The cosmos stretched out in silence: an ancient void where light existed only as a distant memory. There was no sound, no form, no measurable time. And yet, something moved.
From deep within the darkness, a trembling glimmer emerged. Its light was irregular, weak, like a flame on the verge of going out. That shape was alive—wings attached to a fragile body, torn and perforated, little more than the remnants of what they once were.
Each flutter was a desperate effort, every movement a struggle against inevitable collapse. The creature was fleeing—not from a place, but from something hidden in the depths of the cosmos, beyond comprehension. The moth descended without control, spinning as its glow slowly faded. It forced its broken wings, as if it could still reach a chosen destination. Its body no longer obeyed.
Then, the darkness changed.
A blue band appeared before it: Earth's atmosphere. As it pierced through, it burned. The air turned to fire, and the night sky was torn open by a fleeting streak of light. This was no natural phenomenon. With its last fragment of consciousness, the moth fluttered once more. Its light flickered.
And went out.
Unconscious, defeated, it fell. Below, a city carried on with its nightly routine—artificial lights, glowing screens, towering buildings, and millions of lives unaware of what had just arrived. No one looked up. No one stopped. The moth passed through the urban air unseen and crashed into the heart of the city.
The phone screen glowed with saturated colors. A vertical video filled the display: a flawless young woman spoke with exaggerated enthusiasm into the camera. The background was warm, carefully designed to look natural.
"Vibes are everything," she said. "If you surround yourself with bad energy, your life will stay bad. The universe responds to what you project."
Hearts floated endlessly across the screen.
"Enough with the victim mentality. Progress is possible if you want it badly enough."
The viewer count kept rising. Among the comments, constant praise mixed with a few dissonant messages.
"Not everyone starts from the same place.""That makes no sense."
They didn't last long.
"If you don't like what I'm saying, just move on," she added with a smile. "I'm here for those who really want to change their lives."
The stream continued for a few more seconds before cutting off. The screen went dark, and in the reflection of the glass appeared the face of a young man.
Aiden lowered the phone slowly.
Brown hair, scattered freckles, and alert, restless eyes. Nineteen years of expectations gathered into a single gaze. Beyond the apartment window rose luxury condominiums—modern towers with wide balconies and spotless windows reflecting the sky as if they belonged to another world.
"That's the goal," he murmured.
"I'll become the biggest influencer. No matter the cost."
A sharp sound interrupted the moment.
Beep. Beep.
Aiden checked the clock.
"Shit."
The time blinked with almost personal cruelty.
"Late again…"
He grabbed his backpack and rushed out. The city greeted him without warmth: bodies sleeping in cardboard beside lit buildings, isolated screams, violent arguments watched with indifference. No one intervened. No one seemed surprised.
Aiden walked through it all with a distant stare, lost in his thoughts, until something pulled him back.
A child.
He sat on the ground, leaning against a dirty wall, holding an empty cup with both hands. He wasn't asking. He wasn't reaching out. He was just watching people pass. Aiden stopped, approached slowly, dug into his pocket, and dropped a few coins into the cup. He hesitated for a second… then placed his lunch beside him.
"Don't give up," he said, offering an awkward but sincere smile.
The boy looked at him, surprised. Then he smiled.
Aiden walked away without looking back.
The boy kept watching him disappear into the crowd, still smiling… until several figures stopped in front of him. Young men. Far too focused on what he was holding. The boy's smile slowly faded as the distance closed. No words followed—only the metallic echo of the cup hitting the ground, cutting through the city's constant noise.
Aiden stopped for a moment.
He turned his head, searching for the source of the sound. His eyes scanned the sidewalk, the crowd, the moving shadows. He saw nothing. The city swallowed the noise once more. Aiden took a deep breath and kept walking, unaware that the metallic echo was all that would remain of that gesture.
When he reached a nearby plaza, the noise changed. It was no longer the city's scattered murmur, but a single voice multiplied by hundreds. A crowd gathered around an improvised stage: raised signs, overlapping shouts, rough cardboard and hastily printed sheets, stained and folded from use. Among incomplete slogans, one name repeated again and again, written in thick letters:
ANDRICK — NEXT DISTRICT LEADER.
Through the noise, Aiden caught fragments of conversation tossed around without clear owners, carrying a fragile hope.
