Pain jolted Amer out of his thoughts, dragging him back to the harsh reality of his battered body. He lay amidst the rubble, his chest heaving as each breath sent sharp stabs through his ribs. Every muscle screamed in protest as he shifted slightly, his skin raw and stinging from countless scrapes and burns.

He groaned softly, lifting his hand to wipe away the dust caked on his face. His fingers came away sticky with blood. Looking down, he could see the full extent of his injuries—cuts and bruises ran across his arms and torso, a deep gash on his leg was sluggishly oozing blood, and his left arm hung limply at his side.

For a moment, despair threatened to overwhelm him. He shouldn’t even be able to move with injuries like these. Yet here he was, alive—barely—and still conscious. He couldn’t help but think of the weapon that had obliterated everything around him. The realization struck like a hammer blow: whatever had killed everyone else must have altered him somehow. His body wasn’t normal anymore. It wasn’t superhuman—he had no illusions about that—but sturdier, able to endure trauma that should have left him immobile or dead.

The thought was unsettling, but there was no time to dwell on it. He closed his eyes and focused. The first aid knowledge he had absorbed earlier surfaced in his mind, clear and precise, like instructions in a manual. His hands moved instinctively, tearing a strip of fabric from his shirt to bind his wounds. He fashioned a makeshift sling for his arm and carefully cleaned the gash on his leg with a small amount of water from a cracked bottle he found nearby. The pain didn’t ease, but the bleeding slowed.

The process was agonizingly slow, but it gave him a sense of control—however small—in the chaos. Once he was patched up enough to move, he began the arduous task of freeing himself from the rubble.

Every movement sent fresh waves of pain coursing through his body, but Amer gritted his teeth and pushed on. It took what felt like hours to crawl out, his muscles trembling with exertion by the time he finally emerged into the open.

The sight that greeted him was devastating.

The city of Hashem lay in ruins. Two years of relentless war had already ravaged its streets, reducing buildings to skeletal remains and infrastructure to twisted metal. Burned-out cars lined the roads, their frames rusting under layers of ash and soot. Corpses—old and decayed—littered the streets, their tattered clothing barely clinging to their withered forms. Some bore signs of animals scavenging for food, a grim reminder of how life had clawed on even amid the destruction.

Amer recognized this layer of ruin all too well. He had lived through it. He remembered walking these streets, dodging debris and soldiers, enduring the endless grief of a city under siege.

But there was something different now—something far more unsettling.

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The silence.

It wasn’t just the absence of people. There were no animals, no birds, no insects—no sound of life anywhere. Even the ubiquitous Zio drones, whose droning engines had become an oppressive part of daily life, were gone. The city was utterly dead.

Amer’s heart sank as he took it all in. The second layer of destruction was not just physical—it was existential. Everything that once pulsed with life was now erased, leaving only the haunting stillness.

He forced himself to focus. He needed to survive, and that meant making a plan. He searched his pockets for his phone, but it was dead, either damaged or drained of power. The phones of the corpses nearby were equally useless. Perhaps the weapon that annihilated the city had some kind of electromagnetic pulse, frying all electronics.

Still, that might work to his advantage. If the Zios’ drones and equipment were also disabled, he had a window—however brief—to move without being tracked.

Amer’s priorities crystallized in his mind: find food and water, gather supplies, and leave the city.

He scanned the streets, his memory of Hashem mapping out potential shelters. There was a small storage building nearby that had once been a relief center. It was likely looted, but it might still hold some essentials. He began limping toward it, careful to stay low and out of sight despite the desolation around him.

The journey to the shelter was slow and grueling. The streets, already ruined by years of war, were now clogged with fresh rubble. His injuries made every step an ordeal, but he pressed on, driven by sheer will.

As he walked, his mind turned to the daunting question of escape. Hashem was surrounded on all sides by the Zios’ blockade. How could he leave the Defiant Strip?

He considered heading west to the sea. If he could find a boat, he might sail along the coast and try to reach neutral waters. But the Zios’ naval forces patrolled the sea heavily, and even if their systems were temporarily offline, the open water offered little cover.

To the north and east lay the Zio border itself—a near-impossible route. The walls were reinforced with steel and concrete, lined with motion detectors, automated turrets, and soldiers who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. The land bridge cutting through the strip was another dead end, heavily fortified and crawling with surveillance.

That left the south, toward the land of the Pyramids. The journey would be grueling, a full day on foot under normal circumstances, but now it would take longer. The area was a wasteland, bombed repeatedly during the war, and the Zios had built three bases to carve the strip into controlled zones. However, if the weapon had forced an evacuation, those bases might be abandoned for now.

The south seemed like his best chance. The land of the Pyramids was far from a safe haven, but it was a place he could blend in, where the Zios’ control was weaker.

His decision made, Amer quickened his pace. When he reached the shelter, he scavenged what he could—flour sealed in plastic, a bottle of water, and a worn military-style backpack. He added a set of scavenged clothing and a utility knife to his haul.

As he stepped back into the street, he caught sight of a bicycle lying against a pile of debris. It was battered but intact. Hope flared in his chest.

Under normal circumstances, a bike ride to the southern edge of the strip would take three hours. With the rubble and the need to avoid open spaces, it would take twice that time. But it was his best chance.

He climbed onto the bike, wincing as his injuries protested. Relying on his memory of the city, he began pedaling south. His eyes darted constantly between the road ahead and the eerily empty sky above, knowing that any delay or mistake could cost him his freedom—or his life.