"Fine."
The word slipped from his lips into the silence of the room.
He knew he had started at a truly catastrophic level. But there was no word for "give up" in his dictionary. That trait wouldn't disappear under the identity of Raven Scrow.
His gaze hardened a little.
He closed his computer and lay down on his bed.
Sleep came a little later.
He knew he would go to school tomorrow.
Then there was nothing but peaceful darkness.
July 1st, 2666.
The date flickered into his mind the moment he opened his eyes. Waking had been gradual, natural, without the brutality of an artificial alarm. The ambient light in the room had subtly increased in intensity, mimicking the progression of dawn, even though the dome let in only an impoverished version of the outside sun.
Dome M-77.
He was still here. In this third-class fortified city on the continent of Morvane. In the cramped apartment of the southern slums. In the body of Raven Scrow, a sixteen-year-old boy with amber eyes.
Seven o'clock sharp.
Raven got up.
He washed—cold water, mechanical movements, avoiding his own gaze as much as possible. In the mirror, the black-haired teenager still returned his stare. The same face as yesterday. The same foreign body that was becoming, little by little, his own.
He put on his academy uniform.
He was a student at Bark Academy. That was part of who he was now, in this world.
He left his room.
The apartment was silent at this early hour, but not empty. Soft sounds came from the kitchen—the discreet clink of a utensil, the rustle of a dishcloth. Familiar actions performed with the economy of movement that habit provides.
His mother had been up for a long time.
On the dining table, a simple meal awaited him. Slightly toasted bread. A brown-colored spread whose exact taste he still didn't quite know. A glass of pale fruit juice. Élise Scrow worked as a logistician for a small monster-material resale company, and she left early.
Monster materials were a precious resource in the domes' economy. Bones, hides, carapaces, organs saturated with residual mana—everything could be used. Processed. Valued. Weapons, armor, technological components, medicinal ingredients. He was no longer really surprised by it.
His father, on the other hand, worked at a carcass dissection depot.
Raven sat down and ate.
Bella joined him a few moments later, wearing the same uniform, still half asleep. She greeted him with a smile as she sat across from him, then returned to her plate without really speaking. From time to time, she glanced up at him—a quick smile, a brief look—before sinking back into her morning thoughts.
They finished their meal and left together.
The front door closed behind them with a dull thud. The building's communal hallway greeted them—a narrow, poorly lit space, walls covered with paint that peeled away in places to reveal raw concrete.
Sixth floor. No elevator.
They took the stairs, their footsteps echoing in the silent stairwell.
On the ground floor, Raven pushed open the door and discovered the neighborhood once again.
Dilapidated was the right word. The buildings lining the street all showed the same signs of decay—facades cracked with fissures that sometimes climbed all the way to the roofs, paint stripped off in patches, structures haphazardly patched together. The skyline was low: the tallest buildings barely reached eight stories. The rest were low houses, corrugated metal roofs, constructions that seemed to stand more out of habit than sturdiness.
The streets were littered with trash.
They made their way through the alleys.
The neighborhood was waking slowly. Figures emerged from porches and entrance halls, heading toward their occupations. Some wore worn work clothes and walked quickly, heads down. Others loitered, their gazes empty or wary, leaning against walls.
A few faces lit up at the sight of the two teenagers in uniform. An old woman sitting on her doorstep gave them a toothless smile, hand raised. A man carrying a heavy sack greeted them with a brief word as he passed. A young mother holding a child's hand smiled shyly at them, her eyes lowering immediately afterward.
Other looks, however, were less benevolent.
The streets, on closer inspection, were hardly streets at all.
They walked toward the train station. The rail network was the primary means of transportation in Dome M-77—rails ran throughout the city, connecting the districts together. For the inhabitants of the southern slums, it was the only practical way to reach the academy. The station was a kilometer's walk away. A daily commute, twice a day, that Raven was learning to recognize as if he'd always done it.
They arrived at the station.
An unpretentious structure. A platform covered by a metal awning rusted in places. Vending machines lined up against a wall. Signs with faded colors. A sparse crowd of early-morning workers and students in uniform waiting in silence or staring at their feet.
Raven approached a mana dispenser. He selected the destination on the touchscreen, inserted a few coins, and retrieved two thin cardboard tickets. He handed one to Bella.
The train arrived shortly after, gliding along the rails with the characteristic hiss of mana engines. The doors opened, a waft of warm air escaping. They stepped aboard.
Since the apocalypse, the old monetary systems had disappeared. A single currency was now used, simply called CASH—universal, standardized, transported from dome to dome across the two continents. The name felt a little too simple for what it represented, but no one seemed to complain.
The train lurched into motion.