The halls of SARI were quieter now that orientation was over, but not peaceful. Quiet in a place like this did not feel like rest. It felt like the building was listening.
Elias and I walked shoulder to shoulder through the dorm corridor, our bags hanging off us like the last pieces of our old lives we were still allowed to carry. The walls were polished and clean, the overhead lights bright enough to make everything look a little too sharp, and the carpet beneath our boots muffled the sound of our steps just enough that it made the place feel even more controlled.
Elias glanced down the hallway and stretched his neck.
"Well," he said, "I hope the dorms look pleasing."
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and gave a small, tired smile.
"Don't make your expectations too high."
We finally reached room 4811. I knocked once, then waited. A few seconds passed. Nothing.
Elias shifted beside me and frowned.
"Why can't we just enter? They already gave us the keycards."
I kept my hand on the door a moment longer.
"It's bad manners."
Before Elias could complain, a female voice crackled through the speaker.
"Roommates?"
I straightened slightly.
"Yes, ma'am. We were assigned room 4811."
"Give me a second," the voice said.
A few moments later, the lock clicked, and the door opened inward.
The girl who stood there looked like she had already been living in this room for years and had only just now managed to wrestle the technology into submission. She was short, pale, and freckled with dark spots that stood out against her skin. Her hair was blue-black with a vivid ruby-red underlayer, and her blue eyes had that bright, steady kind of attention that made it feel like she was already reading you before you spoke. She had an elbow support strap on her left arm, and the way she stood, loose and casual, made it seem like she had no intention of pretending to be impressed by anybody.
"Sorry about that," she said with a half-awkward, half-amused look. "I was trying to figure out how to work this thing."
I assumed she meant the speaker or the door lock, maybe both.
"No problem," I said.
Elias offered his hand.
"My name's Elias."
"Call me Nadia." She shook it without hesitation. Then she looked at me. "You?"
"Gabriel," I said. I extended my hand, and she took it easily.
"Friends?"
"Sure."
"We look forward to staying with you, ma'am," I added automatically.
Nadia blinked, then laughed softly.
"Please don't call me that," she said. "It makes me feel old."
"Oh, uh, yeah." I cleared my throat, a little caught off guard.
"That's enough talking. Just come inside!"
I stepped in first and immediately stopped, surprised. This didn't look like a normal dorm at all. It wasn't a military bunkroom either. There were multiple doors inside the apartment, a proper living space beyond the entry, and the place had enough room to feel like somebody had actually designed it to be lived in instead of endured.
I looked around, then back at Nadia.
"Where's the bunk room?"
"Ah!" she said, and for a second I wasn't sure why she sounded surprised.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Oh, nothing." She pointed. "Your room is on the right. We've already taken the left."
We. So there was someone else here too.
I lowered my head slightly. "Thank you." I paused at the threshold, then stepped toward the room to look inside.
The sound of Velcro ripping snapped through the air behind me, and I turned instantly. Nadia was loosening the elbow strap on her left arm with an absent sort of familiarity.
She glanced at me and asked, "Say, Gabe. You've already served in the military before, right?"
I blinked. "Uh… well, I'm not really sure I can say I was part of it."
"Why not?" she asked.
I sighed. "Long story short, I got discharged because I was innocent."
Nadia stared at me for one second—then broke into laughter.
"That's hilarious! You were so sweet, they kicked you out?" She pointed at me as the thought had delighted her.
"How did you know I was in the military?" I asked.
She grinned. "I just knew it. You look clueless." Then she laughed again and nodded toward the hallway. "And you kept scanning the place before you even walked in. Not to mention your manners."
The weird thing was, I hadn't even realized I did that. Nadia laughed even harder as I instinctively straightened when she suddenly barked, "Attention!" My posture snapped up on its own.
Elias burst out laughing beside me.
"She's taking control of you, Gabe!" he said.
"Very funny," I replied flatly, keeping my face as straight as I could.
I glanced at Nadia again.
"So… have you been in the military as well?"
"Nah," she said. "But my grandpa was. That's where I got it from."
"That's sick," I said. "What unit did he serve in?"
She shrugged.
"Meh, I don't know that much."
I hesitated, then nodded toward her arm.
"Can I ask what happened to your arm?"
For the first time, Nadia's expression softened a little. She raised her left arm and touched the strap with an easy shrug.
"This?" she said. "It got smashed on Death Day, one year ago. Never recovered." My chest tightened.
"I'm really sorry to hear that." I glanced at her strap again. "You could probably get it fixed up easily by a healer."
Nadia smiled, but it wasn't bitter. It was the smile of somebody who had already made peace with the shape of their scars.
