Time: 03:17 a.m., five years after the Reformation Decree
A shroud of thick black mist clung to the skies above Sector Y. Cold air bit at the ground while the first beams of headlights tore through the ash-grey fields, illuminating the skeletons of dead trees and the yellowing blades of brittle grass. The light carried no warmth, no promise of a rising sun. It was not dawn. It was the beginning of a hunt.
The children of the village were always the first to notice it. Not out of cleverness, but because their instincts had been forged through years of hiding. They had come to know that light. It signalled terror on its way.
Six armoured trucks rolled into view from the fog and ground to a halt beside a row of naked willows. Their engines roared like starved beasts unchained. One by one, the doors cracked open and soldiers emerged in silence. They wore black armour that covered them from head to toe, gas masks hiding their faces, ballistic visors concealing their eyes. Emblazoned on every chest was the twin-headed eagle, the crest of the royal army.
They carried high-powered rifles, the barrels still trailing smoke from a previous mission. Their steel-capped boots thudded heavily against the earth, the sound deep and steady like a war drum. With every step they took, the grass beneath them folded and died, as though nature itself bowed to power.
In a small village at the edge of the forest, most were still asleep.
A skeletal dog let out a weak bark and then fell silent as a bullet tore through its throat. The crack of gunfire shattered the silence, spreading across the rooftops like a signal. It woke the villagers, and with them, a fear they had buried deep.
The command came from Scar, the officer leading the operation. He belonged to the noble Fenix family. A long white scar ran down the bridge of his nose. He rarely repeated orders. He never needed to.
"Clear it."
His voice was low, cold, and without hesitation.
The soldiers did not knock. They used their rifles to smash locks and kicked down doors, splintering the frail structures into ruins. Children were yanked out from under beds, from cupboards, behind cookers, even from beneath floorboards where their parents had once believed them safe. Some screamed. Some cried out for their mothers. Some said nothing at all.
Paul, twelve years old, grabbed his sister Emily by the wrist and pulled her towards the back of the stable. They crawled into an old compost pit behind the shed. The stench of ammonia made Emily gag, but Paul clamped his hand over her mouth and whispered so softly that the wind might have mistaken it for its own voice.
"Stay quiet. Don't cry. If they hear us, we're dead."
His eyes were wide, fixed on a narrow crack between the planks. He didn't blink. He didn't breathe. Any sound could end them.
Elsewhere, a young mother knelt in the corner of her home, holding her daughter tight.
"Please, no. She's too little. Please, I'm begging you," she cried.
The child clung to her collar. A soldier barged inside and tore the girl from her arms. The mother shrieked and fought back, but the butt of a rifle struck her face. Blood splattered across her blouse. She collapsed against the table, motionless. The child's screams echoed down the path, raw and hoarse, but no one turned back.
An old man stood in the doorway of another home, his shoulders squared.
"There's no child here," he said. "I live alone. There's no one else."
An officer glanced inside, then gave a curt nod.
"Burn it."
A bottle flew through the window. Within seconds the roof was ablaze, flames licking up the dry walls as if consuming a memory too old to resist. The old man's grandson had already been taken. He had just turned eleven.
Scar remained in the centre of the village, unmoved. A little girl, perhaps eight years old, broke free from a soldier's grip and sprinted towards the forest, her bare feet slapping the gravel, leaving a trail of blood.
"Don't shoot. She's just a child!" someone called out from the far side.
Scar didn't look. He raised his pistol and fired. The girl dropped, face-first into the dirt, eyes still open in disbelief. Blood seeped into the hem of her cloth doll's dress.
The round-up was finished within two hours. Nearly forty children had been taken. They were chained, collared, and dragged into the trucks in groups, their cries rising into the mist. Some were too young to understand. Others understood too well.
Scar walked along the row of vehicles, checking the manifest.
"Target met. Shut them in."
The steel doors slammed shut. It sounded like the gates of hell closing behind them. The trucks roared to life and rolled out, leaving ruts in the soil and silence in their wake.
Paul slowly lifted the lid of the compost pit. The night air was biting, but better than the fumes that clung to their clothes. Emily was trembling.
"Are they gone?" she whispered.
Paul didn't answer immediately. He listened, then gave a short nod.
"Yes. But next time… we might not be so lucky."
He wrapped an arm around her and guided her behind a stack of damp firewood. They sat without speaking. Survival no longer required words.
"I hate this place. I hate all of them," Emily muttered, her voice dry and cracked.
Paul said nothing. His gaze turned north, to the snow-covered horizon. There, beyond the white line of trees, stood a fortress of steel. And inside it, a man who had once been human now ruled as predator. Paul drew in a slow breath. Inside him, fear had grown quiet. Something else had begun to stir.
Something that did not forgive.