"They say he really wants to change things.""I hope he wins… we need someone different.""If the current one doesn't get reelected, maybe things can finally move."
The voices didn't shout; they drifted through the crowd like a prayer sustained more by exhaustion than certainty.
At the center, beneath white spotlights, a suited man spoke with a firm voice, amplified by distorted speakers. He was tall, fair-skinned, with carefully styled blond hair. His posture was impeccable, and his restrained, calculated smile conveyed an unsettling calm.
Aiden didn't know why, but seeing him made something inside him relax.
"They abandoned us!" the man shouted. "Those who swore to protect us turned their backs on us!"
The response was immediate—applause, cheers, raised fists.
"But hope does not die!" he continued. "As long as one of us still stands, this place will not fall!"
Aiden stopped at the edge of the plaza.
"I won't give up," the man proclaimed. "I won't keep watching the place where I was born sink. I'll give my life if I have to!"
The crowd erupted. Aiden watched in silence—tired faces, desperate eyes, people clinging to every word like a lifeline. He didn't know whether to believe him or doubt him. He only knew that that calm, firm smile seemed to promise everything would be alright.
He looked away and kept walking. The speech faded behind him, drowned out by the city… and by something harder to name.
Elsewhere in the city, far from the plazas, spotlights, and promises, a group of men moved quickly.
They weren't dressed conspicuously: dark hoodies, low caps, ordinary backpacks. From a distance, they could pass as workers heading home or hurried pedestrians. Still, something felt off.
Their movements were too precise. Too coordinated.
"Hurry up," one of them murmured. "It's almost time."
Another paused and opened his backpack, pulling out a carefully wrapped object—a compact metallic package, heavy for its size. Thin cables peeked from beneath the casing like artificial veins.
"How many left?" he asked without looking.
"Four points," the first replied. "All different. That's how it has to be."
One package was placed behind a false wall in a shopping mall, among bright storefronts and artificial music masking any suspicious sound. Another was hidden beneath seating at a recreation center, where children's laughter filled the air. The third was buried shallowly in a crowded park, as families walked by and street vendors sold hot food.
The last was left in a quiet neighborhood, among old houses and narrow streets, where no one looked twice at anything.
"No room for error," one of them whispered. "Once it starts… there's no turning back."
Aiden sat by the classroom window, elbow on his desk, staring beyond the glass. Outside, the world seemed to move with a freedom the classroom lacked. Inside, the murmur of students blended with the teacher's voice as she wrote on the board.
"As we've already seen," she said, "the world is divided into five main districts."
Aiden barely listened.
"Each district has its own ruler and internal laws…"
A stylized map appeared on the board: five clearly defined zones, separated by firm lines and distinct colors.
"Beyond these limits," she continued, "lies what is known as Zone Zero."
A faint murmur passed through the room.
"For reasons that are still unclear," she added, "that region has never been successfully explored and remains strictly restricted."
Aiden wasn't looking at the map.
He was looking at his phone beneath the desk, holding it in one hand like a secret shared only with himself.
Five views.
Five…
A knot of frustration tightened in his chest. He swiped and reopened his last live stream, staring at the number as if persistence might make it grow.
It didn't.
"If no one sees you, you're nobody," he thought. "That's how this world works."
He sighed.
"What am I supposed to do? Keep posting videos into the void?"
"Aiden."
The teacher's voice snapped him back.
"Are you paying attention?"
Soft laughter rippled through the classroom.
Aiden looked up, startled for a second, then offered an automatic smile.
"Yes, ma'am."
She studied him and crossed her arms.
"Then tell me," she said. "What's outside the districts?"
Aiden blinked.
"Uh…" He glanced at the board, tracing the map lines. "The unexplored zone."
She held his gaze a moment longer.
"Try listening more," she said at last. "This isn't just theory."
"Yes, ma'am."
But as soon as she turned back to the lesson, his attention drifted again—to a world where numbers mattered more than maps, and being seen meant existing.
The water was cool. Aiden floated on his back in the condominium pool, letting the day's exhaustion fade. The distant murmur of the city barely reached him through splashes and laughter. He closed his eyes.
What a day… exhausting.
Images returned uninvited: the class, the teacher, his friend's mocking voice in the hallway. Maybe I should pay more attention, he admitted, though the thought felt hollow almost immediately. Would that really get me anywhere?
