survivors. Still fighters.

People who had fled into the tunnels not to hide, but to wait. To plan.

He looked toward the scorched horizon, past the plumes of fire, and whispered to himself, “They think we’re gone. That was their mistake.”

Then he turned, disappearing into the shadows, heading for a forgotten access hatch beneath a graffiti-covered wall. The city might have burned above, but below, resistance was being forged in silence and steel.

And soon—very soon—it would rise.

 

The Land Below

The air underground was thick with the scent of oil, sweat, and stale earth. The dim light of jury-rigged LEDs cast long, trembling shadows against concrete walls scarred by decades of neglect. It wasn’t much—just a network of maintenance tunnels and an abandoned Cold War-era fallout shelter—but for the survivors of Los Angeles, it was all that remained of safety.

A low murmur of voices filled the main chamber, a wide room once intended to store emergency rations. Now it was their war room. Tables cobbled together from scavenged doors and steel sawhorses held maps of the city above, hand-drawn and marked with notes: “Water source here,” “Enemy patrol routes,” “Collapsed freeway—impassable.” Cans of food sat stacked in a corner like a paltry tribute to survival, and a rusted heater rattled faintly, doing its best to keep the chill of the deep tunnels at bay.

A young woman, her face streaked with grime and determination, leaned over the maps. “They’re weakest near the river,” she said. “The raiders don’t hold the bridges at night. That’s our chance.” Her voice was low but carried a fire that others turned toward like moths to flame.

An older man with a scar across his jaw shook his head. “We’ve got a handful of rifles and barely a clip each. You think that’s enough to take on a gang that leveled Koreatown and burned Echo Park to the ground?”

“It’s not enough,” another said—a wiry figure seated on a crate, sharpening a blade with steady hands. “But waiting down here till we starve isn’t enough either. They don’t even know we’re alive.”

Children clung to their mothers near the far wall, eyes wide and unblinking. They whispered questions the adults ignored: When will we go back? Is our house still there? No one had the heart to tell them the truth.

Nearby, two men argued over inventory. “We’re down to three days of clean water if we ration,” one muttered, scratching at a beard that had grown wild and uneven. “We’ll need to send another salvage team topside.”

“And risk them getting picked off like the last two?” snapped the other.

Silence settled in like a thick fog. Everyone knew the fate of the last team—ambushed near what used to be Griffith Park, their bodies left as a warning.

Still, in the gloom, there was a current of something stronger than fear. Rage. Resolve. They had lost families, homes, entire lives to the lawless invaders who now ruled the city. And though their numbers were few, and their weapons scarce, the bunker walls seemed to vibrate faintly with an unspoken vow:

We will take it back.

Somewhere above, Los Angeles smoldered—its streets ruled by gangs, its skyline broken and choked with ash. But deep below, a plan was taking shape.

 

Threads of Vapor

The monk had climbed for hours to reach the Master’s hut, high on the wind-bitten ridge. His legs ached, his lungs burned, but his thoughts burned hotter still. He could not stop them—the regrets of his youth, the anxieties of what was to come.

When he arrived, the Master was seated on a rock, gazing at the sky. Above them, a lenticular cloud hung like a pale ship adrift in blue—motionless yet shifting imperceptibly, changing shape even as it seemed still.

“Master,” the monk began, bowing low, “I am tormented by the past and terrified of the future. I wish to live fully in the present, but it slips through my fingers. How do I hold on?”

The Master did not look at him. His eyes were fixed on the hovering cloud.

“Tell me,” he said softly, “how long do you think that cloud will last?”

The monk glanced upward. “Perhaps a few hours, Master.”

The Master nodded. “And after it has gone, who will remember it? Will the sky remember? Will the mountain remember? Will even you remember?”

The monk was silent.

“See how it appears so perfect,” the Master continued. “It is born of wind and moisture, unseen forces in the air. It lingers for a moment—perhaps long enough for a wandering monk to notice it—and then it vanishes without a trace.”

