Mateo woke to searing pain across his raw knuckles. The skin flared an angry red—untreated and teetering on the brink of infection. He exhaled tiredly, realizing he'd forgotten to eat again. No time for cooking now; he'd have to grab something on the way out.
He wrapped a dirty rag around his hand, wincing at the contact. His gaze drifted to the boxing gloves he kept in his room. The old things he bought off-handedly and didn't quite use, rugged and worn thin with age, but thick enough to hide his wounds. He slipped them on carefully. Better to wait for treatment in the Capital, where they had actual doctors, maybe even healers with regenerative quirks.
The predawn light filtered through his cracked window, revealing Ashdrift in its true colors—peeling paint on collapsing storefronts, streets littered with debris from last night's distant shelling, and the metallic tang of dust and rust that never left the air.
Mateo counted the money again: the envelope containing 100 dollars, plus the 300 he'd saved. Four hundred dollars total. In Ashdrift, it could last a month, but in the Capital? Everything cost triple there. Hopefully, the hero course would provide food and accommodation.
If I actually get in.
The thought surfaced unbidden. He knocked his fist against his temple. Of course he would get in. They'd lowered the qualifications to the bare minimum. He wouldn't need his useless quirk to apply.
He stepped out of his coffin-sized room, descending three flights of creaking stairs and emerging into the cool morning air. Looking up, he took in the Cemetery one last time—five floors of decades-old concrete, tin, and rust. Paint-flaked walls that groaned in the wind like they had bones.
A strange tightness gripped his chest. This place had been hell, but it was his hell. The only home he'd known for years. Part of him wanted to memorize every crack in the concrete, every stain on the walls. The other part wanted to run before he changed his mind.
They called it the Cemetery for a reason. Rooms the size of coffins, residents shuffling about with such lifeless expressions you'd mistake them for actual zombies. He wouldn't be surprised if there was an actual corpse forgotten in one of those rooms.
On his way to the gym, he stopped at Mrs. Chen's corner store. The elderly woman at the counter, counting her change.
Mateo stepped forward, pulling a crumpled five-dollar bill from his pocket—here's for the noodles from day-before-yesterday. Sorry it's coming so late. He handed it to Mrs. Chen.
Mrs. Chen called after him in her cracked voice, "At least you remembered. Unlike the other kids. You're a good boy, Mateo. Be safe out there."
He nodded and left.
Arx's truck sat outside the gym, its once-blue paint oxidized to a sickly gray. The vehicle rested low on its axles, loaded with crates and suitcases secured by fraying rope. Arx leaned against the driver's side, arms crossed, expression like he'd swallowed something sharp.
"Didn't sleep, huh?" Arx asked, his gravelly voice cutting through the morning stillness.
"Barely. Did you?"
"Nope." Arx checked his watch. "Come on, we're going to miss the train."
Mateo glanced at his cracked wristwatch: 7:06 am. The trains usually departed at seven-thirty. They needed to move.
"Took you long enough," came a voice from behind them. Alex emerged from the building carrying red and green suitcases. She wore a sleeveless top that showed off arms and baggy jeans. Everything about her—from her confident stride to her squared shoulders—radiated an energy that made Mateo feel small.
Not intimidated. Just... aware of how much space she took up in the world, compared to him.
"Want a sandwich?" She grinned, perfect white teeth flashing. "Nal made it."
"Nal?" The name sounded vaguely familiar.
"Over here!" a high-pitched voice called from inside the truck. Mateo hadn't noticed through the tinted windows, but people were already inside.
"Get a move on," Arx grunted, opening the driver's door. The hinges protested with a rusty squeal. Mateo took the right passenger side while Alex claimed the left.
The interior smelled of old upholstery and engine oil—exactly what Mateo expected from anything Arx owned. Inside sat three people: a wiry woman with the same sharp nose as Alex and iron-gray braids who must be Arx's wife, and two children about the same age—perhaps eleven or twelve—a girl with long braids and a boy with badly dyed brown highlights.
They adjusted themselves, the girl settling onto Alex's lap while the boy scooted to the middle, leaving Mateo pressed against the door. After three attempts, the engine spluttered reluctantly to life, and they pulled away from the Cemetery.
As they drove, warmth filled the cramped space—not just from body heat, but from something else. The easy way Nal chattered about her cooking experiments. How the boy (Dev, he learned) rolled his eyes but still helped his sister with her seatbelt. The way Arx's wife (Mira) hummed softly under her breath.
This was what a family looked like. Not the broken thing Mateo had grown up with, but something whole. Something that worked. The realization made his chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with hunger. He missed his own.
Mateo's stomach growled loudly as they left the driveway. He opened the sealed ziplock bag containing the sandwich, a peculiar scent wafting from between the bread slices. Just as he raised it to his mouth—
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," warned Dev in a nasally voice.
"Why not?"
"Let's just say that's one of Nal's 'experiments.'"
Mateo shrugged. Hunger trumped caution. He took a bite as Nal leaned forward eagerly.
"I hope you like it!" she chirped, fidgeting with her braids. "It's got pickles and turmeric and boiled eggs!"
The flavor hit him like a gentle slap—tangy and weird, but not terrible.
"It's... unique," he said diplomatically.
Nal beamed while Dev shook his head. "That's practically a rave review in our family."
Alex looked mortified. "Nal, we talked about this. You can't just throw random ingredients together."
"But that's how you discover new things!" Nal protested. "If everyone just made the same boring food, nothing would ever change."
Mira laughed, a soft sound that filled the truck's corners. "She gets that from her father. Always convinced the world needs fixing."