"Don't be sorry," she said. "I'd like to keep it. Reminds me of everything that happened that day. And honestly, that injury wasn't even the worst of it."
I didn't know what to say to that, and I wish I could have worn her calm for even a second. Before I could think of anything, the door behind Nadia opened.
A second girl stepped out, and Nadia immediately turned with a sigh.
"About time you came out."
This girl was shorter than Nadia, with dark green hair that faded into a bright yellow tint at the edges of the strands, almost like sunlight caught in leaves. Her eyes were bright teal-green, and when she noticed Elias and me standing there, her eyes widened so fast it was like that was her way of flinching. She waved a little, quietly, shyly, then bowed her head and smiled without making eye contact.
"Lina," Nadia said, gesturing toward her. "This is Elias, and this is Gabriel."
Elias smiled and greeted her back, and I did the same. Lina only nodded softly and, after a second, closed her door again with the gentleness of someone trying to let us know she wasn't comfortable talking yet but still wanted to be polite about it. Nadia glanced between us and the door, then smiled.
"I take it she's shy. I just met her too."
"Oh, that makes more sense then," Elias said. Nadia gave a little stretch of her shoulder and stepped back.
"Well, I'll leave you two to it now. Make yourselves at home and get comfortable." She headed toward the living room, and Elias and I stepped into our room.
It wasn't bad at all. Both beds were clean and simple, the room small but not cramped, the furniture practical and sturdy. Elias didn't even bother pretending to be careful. He flopped chest-first onto the bed furthest from the door and announced,
"I call dibs on this one!"
I dropped my bag beside the other bed and lay back with a sigh.
"These aren't bad."
Elias rolled over, pulled out his phone, and immediately started checking the schedule.
"So pre-assessments start at eight tomorrow. Physical, spiritual, and written." He paused, then looked at me with sudden concern. "The spiritual test… will you use the… You know." He lowered his voice on the last part.
I stared at the ceiling.
"I won't. They'll probably check for that kind of thing."
"Oh." He was quiet for a second. "Would you be able to handle it?"
I thought about the answer too long before I gave it. "I'll be fine. I think. I hope."
Elias nodded once, then rolled over again and went back to scrolling. A moment later, he remembered something else.
"The website said there's a welcome banquet in three days. You going?"
"Sure, why not?" I said.
"Do you have anything nice to wear?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said automatically.
I realized I hadn't actually thought that far ahead.
Elias glanced over. "What about you?"
"Yes," I said, a little late. He snorted but didn't press it.
A while later, Elias and I came back out to the living room and found Nadia and Lina still there. Nadia was stretched out on one couch, looking relaxed and half-absorbed in her phone, scrolling through social media as she had fully claimed the place already. Lina, on the other hand, sat stiffly on the opposite couch with her posture tense and careful, like she was trying not to take up too much space. The living room itself looked surprisingly nice. It had the feel of a casual upper-middle-class apartment more than a dorm. Tan carpet, huge navy-curtained windows, a balcony with two chairs, a pool table tucked to one side, a glass coffee table in the center, and a stand-alone flatscreen TV with a console and a few other things that made the room feel almost too comfortable to belong to a resistance academy.
Elias immediately made a beeline for the console.
"I didn't know a place like this would have an Amoeba!" he shouted. "Even the sixth release! I guess the resistance does believe in entertainment!"
I sat down on a separate couch and looked toward the pool table. "Do any of you know how to play pool? I've never tried."
Elias practically whirled around. "You're asking to play pool when The Sixth is right here?" He threw his hands out and pointed at the screen. "Everybody, take a controller!" He turned the console on with the enthusiasm of someone rediscovering oxygen.
The game we chose was some absurd fast-paced platformer with randomized parkour courses that made no logical sense and yet looked gorgeous anyway, sprinting across rooftops, scaling buildings, launching across cranes and rails, all with bright stylized scenery and music that made everything feel like a race through a neon dream.
"I've never played this one before," Nadia said.
"It's a really fun game, trust me," Elias insisted. Five minutes later, Elias stared at her and pointed. "You lied."
Nadia threw his hands up.
"No, I meant I've never played this map." Nadia laughed.
In the first round, she came first. Elias took second. Lina came in third. I ended up last. In the second round, Nadia got first again, Elias got second, Lina and I fell off a building and got eliminated almost instantly. In the third round, I fell again.
I leaned back with a groan.
"This game is dumb."
Nadia and Elias were laughing so hard it was getting annoying, and then I noticed Lina had a tiny smile on her face too. I stared at her in disbelief.
"You're laughing in the same boat?" Elias was still grinning like a lunatic.
Then Lina looked at me and quietly said, "Hold the boost button to speed up."
Nadia froze for half a second, then nearly exploded.
