Noise, in great waves, crashed in first—

  Barking intelligible orders. Screams. The grate of metal on stone.

  The air stank of antiseptic, blood, and recycled breath. Harsh white lights flickered overhead like the sky had been cracked and replaced by a bleeding machine causing him to turn his head towards the ground involuntarily.

  His body moved first, before even he understood it. Knees scraping concrete. Breath shallow. His hand reached for blindly for something. Until he grasped it and stood.

  It felt heavy in his hands—

  A blade. Not his.

  His fingers clutched it by instinct.

  As if it was his only anchor.

  “On your feet, Initiate.”

  A voice like splintered glass pierced the veil. Not directed at him, not yet. Another form lay two meters away—thin, shivering, bleeding from the lip, clad in white stained crimson, and curled up in fetal on the cold concrete.

  Then came the sound that reset the world.

  CRACK.

  The sharp retort of a blunt weapon against flesh.

  Then again. And again. And again.

  As suddenly as it started, it stopped.

  The thin profile relaxed. There was no screaming. Just a low grunt. A wheeze. The vain efforts to speak with no oxygen in the lungs.

  Then silence.

  “Failure to act in time is treason against the species,” the voice intoned. Calm. Absolute.

  A figure stepped into view now that the world stopped spinning so much—tall, cloaked in dark, sleek armor that looked suited for sudden combat, with a raised black visor that mirrored the overhead lights like twin eyes.

  “All of you will learn discipline. Even through finality,” they said.

  Then, a snap of the fingers.

  Another figure moved out from behind them—a second individual previously hidden, wielding a sidearm like an extension of thought. They moved with no hesitation. The smoothness of it was sickeningly enchanting.

  He heard it before he saw it, a sharp crack, the wet thunk of something penetrating a body.

  One shot. Clean.Wet.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The body stilled. Blood pooled fast. Archibald watched it soak into the already stained floor like it had always belonged there.

  And he did not flinch.

  He didn’t know why. It wasn’t bravery. It wasn’t shock.

  It just… was.

  A hand touched his shoulder.

  “Rise.”

  Archibald looked up from his place on the concrete. The man before him was old—but not soft. Lines carved into his face like erosion on mountain stone. Eyes silver and cold like frost. Measured. Watching. Void of emotion.

  “You did not look away,” The man said quietly, but his voice carried. “That is good.”

  Archibald said nothing. He rose, numb to the world around him. The blade in his hand rose with him and felt heavy now, but not foreign.

  All around him, other Initiates stood in neat rows, some trembling, some wetting themselves, some trying very hard not to be noticed. But most stood, blank expressions adorning their shaved faces. Roughly fifty of them. Uniforms matching. Eyes not darting, looking straight ahead—anywhere but the corpse at the front of the room.

  Except Archibald.

  He looked at it. Not to gloat. Not to mourn. To understand.

  The instructors watched them all. But Archibald could feel it—they were watching him differently.

  The man stepped forward again.

  “Class A7,” he barked, “You are no longer people. You are no longer children. You are Initiates. Tools for civilization. Tools meant to mold the future of humanity. And should you survive, you will become Wardens. You will be remade. Mind, body, Gift.”

  Another instructor chimed in from the side, this one younger, armored with a crimson red helix sigil etched into their chest plate. “You will speak when asked. Move when ordered. Think only as commanded. Failing to meet standards will not be tolerated.”

  The corpse was still lying on the floor.

  The blood had stopped moving and smelled of rust.

  Archibald’s thoughts moved like machinery—

  Fast. Cold. Purposeful. Geared towards his immediate survival.

  That wasn’t a punishment. It was a message and the message is clear. Hesitation is death. Fear is weakness, but expression is worse.

  He subtly moved his eyes to scan the crowd from his position at the front of the room.

  He noted the sterile white uniforms. The shaved heads. The bated breaths.

  He turned his eyes back to his grey combat boots, blood now staining the soles.

  Play the part. Learn the rules. Survive long enough to matter.

  Survive long enough to understand what happened to him.

  Something pulsed again inside him.

  A quiet thrum. Like a thread under the skin.

  He knew the sensation, just as he knew his name

  Something had followed him. Had become him.

  It didn’t speak. But it gave him a kind of clarity. Like a lens sliding into place.

  And through it, he saw the truth:

  This wasn’t training.

  It was selection.