Mateo finished the sandwich, his stomach grateful for anything. These people were letting him into their family moment, their private jokes and gentle teasing. For just a few minutes, he could pretend he belonged somewhere.
The truck rumbled past Ashdrift's dying landscape. Crumbling fences. Scavenged homes. Long-dead factories that now hosted squatters or just collected rust. Most windows were broken or boarded up. Every wall was layered with graffiti—some angry, some just desperate for acknowledgment.
They passed hollow-eyed families hauling suitcases toward the station. Children huddled around a burning barrel, roasting something that might have been meat. A lone man pushed a cart piled with scrap metal, sweat cutting clean lines through the dirt on his back.
The truck bounced over a pothole the size of a grave, and Mateo's last view of his neighborhood disappeared behind them.
They reached the transit hub—the intermediate city bridging Ashdrift and the Capital. A drone buzzed overhead, its red scanning light sweeping over a group of soldiers herding civilians into orderly lines.
"This is where we stop," Arx muttered, shifting into park as his family began gathering their bags.
The trains were massive—like giant metal serpents, each the length of five school buses linked together. Mateo stared openly at the machinery. Growing up in the poorer districts meant the most advanced technology he regularly saw were rickety cars and occasional surveillance drones.
One of the trains groaned under the weight of passengers—others fleeing from the nation's edges, like them. It began moving with a screech, sparks flying as metal wheels ground against rails. It picked up speed until it vanished from sight.
"Come on," Alex nudged him. "We need to get to the platform."
The parking lot was a graveyard of abandoned vehicles—cars that looked like they'd given every mile they had left to reach this point. Their owners had fled to the Capital, seeking safety from the escalating conflict.
Mateo noticed something else: the ground here didn't vibrate occasionally like it did back in Ashdrift. They were too far from the war zones to feel the artillery anymore.
The station platform was chaos. Mud-spattered children clung to mothers. Merchants hawked overpriced water bottles. Security drones hummed overhead in constant patrol. Arx shouldered through the crowd, his bulk creating a path until they reached Platform 3.
That's when Mateo saw them.
Families clustered around the platform barriers, pressing against the gates. A woman with three young children sat on a torn blanket, holding a cardboard sign that read "PLEASE - ANYTHING HELPS." An old man leaned heavily on a walking stick, staring at the trains with empty eyes.
These people weren't getting on. They couldn't afford to. Or didn't have the right papers. Or weren't connected to the right people.
The train gleamed like a knife amidst the surrounding chaos, its silver hull emblazoned with the Atlas insignia. Armed guards flanked the steps, checking documentation with bored efficiency.
Mateo's stomach dropped. He didn't have papers. Neither did Arx's family, he was beginning to realize. Would they be turned away? Would he watch his chance at heroism disappear because of bureaucracy?
"Next," barked one guard as the family ahead was waved through.
"Papers," he demanded.
Mateo froze. This was it. This was where his dream ended before it began.
But Alex stepped forward confidently, reaching into her pocket. She presented a card—sleek, official-looking. The guard's eyes widened slightly before he stepped aside.
Alex strode through like she owned the place, then called over her shoulder, "Relax, they're with me."
The guard sighed and motioned for the rest of them to pass.
As they boarded, Mateo caught sight of the woman with three children still sitting on her blanket. Still waiting. Still hoping.
What makes me different from her? he wondered. What makes me deserve this chance when she doesn't?
The answer was simple and uncomfortable: Alex. Connections. Privilege.
He was being smuggled into a system that trained heroes while real people—people who might need saving—were left behind on the platform.
The train's interior stood in stark contrast to everything else they'd seen that day. Sleek seats. Working lights. Clean floors. Air that didn't taste like dust and rust. Mateo kept his hands in his lap, hiding his raw knuckles behind the boxing gloves.
With a pneumatic hiss, the train pulled away from the station.
For four hours, Mateo stared at the blur of passing landscape. Everything outside melted into streaks of gray and brown. For a while, there was nothing but wasteland: broken roads, power lines snapped like bones, forests reduced to charred stumps.
The destruction went on and on. Miles of it. This wasn't just poverty—this was the aftermath of something terrible. War. Disaster. The slow death of a civilization.
Then, gradually, impossibly, color began to return.
Green appeared first—fields sectioned into perfect grids. Then white wind turbines spinning lazily against blue sky. Solar panels glinted in the sun. Fences stood straight and bright. No ash here. No decay. No signs that the wasteland they'd just passed through even existed.
It was like crossing from one world into another. From hell into paradise.
But the transition felt wrong somehow. Too clean. Too sudden. Like someone had drawn a line and decided that suffering would stop here and not one inch further.
By the time they arrived at the Capital station, it seemed like another planet entirely. Marble spires reaching toward the sky. Hovercars gliding silently between buildings. A massive glass dome arched over the station, with security drones patrolling in perfect geometric patterns overhead.
People here looked different too. Cleaner. Better fed. Their clothes actually fit. Their eyes held hope instead of desperation.
Mateo stepped off the train onto the gleaming platform, still wearing his dirty boxing gloves and clothes that smelled like engine oil and rust. Around him, the Capital sparkled like something out of a dream.
But all he could think about was the woman with three children, still sitting on her blanket back at the other platform. Still waiting for a miracle that would never come.
Is this what heroes look like? he wondered, staring up at the impossible beauty of the Capital's skyline. People who get to escape while others are left behind?
The thought followed him as they walked through the station, past fountains and marble statues and people who had never known what it felt like to go to sleep hungry.