The Master turned, his gaze piercing now. “And so it is with you. You are born of forces unseen, you linger here a moment, and then you vanish. The mountain will not remember your steps. The river will not recall your reflection. The sky will not keep your sighs.”

The monk felt a chill as the wind rose. “Then… is there no meaning?”

The Master smiled faintly. “The cloud does not ask why it exists. It forms, it floats, it dissolves. And yet in its brief being, it is utterly complete.”

“Will anyone remember the cloud a thousand years from now? A hundred? Even tomorrow?”

“No, Master.”

“Then why do you expect to be remembered? Even the greatest kings fade to dust, their names lost to the tides of time. You, I, all of us—fleeting shapes in the sky.”

The monk felt his heart sink. “If this is so, then what should I do?”

The Master gestured to the tea steaming in a small pot beside him. “Drink your tea while it is hot. Feel the wind on your face. Watch the cloud before it dissolves. This is all that has ever been given to you. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

As the monk took the cup, he looked again at the lenticular cloud. Its edges were already softening, its shape unraveling into threads of vapor. Soon it would be gone, leaving the sky as empty as before.

For the first time, he felt no urge to hold on.

He drank the tea.

And the wind carried both their names away, as it always had, and always would.

 

The Sutra of the Passing Cloud

Thus did the Master speak to the gathered monks beneath the mountain’s shadow, as a lenticular cloud hovered, still and perfect, above the peak.

The young monk asked,

“Master, I have studied the sutras,

I have counted the beads,

I have sat through the turning of many seasons,

and yet my mind clings to the past,

and reaches for the future.

How may I awaken?”

The Master raised his staff and pointed to the sky.

“Behold the lenticular cloud.

It does not drift,

nor does it remain.

It appears,

yet it is already vanishing.

It vanishes,

yet it never truly departs.”

The monks looked and saw

the great lens of vapor,

poised like a silent ship

in an ocean of blue.

“Tell me,” the Master continued,

“is this cloud of the past?

Or is it of the future?”

One monk said, “It must be of the present, Master.”

The Master shook his head gently.

“Present? And what is this present?

By the time you name it,

it is already gone.”

Another monk spoke,

“Then there is nothing at all,

neither past, nor future, nor present.”

The Master laughed like a mountain stream.

“Nothing? Yet here we sit.

The sparrow calls.

The tea steams.

The lenticular cloud lingers.”

“Know this:

There never is, or was, or will be

anything except this.”

“The past is but a memory,

the future a dream.

Even the present

is only the flash of a lenticular cloud—

seen, yet already changing,

named, yet already gone.”

“Do not chase the cloud.

Do not bind it with your thoughts.

Let it form,

let it dissolve.

This is the way of all things.”

And as the monks gazed in silence,

the lenticular cloud slowly unraveled,

its perfect shape melting into the endless sky.

And in that melting,

their questions, too, faded away.

 

The Master and the Three Times

A young monk approached the master as the morning mist curled around the temple stones.

“Master,” he said, “I worry about the past and fear for the future. How can I find peace?”

The master looked up from sweeping leaves. “Bring me the past,” he said.

The monk blinked. “I cannot, Master. It is gone.”

“Then bring me the future.”

“Master, that too is impossible. It has not yet come.”

The master tapped his broom against the ground.
“Then tell me—what is here?”

“The present,” the monk whispered.

The master smiled. “There never is, or was, or will be anything except this. Drink tea while it is hot. Listen to the sparrow while it sings. Breathe while you are breathing.”

And the monk, for the first time, stopped searching.

 

Stop Asking

The Master Spoke of Being

A student asked,

“What is the meaning of life?”

The master pointed to a tree.

The student said,

“I do not understand.”

The master smiled.

“Do you hear the sparrow’s song?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Then you already understand.”

“But what must I achieve?”

The master poured tea until it spilled over.

“Why do you fill what is already full?”

The student bowed low,

“Then life needs no purpose?”

The master swept the floor.

“Does the wind chase itself?”

asked the master.

