Night Town ✰ Ballad of Survival

Описание: I didn’t set out to be a rebel. I just wanted things to be different — better. But no one changes the world alone. So I gathered the five people I trusted most. My friends. My allies.

I thought they’d see what I saw — the cracks in the rules. The lies. The feeling that something — everything — was wrong.

They didn’t wake up. They turned me in.

Turns out, they were already gone. Brainwashed. Not even aware of it.

Now I’m alone — one against a world that doesn’t know it’s asleep, trained to defend its own prison.

They call me unstable. A glitch. A threat. But I remember what it felt like to be free. And I won’t let that memory die.

Region One: The Core

This is where it started. Where the illusion was perfect. Clean streets. Perfect smiles. Calibrated skies. The Core was everything the System promised — order, peace, beauty. But it was all fake. Rehearsed interactions. Monitored feelings. Censored truth.

I started asking quiet questions. Doubt took root.

But doubt is a virus here. My friends — the five — turned first. Not because they hated me. But because they loved the System more.

I left before they could erase me. They believe I’m gone. They believe they’re safe.

But they taught me the key lesson: You can’t fix the Core from inside.

Region Two: The Hidden War

They called it The Fringe. Lie. This wasn’t the edge — it was the buried heart. And it was ready to rise.

I expected shadows and silence. I found whispers of something older than the System.

Below the ruins and smoke tunnels lived those the government couldn’t break — Resistors, locked away for generations. Children of the first rebellion. Their minds unbendable, so they were erased from history.

Agents came in waves. But they didn’t know what lived here. They thought Region Two was dead.

It lived.

The Battle Begins

The first attack came at night — blades in alleyways, drones in silence. I led Resistors through forgotten tunnels, mapping vents and signals.

The agents had tech. Orders. We had rage and memory.

They hit us with gas and noise pulses. We hit back with fire, smuggled arms, symbols in blood that woke the old ones.

By day three, Region Two was an army. Untrained. Imperfect. Dangerous.

We struck their command below the towers. Found hidden leaders — not politicians, but puppeteers. Mind-scientists and officers, long erased from records.

They tried a mind-pulse kill switch. Thal — a Resistor — threw herself into the core. She died. But the pulse never triggered.

Her sacrifice gave us the moment. We took it.

The Turning Point

By day seven, Region One noticed. Feeds stuttered. Voices broke into towers.

I spoke for thirty seconds:

“You’ve been lied to. Not for years — for generations. The people who disappeared didn’t die. They were hidden. We are them. And we are coming back.”

We didn’t win everything. Many fell. Some were taken. But the Core cracked.

The Resistors were free. The leaders exposed. And I was no longer alone.

Region Three: The Ashwood Veil

I played it cool, but I paused to admire the view — green mountains, a waterfall, peace. The people danced like water — calm, unaware.

But it wouldn’t last.

I climbed for a vantage. Fired a smoke arrow into the square — panic scattered the crowd. A second arrow launched my zipline across.

I saw shadows — agents, hunting.

Before I could act, a hand grabbed me. A blade pressed to my side.

“Going somewhere?” the agent whispered, dragging me into the tunnels.

Deep beneath Ashwood, past maps and light, they stopped.

In the shadows stood the hidden leaders of all three regions. Architects of control. Rulers who believed they’d crushed the rebellion.

One stepped forward.

“You’ve been a thorn too long. Now you’ll listen.”

I was trapped.

But the fight hadn’t ended. It had only just begun.

𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫:
Henriette Sleepylund

𝐑𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬:
Aurora Snowing
Catherine Hawkfield
Danielle Stronghall
Katarina Pinkwolf
Majken Flowersister
Zita Farward

𝐀𝐥𝐭 𝐑𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬
Caitlin Hawkfield
Drusi Lightningforest
Maria Farward