Chapter 7

“The Father and The Boy”

The Canadian wilderness had become a monument to decay. Where the CN Tower once pierced Toronto's skyline, a broken spire now cast its shadow over a metropolis of empty steel husks. The St. Lawrence Seaway lay choked with rusted ships, their abandoned cargo long since stripped by the desperate and the dying. Quebec City's ancient walls had crumbled, while Montreal's Olympic Stadium stood as a hollow shell of former pride.

In the west, Vancouver's port district had become a graveyard of shipping containers and abandoned vessels. The city that once crowned itself the gateway to the Pacific now struggled to feed what remained of its population. The Rocky Mountains stood as silent sentinels over the devastation below. Banff National Park, once a crown jewel of Canadian tourism, had been stripped bare within months of the crisis. The Fairmont Chateau's elegant halls now echoed with emptiness, its luxury a distant memory in a world concerned only with survival.

Here in Glimmering Falls, the same story of collapse played out on a smaller scale. Through the perpetual haze of mining operations, the town's deterioration showed in every crumbling building and empty storefront. The river that had given the town its name now ran thick with pollutants from the strictly controlled mines. What remained of Main Street stretched out like an open wound through the heart of what had once been a prosperous community.

Graham's boots crunched through frost-covered gravel as he watched the morning shift heading into the mines. These were the lucky ones—officials and their chosen workers, those still cleared for access. The morning air carried the familiar bite of mineral dust, each breath a reminder of what he'd lost. Through the haze, he caught sight of two small children huddled against a crumbling wall, their hollow eyes following the workers with desperate hunger.

The mines dominated the skyline of Glimmering Falls, their processing towers belching smoke into the gray sky. Officers patrolled the perimeter with professional precision. Graham remembered when he had worked the mines with pride—before desperation had turned him into a thief. Before hunger had driven him to risk everything for his son.

"Eli!" he called out, his voice carrying the gruff edge of northern Ontario. "Where ya at, bud?"

He spotted the boy near an old storage yard, far enough from the fence to be safe but close enough to make Graham's chest tighten with anxiety. The memory of his arrest still haunted him—the cold efficiency of the guards, the formal declaration of his ban. He had been lucky. A year later, they had started executing thieves.

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"Just over here, Grizz!" Eli emerged from behind a stack of empty crates, his face streaked with dirt but lit by a familiar grin. His mother's locket caught the weak morning light as it swung around his neck. "Just givin'er a think about that announcement yesterday, ya know? The Ultimate Dive and all that hoopla."

Graham's face fell, the lines around his eyes deepening. "Aw jeez, don't tell me you're thinkin' what I think you're thinkin', eh?"

"Right proper registered this morning," Eli said, jutting his chin out with a defiance that belied his youth. His fingers found the locket, tracing its worn edges. "Got a month to prep before headin' to the processing center, don't ya know."

Graham grabbed Eli's shoulder, perhaps harder than he meant to. "Fer cryin' out loud, ya know what this is all aboot? What they're askin' folks to do?"

"Better than watchin' everyone waste away up here in the bush." Eli's young face hardened, a resolve in his eyes that seemed far too old. "Ya think I'm blind, Grizz? Every month there's less food, less hope. My mum used to say things would turn around, right up until the sickness took her." He gestured toward the mines, his voice cracking. "Tommy up at the resource center, poor bugger, tells me his little sister stopped askin' for food yesterday. Just lies there now, like a wet sock. That's gonna be all of us eventually."

Graham stared at the boy, his heart aching at how much Eli understood. It was cruel—to see someone so young forced to carry such a burden. The sight of his own son's sunken face flashed through his mind—the way he had grown so still at the end, no energy left even for tears.

A shift horn blared, the sound carrying echoes of better days, when Graham's pickaxe had meant something. When he could put food on the table. Before everything had fallen apart.

"One month," Eli said quietly, scuffing his boot in the frost. "Then maybe I can do somethin' that matters, ya know?"

The words hung in the frigid air, their weight settling over Graham like a leaden shroud. He had failed his son—failed to protect him, to keep him alive. And now Eli stood before him, making the same choice as so many others, masking his fear with that crooked smile.

The words escaped before Graham could stop them: "Give yer head a shake, bud. Ya think I'm lettin' ya do this alone? I'm comin' with ya."

Eli's eyes widened, his head snapping up. "Ya can't! You're too—"

"Too old? Too slow?" Graham's laugh was hollow, tinged with bitterness. "Maybe, eh? But I've watched enough kids check out, watched my own boy fade 'cause I couldn't protect him. I'm not—" His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard. "Not this time, bud."

The morning sun finally crested the mountain peaks, casting long shadows through the streets of Glimmering Falls. In the distance, the processing towers continued their relentless work, smoke rising into the gray sky. Graham placed his calloused hand on Eli's shoulder again, gentler this time.

"We got ourselves a month," he said, his voice steady. "And we're goin' in together, like it or not, ya hear?"

Eli's lower lip trembled, and for a moment, Graham saw the child beneath the bravado—the scared kid who had lost too much, too soon. "Ya really think we got any chance at all?"

Graham looked toward the mines, the ruins of everything they had lost casting shadows across his heart. "Don't know about chances, kiddo. But I know about watchin' out for your own. And maybe... maybe this time, I won't muck it up."

Above them, the smoke from the processing towers darkened the sky, a constant reminder of all they had lost and the little time they had left before the game began.