"Give him back, now!"
The raw anguish in his father's voice cut through the quiet morning air. Hillel wished he could unhear it. He watched as his father struggled against the Asiran Guards who held him back. The old man's eyes, usually warm and crinkled at the corners, were now wet with tears and frustration.
Just give it up, old man. I'm a goner.
The guards—two soldiers in gray fatigues with the World Government Health & Containment division's white insignia on their shoulders—wouldn't yield to one man's pleas. Not when the stakes were this high, not for something deemed a global necessity.
Hillel—Hill to the few who knew him—could only watch, an uncomfortable knot tightening in his stomach. The metal cuffs bit into his wrists, reminding him of his perilous future. He hadn't committed any crime or broken any laws. His only offense was being young, healthy, and unlucky enough to be caught in the latest conscription.
The Asiran government, like all nations under the World Government, needed healthy bodies. They needed potential. They needed fodder to throw against the threat growing across the Azure Ocean in the ruins of what was once the Peridian Empire.
Peridia. The name alone brought images of fallen greatness turned nightmarish. Once the dominant power that had ruled the known world, defying even the World Government, it was now a festering wound on the earth. A land consumed by despair and overrun with monsters born from corrupted souls.
The soul plague was to blame. Not a disease of the body, but something that attacked the soul. No cure, no treatment, no defense.
When the first outbreak hit Peridia's heartlands, nothing could stop it—not their legendary armies, advanced technology, or sheer numbers. The terrified eye witness accounts described victims dropping dead instantly, only for their bodies to twist into horrific monsters powered by raw soul energy—rinshu, as scholars named it.
These mindless, relentless creatures had overwhelmed the world's greatest military power within months. Peridia fell silent, its people scattered, hidden, or consumed. Even the World Government forces had been pushed back, unable to stop the tide of monsters pouring from the blighted land. Peridia was lost to nightmare.
Then came a glimmer of hope: the Awakened. Survivors began emerging from Peridia through shimmering rifts people fearfully called "bridges."
These individuals had somehow survived the soul plague's touch. More than survived—they'd been changed, gaining powerful abilities—soul arts—derived from the very rinshu that powered the monsters. They could fight back.
The awakened became humanity's hope, pushing back just enough to create a fragile stalemate along Peridia's devastated coastlines. But it wasn't enough. The monster territory kept slowly expanding. More awakened were needed, and much stronger ones at that.
With no cure in sight, the World Government made a terrible calculation: fight fire with fire. Plague with plague.
After capturing several of the awakened, the truth was revealed—a small fraction of those exposed could withstand the initial overwhelming surge of rinshu. This was akin to those who were naturally immune to certain illnesses. In other words, survival of the fittest.
Success meant enduring a terrifying trial within the soul itself—"The bridge"—where one either emerged awakened with a fundamentally altered "rinshu core," or had their soul shattered, leaving their body to become another monster.
And so came the conscription. Governments worldwide, using captured Awakened to create controlled infections, began rounding up their youth. Not to fight—not yet. But to be subjected to the plague, to gamble on awakening, to manufacture hope from despair in heavily guarded facilities.
Hill closed his eyes as the transport vehicle's engine rumbled to life. His father's cries faded behind him.
Hill never got the chance to say goodbye. It didn't bother him though, he was used to the facade that had plagued him for sixteen years.
He was just another number, another gamble in humanity's desperate war. One more soul about to be thrown into the storm.
It tore at his conscious, so much so that he was simply too scared to even think about the future.
----
The journey was a blur of rattling metal, stale air, and the heavy silence of shared fear. Hill lost track of time, lulled into a grim stupor by the train's endless rhythm.
He sat crammed between other young men and women, their faces drawn and pale under the flickering emergency lights of the windowless carriage.
No one spoke. What was there to say? They were cattle being led to an uncertain slaughter, each desperately hoping they might emerge as something more than meat.
A harsh screech of brakes jerked Hill awake. The train shuddered to a stop, the sudden silence making the nervous shuffling and quick breaths around him seem louder. Heavy bolts slid open on the carriage doors, flooding the dim space with harsh, sterile light.
"Out! Move, move!" The Asiran Guards barked, their voices rough with impatience.
Blinking against the brightness, Hill followed the line of conscripts down a metal ramp onto a concrete platform. The air hit him—cold, with the sharp smell of antiseptic and damp stone. He looked up and caught a glimpse of the facility before being pushed forward.
It wasn't a building but a fortress—massive, windowless walls of gray concrete reaching upward until they vanished into the overcast sky. Watchtowers dotted the perimeter, their dark slots suggesting hidden eyes watching everything.
They were herded through massive blast doors that clanged shut behind them with finality. Inside was a maze of stark corridors filled only with the sounds of guard boots and the shuffling feet of hundreds of conscripts—Hill guessed three or four hundred had been packed onto the train.
The guards directed them with sharp gestures and barked commands. The cuffs stayed locked tight around Hill's wrists. No mistaking his status: prisoner.
He used to wonder why conscripts were treated this way, but now he was scared to find out.
Eventually, they were channeled into a huge chamber that could only be an assembly hall. Rows of simple metal benches filled the space, all facing a raised platform at the far end. The lighting was harsh and practical, throwing long shadows that seemed to dance with the nervous energy running through the crowd. Guards lined the walls, rifles held ready.
But it wasn't the guards or the cold surroundings that caught every eye and stole the breath from the room. It was the three figures standing silently on the platform.
They were different. Even from this distance, Hill could feel it—a tangible aura that set them apart. One was an older woman with eyes that seemed far too ancient for her face, wrapped in layers of dark fabric.
Another was a lanky youth barely older than Hill himself, fidgeting nervously. The last was a powerfully built man with his arms crossed, scars criss-crossing his knuckles, his gaze sweeping over the conscripts with cold assessment.
These were the awakened. The survivors. The ones who had faced the rinshu storm, walked through the bridge, and returned changed. They were humanity's weapons, its desperate hope, and the instruments of the ordeal awaiting Hill and everyone else in this room.