"She speaks!!" she shouted, startling Lina so badly she shrank back into the couch.
Lina immediately went quiet again, smiling a little without eye contact as if she had simply returned to being the shyest person alive.
Elias nodded at us. "That's right. But don't hold it when you're turning, or you'll spin out. That's why you keep missing the jumps."
"Oh," I said, a little embarrassed. "That makes more sense."
The next course still left me in last place, but I at least finished it earlier than before. On the fifth round, I finally managed to come in third, just barely ahead of Lina.
Elias perked up and clapped his hands together. "I have an idea. Who wants to play elimination mode?"
"Sounds like a great idea," Nadia said, leaning back with a wicked smile, "if you want to get dropped that badly."
Elias grinned right back. "You're not beating me again. Now I'm playing seriously."
Nadia snorted. "And you think I was trying as well?"
The round loaded into a snowy Arctic map, and within seconds, I had already crashed into a wall. I watched everyone pull ahead of me while I tried to recover. Then I sped up, an ominous wildfire behind us growing larger and faster every second.
"Crap!" I muttered. I scaled walls, crossed bridges, leapt platforms, but the fire kept gaining. The timer on the side of the screen was counting down to the point where the fire would swallow me whole. I was catching up to Lina, almost passing her, when I tripped on the friction mechanic and missed a jump to the next platform.
"It was a nice try, Gabriel," Lina said quietly.
"I'm not dead yet," I shot back. Suddenly, a head reached over the edge of the snowy platform, my character clipped the ledge, and then started glitching in place before launching himself forward so violently that I nearly laughed from shock. The fire had no idea I'd stopped being last. I passed Lina. The screen flashed: Lina has been eliminated. Lina stared at the display in stunned confusion while the wall was still racing right behind me.
"What the…" I muttered.
In the distance, Nadia and Elias were practically neck-and-neck for first place, both of them only a few feet from the safe zone. Then I zipped past both of them. The flaming wall followed so fast that it eliminated Elias and Nadia at the same time before I crossed the finish line. The round ended, and the results screen popped up with my character standing there alone, doing the most clueless emote imaginable while the game declared me the winner. The placement still listed me as fourth.
Elias stared at the screen.
"What the hell?" he yelled. "Did you just cheat?"
I looked at the screen, then at him.
"I don't know what I just did."
Nadia burst into loud laughter and rolled off the couch.
"PFFT! You used a speedrunner glitch and broke the game!" she wheezed.
Elias pointed at the ranking. "That shouldn't count! It still says you're in last place!"
Nadia was still laughing on the floor. "That was so funny!"
After that, we switched to the pool to pass the time. Nadia explained the rules while Elias acted like he already knew them anyway.
"You use the white ball to hit your assigned balls into the pockets, and the black ball is the last one you'd want to sink; if it goes in too early, you lose."
Lina and I went against each other first. I tried the break shot, but it awkwardly drifted off to the side and hit nothing. Lina's shot, on the other hand, scattered the entire rack cleanly. As the game went on, I got better and better until I started actually understanding the angles. Ten minutes later, I was already unnervingly good at it. I won against Lina, then Elias won against Nadia, then I won against Elias.
Everyone ended up staring at me.
"What?" I asked.
Elias stared at me with genuine offense.
"Who taught you billiards?"
"Nadia did, I guess?" I said.
Nadia pointed at me as my skill had personally betrayed her. After that, we decided to go grab something to eat once we found out the cafeteria was open twenty-four hours a day.
It was nearly midnight by then, but the cafeteria was still alive. Cadets filled the room in clusters, some laughing, some studying regardless of it being the first day, some asleep at tables, some drinking from plastic cups and talking too loudly.
It didn't feel like a barracks or an academy cafeteria. It felt like a place where people were still trying to have lives even while the world sat on their shoulders.
Elias grabbed two trays piled with burgers and fries. Nadia got something enormous, and with her slim frame, the food looked even bigger than it already was. I couldn't help staring for a second before looking away. Lina and I got normal meals.
Nadia and Elias both noticed immediately. "That's all you're eating?" Elias asked.
I glanced down at my tray.
"…Yes?"
"Why?" he said.
Nadia put a hand over her chest like I had insulted her personally.
"Dude," she said, "you two are like the five feet and the six feet of sadness."
Elias snorted. "Just eat more," he said. "So, can I ask what your primaries are?"
Nadia made a big show of gasping like he had committed a social crime.
"Didn't anyone teach you how personal that question is?" she said.
"Oh, I didn't think it was that deep," Elias replied, immediately backing up. "Sorry."
Nadia waved it off with a grin. "I'm just messing with you. I don't care." Then she leaned forward and whispered, "I can gradually influence things I interact with over time."