He opened his eyes and looked at the sky darkening between the buildings. I don't think school will help me reach my goal. He shrugged. Better to relax.
He stood and swam from one end of the pool to the other. Nearby, a group of children played carefree. Aiden splashed some water at them.
"Hey!" one of them protested.
The response was instant—a shower of splashes drenched him.
"Hey!" Aiden laughed. "That's not fair!"
He joined in without thinking, splashing and laughing, his mind blank for the first time all day.
Then it happened.
Something fell into the water. A barely visible glimmer on the surface—a small moth, exhausted, its broken wings soaked, floated for a few seconds before being dragged by the currents. No one noticed.
Aiden laughed, mouth open. Time seemed to stretch. The water shifted. The current pushed it closer. Aiden saw it for a split second before he felt it.
"What—?"
The moth vanished into his mouth. Aiden sank slightly, then burst back up, coughing violently, spitting water as he struggled for air.
"Ugh!" he spat. "What was that?"
He clutched his chest, breathing hard.
"That's disgusting…"
The kids stared at him, confused. Aiden wiped his mouth with the back of his hand—and for an instant, felt a strange warmth beneath his sternum, like something had pulsed there. He blinked. It was gone.
"Well… free protein, I guess."
He shrugged it off.
"I'm heading out."
He left the pool without looking back, leaving the calm water and laughter behind. Unaware that his life had just changed forever.
Aiden closed his bedroom door carefully and dropped his backpack in a corner. The room lay in shadow, faintly lit by the city's orange glow filtering through the curtains.
"It's really late…" he murmured.
He fell onto the bed and placed a hand on his stomach. The strange sensation was still there, lingering like an unpleasant echo.
That's weird… I can still taste it.
He grimaced and stared at the ceiling.
"My stomach… feels off."
He lay still for a few seconds, listening to the silence.
"If I still feel like this tomorrow, at least I'll skip school."
The thought earned him a faint smile, born more from exhaustion than humor. He sat up on the edge of the bed. The silence grew heavier. His expression shifted.
"I have to try harder," he whispered. "If I want to reach my goal, I can't keep going like this."
He lifted his gaze to a shelf across the room. A worn photograph sat there, bent with age: two adults smiling at the camera, two small children between them. A whole family, frozen in a moment that no longer existed.
Aiden looked at it for a few seconds and sighed.
"That… can wait until tomorrow."
He fell back, stretched out to turn off the light, and closed his eyes. The room sank into darkness as the city continued on outside, unaware of everything.
A recording broadcast from a stage lit by spotlights dominated a crowded plaza. Raised signs, overlapping shouts, expectant faces. At the center, Andrick spoke with a firm voice, amplified by speakers. He was tall, fair-skinned, with carefully styled blond hair. His posture was confident, and his strangely calm smile seemed to bring reassurance even amid chaos.
"In my administration, there will be no exceptions," he declared. "No special cases."
The crowd erupted in applause.
"Everyone will be equal before the law."
His gaze swept across the people as if he saw them one by one.
"We will not allow this world to sink into chaos again."
Cheers rose higher, drowning out any lingering doubt.
Far from there, where spotlights and promises couldn't reach, the atmosphere was different. A dark industrial space of concrete walls and cold lights. A group of armed men waited in silence. Before them, a figure wearing a plague mask studied a map spread across a metal table.
Four red-marked points.
"Everything ready?" he asked quietly, eyes still on the map.
"Everything," one mercenary replied. "No interference."
The man slowly raised his head. On the wall, a digital clock ticked forward.
8:59.8:59:30.
His fingers tensed slightly.
Elsewhere in the city, Aiden slept deeply, unaware of everything. His breathing was slow and steady when something changed. A golden glow began to surround him, faint at first, almost hesitant. The air vibrated. The light grew, wrapping around him, closing over his body to form a luminous cocoon.
Objects in the room began to rise—books, clothes, a chair that trembled before lifting off the floor. The clock on the table vibrated insistently.
In the plaza, Andrick raised his fist.
"Let's build a better tomorrow."
The applause was deafening.
The clock struck 9:00.
In the industrial space, the masked man smiled faintly.
"Now."
Explosions shook the city.
One blast after another. The shopping mall. The park. The recreation center. The neighborhood.
Fire. Screams. Chaos.
Meanwhile, in a silent room, a golden light pulsed strongly—like a heart that had just begun to beat.