Axel blinked against the harsh, warm bulb, his body aching as if he'd been dragged across concrete. He reached out to push himself up, his hand brushing against a folded piece of paper resting on the small nightstand beside a government-issued envelope.
He unfolded the note first, his eyes scanning his mother's hurried, familiar handwriting.
"Axel, government officials came by while you were still unconscious. They wouldn't listen when I told them you were out cold—they said most awakeners use that excuse to dodge service. I had to go in early for my shift because our account hit zero."
Axel's jaw tightened. He dropped the note and picked up the official government notice. The bold ink stamped across the header: mandatory awakening deployment to the first layer of the Sub-Basins. Failure to report would result in an immediate deduction of their household contribution points.
In the hole-cities, contribution points or credits were the only currency that mattered. Without them, food rations, clean water, and power allocations dropped to zero.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, planting his bare feet firmly on the cold floor. A dull, lingering throb pulsed behind his temples, reminding him of his previous near-fatal attempt to activate his ability.
"The language of realities..." Axel muttered, shaking his head at his own sheer recklessness.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
He stood up, his joints popping, and stared down at the empty apartment.
Axel's fists clenched at his sides. A cold wave of fury at the government officials rolled through his gut. He jerked his gaze to the clock. It was today, and it was already past noon. Half the day was gone, eating at the narrow window he had to secure his daily contribution cut-off.
Moving on sheer adrenaline, Axel bolted into the small kitchen, shoveled down a cold, tasteless bowl of leftover grain mash for brunch, and grabbed his jacket. He didn't waste another second. Yanking the apartment door open, he sprinted down the narrow concrete corridor and slammed his palm against the call-plate of the communal elevator.
—----------
Stepping out into the first layer, Axel found himself surrounded by dozens of other young awakeners—kids his age, pale-faced and exhausted, dragging heavy winches and hacking away at mounds of rubble. Massive segments of the cavernous structural vault had caved inward, leaving giant slabs of reinforced concrete and tons of jagged stone blocking the access corridors. The scale of the disaster was staggering; the first layer stretched out into a massive, sprawling labyrinth of destruction, and the sheer volume of excess debris made the task look completely impossible to clear with human hands alone.
Standing amidst the shattered ruins of the first layer, Axel felt the cold weight of the devastation settle deep into his bones. Looking at the twisted girders and pulverized concrete, the true, terrifying scale of what a Blue-grade Titan could inflict became painfully clear. And that reality ignited a cold, hard ember in his chest. A fierce, silent vow took root: he would never allow himself to be that powerless again.
"Hey! You! Freeze!"
A heavily armored security officer intercepted him, his hand gripping the stock of a service rifle. "Identification. State your sector."
"I'm here on the mandatory awakening deployment notice," Axel said, holding out the folded paper.
The soldier snatched the paper, his eyes sweeping over the stamp before glaring up at Axel with undisguised contempt. "Half the day is already gone, kid. What, did you sleep in while everyone else was out here breaking their backs?"
Without waiting for an excuse, the soldier grabbed Axel by the shoulder, shoving him hard through the maze of rubble toward a reinforced command shelter. He shoved Axel right up to a scarred steel desk where a commanding officer sat reviewing casualty ledgers.
"Late," the captain snapped, not even bothering to look up from his manifest as he slammed a heavy stamp down onto a log. "Do you have any idea what tardiness costs in the Sub-Basins?"
"I was recovering from the hospital discharge—" Axel started.
"Your excuses don't buy rations," the captain interrupted, finally raising his eyes, cold and flinty. "Because you missed the morning rotation, your household contribution points are already in the negative. You're starting your service underwater."
The captain tossed the paperwork aside and keyed a comms unit on his desk. "Get Section 14z9 primary recovery on the line. "
Moments later, heavy boots crunched over the loose gravel. A lean, muscular, scarred man stepped into the shelter, wiping a layer of chalky dust from his forehead.
"You called for me, Captain?" the man asked, his voice rough.
"Take this one to the 14z9 section," the captain ordered, nodding toward Axel. "Put him to work."
The man turned his gaze onto Axel, extending a calloused hand. "Name's Jose," he said. "Let's move. You've got a lot of ground to make up."
Jose led Axel deeper into the chaotic sprawl of the upper section, his heavy boots crunching rhythmically over a bed of pulverized concrete and shattered glass. The air was thick with chalky dust that clung to the back of their throats, making every breath a chore.
"Listen up, kid," Jose said over the low, ambient roar of distant winches and straining machinery. "We aren't just out here moving rocks for our health. Every team in this trench is locked in a brutal shift-quota race against the other sections."
Axel wiped a line of gray dust from his forehead. "A race?"
"A survival race," Jose corrected bluntly, glancing back with a grim look. "And right now, our section is sitting dead last on the board. You want to know why? Because we pulled a trash hand with the awakening lottery. Not a single person on our team has an ability that can actually shift heavy debris, crack massive slabs, or shore up a crumbling vault."
Jose stopped walking, turning to face Axel directly. A sudden, sharp glean of desperation flickered in his tired eyes as he studied the young man.
"Tell me straight," Jose asked, lowering his voice as he leaned in. "What's your core utility? Does your ability actually help with clearing wreckage and rebuilding this structural mess, or are you just another dead weight I'm going to have to drag across the finish line?"
"Rune Smithing," Axel said, his voice dropping slightly as he met the older man's gaze.
Jose's shoulders slumped, the brief spark of hope vanishing from his eyes as fast as it had ignited. "Rune smithing," Jose repeated flatly, letting out a heavy, tired breath. "Great."
"It might be related to crafting, though," Axel added quickly, hating the hollow sound of it in the dust-choked air. "I can work with materials, shape things—"
"Yeah, well, shaping a metal hilt won't lift a ten-ton concrete beam off a collapsed utility line," Jose cut in. Then, catching himself, he offered a flat, polite nod. "Still... crafting is one of the hottest abilities; maybe you could craft something for me someday."
Even with Jose's forced civility, Axel could feel the dead weight of disappointment lingering heavily between them.
They walked the rest of the way in silence, weaving through the jagged maze of the upper layer until they reached their assigned pocket of destruction. Jose stared blankly at the massive mound of pulverized stone, his eyes completely dead. Without another word, he bent down, gripped a heavy iron-bladed shovel, and pointed a calloused finger toward a choked trench line.
Jose didn't speak again. He just started shoveling, ignoring Axel entirely as he drove the blade deep into the dirt with the mechanical numbness of a man whose hope of ever climbing the sector ranks was utterly gone.