“Does the moon strive to shine?”

The student wept,

“My heart longs for something more.”

The master said, “More than being alive?”

“Sit. Breathe.

Drink tea. Chop wood.

There is nothing to add.”

And in silence,

The student saw the petals fall—

And finally, stopped asking.

 

Why the Hurry?

To be alive is enough. 

The blossom does not strive to bloom, yet it blooms. 

The stream does not race to the sea, yet it arrives. 

Why then do you hurry?

 

Trembling Tunnels

The tunnels trembled with distant violence.

Each explosion above sent a shudder through the earth, shaking loose rust flakes from the overhead pipes and showering the floor in brittle dust. The air smelled of damp concrete and something sharper—smoke, faint but creeping downward like an unwelcome guest.

In the dim light of a single lantern, two figures moved carefully down the narrow passageway.

They walked hand in hand.

The man led with cautious steps, his other hand gripping a scavenged revolver. The woman followed close, her free hand resting on his shoulder for balance as her boots splashed lightly in shallow puddles. Both wore patched jackets and threadbare scarves, their faces streaked with grime but set with quiet determination.

Neither spoke. Words were dangerous here—they echoed too far, carried too easily.

Instead, their fingers did the talking.

A squeeze of reassurance.
A tug to slow.
A tremor of shared fear when another boom rattled the steel beams above their heads.

They didn’t know what waited ahead.

Maps were scarce, and the graffiti markers left by earlier escapees had been smeared or washed away. The tunnels themselves seemed endless, splitting and curving like the veins of a dying beast.

But turning back wasn’t an option.

Behind them lay collapse.

Above them, the fires.

Ahead… perhaps a chance. A rumor of a safe place deeper still.

The woman glanced upward as dust rained down from the ceiling. Somewhere up there, the world was devouring itself. Politicians and warlords tearing at the bones of a civilization they had already killed.

She tightened her grip on his hand. He glanced back just long enough to meet her eyes—a flicker of warmth amid the ruin.

Far ahead, a faint flicker of light glimmered in the tunnel’s curve. Not lanternlight—too steady. Not fire—too pale.

They slowed, breaths quickening, hearts pounding as the earth quaked again.

Perhaps it was nothing.

Perhaps it was the first sign they weren’t alone in the dark.

But they didn’t let go.

Hand in hand, they pressed forward.

Because even here, deep beneath a dying city, hope was still a weapon.

 

A world on edge

As dusk settled into an eternal twilight of smoke and flame, small bands of refugees slipped quietly through sewer grates and hidden alleys, hoping to escape the city before the drones caught their heat signatures.

They moved like ghosts through a graveyard, their only prayer to find something—anything—beyond the crumbling perimeter.

Because they all knew:
This place was no longer a city.
It was a dying organism, and anyone left inside when it collapsed would be swallowed whole.

Freedom was in the heart.... love, strength and bravery were the way forward...

 

The City Unravels

he air above was alive with a low, droning hum—a sound that had become as familiar to survivors as the ragged rasp of their own breathing. Drones wheeled lazily overhead like mechanical carrion birds, their crimson scanning lights sweeping the streets below in steady arcs.

Where they found movement, the beams narrowed—sharpened—focusing like the unblinking eye of a predator about to strike. Somewhere in the distance, a sharp pop echoed as another desperate soul learned too late that staying above ground after curfew was suicide.

Beneath the steel skies and sulfur-stained air, the streets crawled with human shadows. Families bundled their meager belongings into packs and battered carts, dragging them through alleys thick with smoke. They avoided the main roads where enforcers patrolled with armored vehicles and spotlights.

Some carried children too weak to walk. Others clutched heirlooms, photographs, scraps of a life lost to fire and betrayal.

Their faces were hollow—gaunt from hunger, eyes darting constantly toward the heavens where the drones circled.

There was no clear destination. Just away. Away from the city’s heart where skyscrapers still burned like funeral pyres, where shattered windows reflected the orange glow of a world consuming itself.

