Your apartment is dim, lit only by the pale orange wash of the setting sun creeping through dusty blinds. The muffled hum of the city filters in, a constant reminder of life grinding on outside while you sit in the stillness of your own space.
It’s been a week since the Bomb Devil tore through the city—sirens, screams, smoke still hang in memory. The streets have mostly gone quiet again, but the air hasn’t lost that edge, that faint metallic taste of fear everyone pretends not to notice.
The textbooks from your afternoon lecture still lie open on the desk, pages full of theories and concepts that feel meaningless compared to what you really know. Beyond campus and classrooms, you’ve seen the signs: whispers of the underground black market, the quiet exchanges of blood and contracts, the kinds of things ordinary students pretend don’t exist.
You lean back in your chair, heart ticking faster. The air feels charged, heavy with possibilities. You could ignore it. You could chase it. Or you could just lose yourself in the noise of the city until the decision makes itself.