Elias lit up. "Oh, that's really cool! Are you influencing us?"
"You wish," she said. "What about you?"
"I can manipulate currents," he said. Nadia's eyebrows lifted. "Like wind?" "Exactly," he said. "I love manipulating wind." "Sick," she said. "I've never seen a wind type before."
Then she looked at me. "Gabriel?"
I hesitated. "Uh… I can temporarily enhance things, I guess."
"Isn't that just your aura?" she repeated.
"Yeah," I said. "It's defective. Don't make a big deal of it."
Nadia's expression softened a little. "Aw. That really sucks. Seriously." I nodded once. "Yeah." We sat in silence for a moment, then Elias turned to Lina.
"Now it's your turn."
Lina smiled without making eye contact and spoke so quietly I almost missed it. "I'm… a healer."
Elias and Nadia both shot upright at once.
"Wooh!" Elias said.
"It looks like you're taking care of us all!" Nadia pointed at her with exaggerated seriousness. "Our lives are in your hands."
Lina just nodded nervously and smiled like she wasn't sure if she was allowed to believe that.
Another voice spoke from the table beside us.
"Excuse us." We turned and found four other cadets sitting there.
One of them, a ginger-haired boy with brown eyes and a broad, easy smile, gave a little wave. Beside him stood a gentlemanly-looking boy with brown hair and green eyes who carried himself like he already knew how to behave in a room full of strangers. The third was a quiet-looking girl with neck-length hair in a mix of brown and blonde, her blue eyes calm and unreadable, her expression closed off in a way that suggested she had been dragged here against her will. The last one looked like the galaxy itself had decided to become a person: black hair with a blue tint, lavender and sky-blue highlights threaded through it, sky-blue eyes, and the kind of smile that looked polished from a distance but fake once you stared at it too long.
"We were wondering if we could get to know everyone," the ginger-haired boy said. "We already met everyone else in the cafeteria right now, so it only felt fair to meet you bunch too."
Nadia smiled. "I'm Nadia, and this is Gabriel, Lina, and Elias."
The ginger-haired one bowed with a grin. "Deacon. Nice to meet you."
The brown-haired boy offered a polite nod. "Noah."
The girl with the brown-and-blonde hair raised her chin. "Reyna." She didn't smile, didn't really make eye contact, and looked like she wanted to wander off somewhere more interesting.
The last one gave that same fake smile again. "Nora," he said.
Deacon looked genuinely happy to be there. Noah seemed like he had come because it was the correct social thing to do. Reyna looked like she had been forced into the room under threat. Nora looked like he had memorized the whole conversation beforehand and was waiting for the part where he could leave. Still, they all seemed like a decent group. Deacon especially felt easy to like.
"It's nice to meet you guys," I said.
"It's nice to meet you too," Deacon said with open enthusiasm. "We look forward to fighting back with you." He bowed again.
I saluted him on instinct before realizing how ridiculous that probably looked. After a few more pleasantries, they wandered off to another table.
Elias watched them leave and muttered, "Fighting back with you, huh. That's a nice choice of words."
Nadia shrugged. "They seem nice."
Later, back in the dorm, the energy slowly thinned out. Nadia went to shower. Elias fell asleep on the couch instead of his bed. Lina disappeared into her room. And eventually I found myself alone on the balcony, looking out over Sablegate Academy in the dark.
There were lights everywhere. Hundreds of windows. Thousands of people. The whole campus looked alive, like some giant machine quietly breathing under the night sky. I gripped the railing and stared down at the academy grounds, thinking of Vivienne, thinking of Iris, thinking about how useless I had felt for so long.
One year ago, I lost everything. Three months ago, I decided I wasn't going to wait for somebody else to stand up. Today I became a cadet once again, and I have roommates. Tomorrow I have assessments. And somehow, against every stupid instinct in my body, I was still here.
The balcony door slid open behind me.
I turned and found Nadia stepping out.
"Couldn't sleep?" she asked.
"Nope," I said.
"Thinking too much?"
"Maybe."
She leaned on the railing beside me and looked over the campus.
"I'd assume everyone here thinks they're behind. Too weak, too late, broken, not good enough." She shrugged. "But we're here anyway. So that's enough for one day."
I looked at her. "That's really wise."
Nadia smiled. "Grandpa said it. I just steal his material."
"You seem like a good person," I said.
She gave me a sideways look, then smiled a little more softly. "I try to be. The world is ending. Most people would find pleasure in doing something bad. I find pleasure in doing good."
Then she nudged my arm and turned toward the door. "Get some rest; assessments start at eight."
I watched her go, then looked out over the campus again.
"Hm."