Gunfire rattled sporadically in the distance—sometimes sharp and close, sometimes muffled by blocks of broken concrete. Rebel cells still fought back, ambushing supply convoys and sabotaging power grids. Their defiance had slowed the regime, but at a cost. Retaliation came swiftly—entire districts reduced to rubble by aerial bombardments, drone strikes leaving nothing but charred streets and silence.

Every corner of the city had become a battlefield.

And yet in all this chaos, small acts of courage bloomed. A woman in rags pulling a stranger’s child to safety. A group of young men forming a human chain to pass water to trapped survivors. These fleeting moments of humanity burned as brightly as the fires tearing through the skyline.

Above it all, the drones kept watching.

They were the perfect tools for a government that no longer needed to inspire trust—only fear.
They buzzed low over crowded streets, their red lights reflecting in puddles tainted with ash. Loudspeakers mounted beneath them droned the same cold commands over and over:

“CITIZENS: RETURN TO DESIGNATED SAFE ZONES. NONCOMPLIANCE WILL BE MET WITH FORCE.”

“LOOTING AND MIGRATION ARE PROHIBITED UNDER ARTICLE 47-B.”

“ORDER IS RESTORATION. RESTORATION IS UNITY.”

But no one believed them anymore.

As dusk settled into an eternal twilight of smoke and flame, small bands of refugees slipped quietly through sewer grates and hidden alleys, hoping to escape the city before the drones caught their heat signatures.

They moved like ghosts through a graveyard, their only prayer to find something—anything—beyond the crumbling perimeter.

Because they all knew:
This place was no longer a city.
It was a dying organism, and anyone left inside when it collapsed would be swallowed whole.

 

Beneath the Rot

The faint crackle of her lantern was the only sound in the room.

Lyra stood hunched over a scarred wooden table, her hands pressed against its splintered edges, eyes locked on a map so old the corners had curled in on themselves. It was a relic from a time when the surface above still made sense—a time when streets had names instead of numbers in death tallies, when neighborhoods weren’t just warzones divided by gang banners and enforcer barricades.

Now, the map was crisscrossed with fresh markings—charcoal strokes, blood-red arrows, notations scrawled in her sharp, deliberate hand:

• “Node Alpha – Sabotaged”

• “Fuel Depot Fire – diversion successful”

• “Patrol weakness: Sector 12B – exploitable?”

She chewed her lip, eyes darting between the routes. Each one was a gamble. The city’s arteries above were choked, but there were still veins down here—tunnels that ran like forgotten lifelines beneath the rot.

If she could chart a path through them, connect sympathetic cells, time the strikes…

She could make the surface breathe again.

 

Need to Believe

As the fires raged, survivors scavenged in the shadows, clutching rusted pipes and broken tools for defense. No one trusted anyone anymore. Once-vibrant marketplaces had become arenas for barter and bloodshed. Entire districts were ruled by armed gangs, each answering to warlords who styled themselves “protectors” but were little more than predators.

The children born since the Collapse never knew parks, schools, or laughter in the streets. Their lullabies were distant gunshots. Their playgrounds were burned-out husks of vehicles, their toys bits of twisted scrap metal.

Beneath all this, faint whispers traveled like ghosts. Whispers of the resistance—of fighters in the tunnels, of symbols scrawled on walls in defiance, of a man and a woman who moved unseen but promised a new dawn.

Above ground, the people didn’t know if they were real.

But they needed to believe someone, anyone, still fought for something better.

 

The Tyrants Who Lit the Match

Above them, massive holoscreens flickered faintly, still powered by backup grids. The faces of smiling elites beamed down even as their cities burned—a cruel irony. These were the architects of the downfall.

Men and women who had traded freedom for control, truth for influence, and the public trust for gold-lined vaults in offshore havens. Their lies were poison poured slow over decades, convincing the masses to see neighbors as enemies, to embrace laws that strangled their own liberties in exchange for hollow promises of security.

And when the cities ignited—when the mobs turned on each other and law crumbled—they fled.

