Chapter 3
“The Guard”
Berlin shivered in darkness beyond Leo's window, the city's power grid failing again. Shadows shifted across the walls of his cramped apartment, twisting and elongating in the flickering light, the faint smell of damp concrete mingling with the metallic tang of old wiring. The emergency lamp flickered, casting a sickly yellow glow that made the corners of the room seem to stretch and warp. Outside, the streets lay in disarray, littered with the remnants of a city once vibrant, now a ghostly shell of its former self.
He methodically packed away the last traces of Sarah's existence. Her mother's silver ring. The small sketchbook filled with her delicate, whimsical drawings. A half-used bottle of perfume that still carried her scent—sweet and floral, a fading reminder of a spring that had long since passed. Each item disappeared into the box, a silent farewell to the life they had shared, a life that felt as if it were a fever dream slipping further from his grasp.
His large hand instinctively reached for the ring hanging from his neck, calloused fingers closing around the metal he'd shaped himself. He had spent countless nights crafting it, melting down copper wiring from abandoned tech and tiny strips of silver salvaged from old circuit boards. The shop owner had let him use the tools after hours in exchange for three weeks of water rations. Worth it for the way Sarah's eyes had lit up when he'd presented it, the delicate spirals of copper and silver intertwined like their lives had become.
"You made this?" she'd whispered, turning it to catch the light. The salvaged metals had taken on an almost ethereal quality, transformed from society's discards into something precious. He'd worked the copper into a gentle wave that cradled a thin line of silver, making it dance like water catching sunlight.
Three weeks. She'd worn it for three weeks before everything changed.
The club where they had first met was now a hollowed-out relic, its pulsating beats replaced by the dull thud of despair. The music had long been silenced, the bar's neon lights flickering weakly in the vastness of the night. Security guards like him were now tasked with protecting dwindling supplies, but that night, all defenses crumbled. The first signs of trouble emerged as desperation spread as though it were an unstoppable disease, people crowding the streets with wild eyes and empty stomachs, hungry for what little remained.
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He remembered the flicker of panic in Sarah's eyes as the alarms blared—a sound meant to warn them, but in the chaos, it was drowned out by the screams of the crowd, a tide of human desperation crashing against the walls. They had been trained for emergencies, yet nothing could prepare them for the surge of humanity that turned animalistic in an instant. The exits had been locked to prevent looting, a decision that now felt like a death sentence.
In the midst of the pandemonium, Leo had acted instinctively, sealing the doors behind him, believing he was protecting what little remained of their fragile lives. He had scanned the throng, adrenaline surging through his veins as he searched for Sarah, heart racing in his chest as though trapped in a cage. But in that frantic moment, he hadn't realized she was still inside, trapped behind the very doors he had closed, her eyes wide with fear as the chaos engulfed them both.
Then the lights cut out, and chaos erupted.
The ring felt cold against his chest, its carefully crafted spirals darkened with soot that would never fully clean away. He had found it in the ashes, somehow intact when everything else had burned. The delicate band looked almost impossibly small against his muscular frame, a constant reminder of the gentleness he had once been capable of, before that night had burned away everything but purpose.
Outside, the city was a tapestry of decay and despair. The air was thick with the acrid scent of smoke from burning debris, a choking haze that clung to the throat. Graffiti sprawled across the crumbling walls, vibrant colors contrasting the bleakness in a desperate plea for attention. The echoes of distant sirens and the crackle of fires intertwined like a macabre symphony, playing the soundtrack of a city in its death throes.
As he sealed the box with trembling fingers, Leo glanced out the window. The streets below were a chaotic dance of shadows, flickering flames casting grotesque silhouettes against the buildings. Berlin's once-proud architecture loomed like haunted sentinels, crumbling and weary, their windows broken and gaping like open wounds. The digital clock blinked 11:59.
In less than twelve hours, he would enter the processing center. Maybe there, he could finally stop seeing her face in the flames. Stop hearing her last words, lost in the roar of the crowd. Stop feeling the phantom heat of a night that had consumed everything he was.
His hand closed around the ring one last time, feeling its weight against his heart. Some things weren't meant for recycling. Tomorrow, he would carry their broken promise of forever with him, into whatever awaited behind those processing center doors.
In the streets below, Ultimate Dive recruitment posters plastered the walls of what had once been Berlin's most exclusive districts. Their message was universal: "Humanity's future requires sacrifice." Former bankers and laborers alike studied them with the same hollow-eyed desperation. Leo wondered what Sarah would have thought of this final equalizer.