Now the people above were trapped in a wasteland of their making. A kingdom of corpses and crumbling concrete. A world they helped create by buying into the deception.

 

Ash and Hunger

The sky wasn’t a sky anymore.

It was an angry bruise of ash and flame, glowing orange at its edges where the fires licked high-rise skeletons and sent sparks spiraling like dying stars. Once-glistening towers sagged in defeat, their glass facades melted into dripping black scars. Sirens no longer wailed—those had gone silent months ago, replaced by the low, constant roar of burning infrastructure and distant, sporadic gunfire.

The streets below were choked with debris—collapsed concrete, overturned vehicles, fragments of a life that had seemed so unshakable only years before.

And the people?

They stood in loose, desperate knots—eyes fixed on the flames as though watching their own reflection burn. Some cheered. Others wept. Many simply stared, dumbfounded, unable to comprehend how their vote for safety, their surrender of rights, their silence in the face of creeping tyranny had led here.

They had thought the purge would bring justice.
They had thought the riots would bring renewal.
They had believed the politicians when they promised salvation for the price of liberty.

Now, their world was ash and hunger.

 

The Endless Black

The tunnel curved sharply left, vanishing into total darkness beyond her lantern’s reach. Somewhere beyond, she swore she heard movement. A soft scuff. A whispered exhale.

“Solace…?” she murmured. Her voice cracked from disuse.

No reply.

Only silence.

But she didn’t stop. She pressed on, alone and unshaken, her figure a fragile dot of gold swallowed in the yawning black.

Because whether he knew it or not, her brother’s war wasn’t just his anymore.

It was theirs.

 

The Hidden Room

The smell of damp stone and burned oil clung to the air as if it had soaked into the concrete itself. Deep underground—so deep the surface quakes felt like distant memories—Lyra and Solace sat across from each other at a battered table.

A single lantern cast a dim circle of light over the maps spread between them. Yellowed papers covered in scrawled notations, arrows, and red markers of lost sectors. The ink had bled in places from tunnel seepage, but the intent was still clear: routes, targets, choke points, rally sites.

Solace leaned over the table, a faint shadow of stubble on his jaw, his eyes hard yet strangely alive in the flickering light. Years of silence and survival had etched lines into his face, but there was fire there too—the same fire Lyra remembered from before the collapse.

He jabbed a finger at a cluster of marks near the northern conduit.
“This isn’t just about striking. It’s about breaking their rhythm. Make them fear every pipe, every hatch. They can control the surface, but not down here—not if we turn these tunnels into a weapon.”

Lyra nodded, arms crossed but gaze steady. She had changed too. Gone was the girl who thought compromise could save the world. Years underground had hardened her edges, but they hadn’t dimmed her resolve.

“Fear is a start,” she said. “But it can’t be our endgame. People need more than shadows striking from below. They need to see something… bigger. Something that makes them believe again.”

Solace’s jaw tightened. He looked at her across the maps, searching her face.
“You want a symbol.”

“No,” she said. “I want a future. We can’t hold this ground forever. Sooner or later, we’ll have to take the fight above—and stay there.”

For a long moment, only the soft hiss of the lantern filled the room. Then Solace gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod.

“When the time comes, we’ll make them remember who this city belongs to.”

They both fell silent, staring at the maps—two figures in the belly of a broken world, plotting to light a spark that might consume everything.

 

A Moment of Doubt

She pressed her free hand to the cold wall and closed her eyes. Was she mad for thinking he was alive?

She remembered the arguments before he left—how Solace had begged her to come with him when the surface crumbled. How she’d refused, believing there was still something worth saving above.

And then the purge began.

And then the fires.

And then the silences.

Her lantern flame shivered, breaking her thoughts. She opened her eyes.

There—just ahead on the right.

A faint smear on the wall, barely visible in the light. Not a symbol this time. Not chalk. A handprint. Blackened with soot and grease. Large—his size.

She traced her fingers over it. Still faintly tacky. Not old.

He’d been here. Recently.

Lyra tightened her grip on the lantern and took a step forward. Then another. Her boots clicked softly on the damp tile.

Each breath drew her deeper into the belly of the city.

Each heartbeat told her she was getting closer.

 

What is Love

A young monk climbed the mountain and sat alone for seven days, meditating on the nature of love.

On the eighth day, an old master appeared and asked,
“What have you discovered?”

The monk replied,
“Love is the purest connection. It unites all things without grasping.”

The master smiled faintly and said,
“If love does not grasp, who then is united?”

The monk was silent.

The master struck the ground with his staff.
“Where is love now?”

The wind carried cherry blossoms past them.

The monk’s eyes filled with tears, and he bowed deeply.

 

The Hunger of the Tunnels

The tunnels seemed alive tonight.

Not with people. Not with sound. But with the weight of eyes in the dark, the kind that didn’t belong to rats or scavengers. The kind that made your skin crawl, though nothing stirred.

Lyra’s lantern swung in her hand, casting soft rings of light that danced on cracked tile and rust-streaked pipes. The flame sputtered once as a draft whispered through the corridor—cold, sharp, damp.

She stopped. Listened.

Water dripped somewhere ahead, echoing like a ticking clock. Her boots shifted in shallow puddles, sending ripples down the narrow shaft.

The graffiti here was older, faded. No fresh chalk lines. No recent scuffs from boots. But still, something told her she was on the right path. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe the faint smell of smoke, clinging to the air even this far below. Or maybe—just maybe—some invisible tether still pulled her toward him.

 

Through the Glass

Little feet—are those little feet?

Running, tumbling, laughter sweet.

She watches them through dusty panes,

Though names and ties she can’t explain.

Their voices drift like summer air,

She almost remembers… someone… there?

A boy, a girl? Or none at all?

The pictures blur, the memories fall.

Hands in her lap, thin as twigs,

She feels them clutch a void that digs.

Once she held—someone—soft and warm…

But the thought dissolves before it forms.

A ball rolls near, she flinches slight,

Did she once play? Was she once light?

The children shout, a wave, a cheer,

But she’s a ghost—they do not hear.

“Are they mine?” a whisper in her head,

But no answer comes, just silence instead.

Their faces swirl in her fragile mind,

Like leaves in wind, too fast to find.

She blinks. The glass shows only sky.

The children gone—did they say goodbye?

Perhaps they were never there at all,

Just echoes born of a mind’s slow fall.

The sun sinks low, the shadows spread,

She sits unmoving, her thoughts long dead.

Beyond the glass, life dances free,

While she remains—adrift at sea.

 

The Window Behind Her

She sits where the shadows softly creep,

A frail old frame in a wheelchair deep.

The window glows with the afternoon sun,

But she faces away—her world undone.

Her hands are folded, her gaze is still,

Eyes fixed on a corner, silent, until

A flicker of thought stirs faint and small,

Then vanishes quick, like it never was at all.

The glass behind her holds sky and tree,

A bird in flight she will never see.

Seasons have turned, leaves green to gold,

But her mind is lost in a place grown cold.

No laughter, no voices to break the spell,

Just the quiet hum of a sterile shell.

The clock hands move though she cannot know,

That time still flows where memories don’t go.

Sometimes her lips shape words unheard,

Fragments of life now broken, slurred.

A name? A place? A song long past?

Each one appearing, then gone too fast.

The room holds echoes of lives she knew,

But now it’s empty, save her and a few

Fading balloons from a birthday missed,

Colors dulled like the years she kissed.

She does not turn to the light behind,

Nor notice the day or its gentle shine.

The world is there—but not for her—

She’s adrift, alone, where the lost things stir.

 

The Smoldering Distance

The hatch clanked shut behind him.

Solace crouched low beside a shattered tram shelter, scanning the empty street. Concrete was broken and uneven, veined with creeping moss and vines reclaiming the forgotten edges. Storefronts were blackened, their windows long blown out or barricaded with sheet metal. Digital billboards flickered weakly, displaying corrupted slogans in broken segments:

UNITY IS…■■■… YOUR DUTY
REPORT… DEFECTORS… FOR REWARDS
CONSUME | CONFORM | OBEY

He stayed motionless.

A soft wind carried the smell of ash, burned plastic, and the faint, acidic scent of decaying tech. He rose slowly and moved forward, ducking behind a skeletal bus frame, careful not to silhouette himself in the moonlight bleeding through the haze.

Then he saw it.

In the distance—beyond the husks of old civic buildings—a smoldering fire, orange and steady, curling upward like a ghost.

It wasn’t a riot fire. It wasn’t wild or chaotic. No—this was controlled. A signal. Or a warning.

Solace lowered his rifle and crouched at the edge of a broken statue pedestal, watching the flame for a long time.

He’d seen this before.

The enforcers burned locations that had been cleansed—former homes of resistance cells. This one was recent. The kindling was still red. Embers rose like moths, vanishing into the black sky.

He clenched his jaw.

This wasn’t just about territory. This was psychological warfare. They weren’t stamping out opposition—they were salting the earth, trying to kill memory.

 

Emergence

As his hand gripped the first rung, the signal was given.

A series of muffled explosions echoed from the west. Not enough to bring buildings down—but enough to blackout cameras, fry sensors, and send the enforcers scrambling.

The city above shifted, momentarily blind.

Solace climbed, boots pressing into rust and memory.

Had he known—just a corridor away, on the next rail line—his sister’s lantern flickered through the dark, following his trail, drawn to the tremor of those distant blasts. The same blasts that meant war… and reunion.

The hatch swung open.

For the first time in years, Solace stood beneath open sky. What used to be sky, anyway—a sulfur-stained haze hung where stars should’ve been. Distant fires burned in barrels and broken buildings. Drones buzzed far overhead, their red scanning lights like synthetic stars.

The streets were quiet—but not empty.

A curfewed populace cowered behind broken windows, afraid of both the enforcers and the growing whispers that somewhere, down below, something was stirring.

Something that hadn’t given up.

Solace pulled his scarf over his mouth, raised his rifle, and whispered to no one but himself:

“Let them remember tonight… the underground breathes.”

And he moved.

 

The Strike Begins

Around him, his team readied gear. Mara double-checked her comms, securing a jury-rigged headset made from scavenged parts. Two scouts loaded explosives into satchels—charges designed not to kill, but to cripple infrastructure. Data hubs, communication towers, fuel depots. Symbols of control.

“We move in pairs,” Solace instructed, voice like iron. “Disrupt. Disappear. Repeat.”

His finger hovered over the old, analog watch strapped to his wrist. No GPS. No network. Just hands ticking in defiance of the digital chains that now bound the surface world.

“Zero three hundred,” he said. “On the second.”

Mara stepped close. Her voice softened for a brief, human moment. “You sure about this one? Feels… heavier.”

He nodded, eyes never leaving the ladder above. “It has to be. If we don’t show them that the machine can bleed, the people down here stay buried. Forever.”

Mara headed out.... alone.

 

Above the Bones

Solace adjusted the straps of his rifle and stared up the old maintenance ladder leading toward the surface. The metal was cold, flecked with corrosion, and slick from years of leaking runoff. He’d climbed this exact shaft a dozen times before—but tonight, it felt heavier. More final.

Above, the world still burned. Not with fire, but with the slow, suffocating rot of tyranny disguised as order. Streets were patrolled not by lawmen but by enforcers—masked, armored, unrecognizable as anything that once resembled neighbors or fellow citizens. Loudspeakers still blared the same empty mantras:

“UNITY IS COMPLIANCE.”

“FREEDOM IS HATE.”

“YOUR SACRIFICE MAKES THE COLLECTIVE STRONG.”

It was a city where freedom had been willingly handed over—signed away in the flames of riots, given up by a public who thought surrender was salvation.

But not everyone bowed.

Not him.