December 15th, 2044 - Tower Perimeter District 7, Guangzhou
Chen Yu had been three when his world ended.
He barely remembered his parents' faces anymore—just fragments. His mother's hands on piano keys. His father's laugh when a soccer team scored. They'd lived in a small apartment four blocks from where the tower would appear, in what was now called the "Vaporization Zone."
When the tower materialized, their building had simply ceased to exist, along with everything within a 200-meter radius. Chen Yu survived only because his parents had taken him to visit his grandmother in Foshan that day. They'd returned to find their entire life erased, replaced by military checkpoints and refugee camps.
The compensation money ran out in three months. The emergency housing was "redistributed" after six. By the time the monsters came when Chen Yu was eight, they were living in a shipping container in District 20, the outermost civilian zone.
He remembered the day his father joined the first Civilian Defense Force. The government promised citizenship priority, food rations, and housing upgrades for volunteers. His mother had begged his father not to go. Chen Yu had watched from their container's small window as his father marched with five thousand other desperate men toward the tower, carrying a rusted Type 56 rifle from the last century.
The First Defense lasted four hours. Sixty-three men returned. His father wasn't among them.
His mother stopped eating after that. She'd sit by the window, humming piano songs he didn't recognize, growing thinner each day. Chen Yu stole food when he could, begged when he couldn't. He was ten when he came home to find her hanging from the container's ceiling, a note in her pocket: "I'm going to find daddy."
The orphanage lasted two months before budget cuts shut it down. The streets were harder but freer. Chen Yu learned which restaurants threw out food at what times. Which soldiers would look the other way when he snuck into the perimeter zones to scavenge. Which drainage pipes stayed dry during monsoon season.
Three years. Three years of dodging military patrols, gang recruiters, and organ harvesters. Three years of survival that would end in the next thirty seconds.
"Sector 7 clear," Lieutenant Wang reported, rain streaming down his tactical helmet. "Just vagrants and beggars. Moving to Sector 8."
Chen Yu pressed deeper into the drainage pipe, clutching the half-eaten sandwich he'd found in the military mess disposal. Real meat—not synthetic. His stomach cramped with hunger.
"Hold position," Colonel Zhang's voice crackled through the radio. "General Liu wants everything pristine for tomorrow's attempt. Check Sector 7 again."
Tomorrow's attempt. Chen Yu had heard whispers in the ration lines. After twenty years of failure, they were going to try something unprecedented. A focused nuclear strike combined with some kind of experimental particle weapon America had developed. The evacuation orders had already gone out—everyone within ten kilometers would be moved by morning.
Everyone except the forgotten children who lived in the pipes and ruins.
Footsteps splashed closer. Chen Yu made a calculation—stay and risk discovery, or run and risk being shot. The soldier's flashlight swept across the pipe's entrance.
"Got a rat," Lieutenant Wang called out. "Sector 7, drainage pipe."
"Remove it," Colonel Zhang ordered. "No witnesses for tomorrow."
That word—'remove'—made Chen Yu's decision. He burst from the pipe, feet slapping against wet concrete. The tower loomed to his left, that impossible black structure that had destroyed everything he'd ever known.
"Runner! Stop or we shoot!"
Chen Yu zagged right, then left, using techniques learned from three years of evading patrols. The tower's base was just ahead—a no-man's land where even soldiers wouldn't follow. Electromagnetic interference disabled all equipment within fifty meters of it.
"Stop him! He's heading for the blackout zone!"
A soldier lunged from Chen Yu's blind spot, rifle-butt swinging. Chen Yu tried to dodge, but his worn shoe sole, held together with wire and hope, finally gave out. He stumbled, the soldier's strike clipping his shoulder, spinning him around.
Time slowed.
Chen Yu saw the tower's base rushing toward him—that perfect black surface that had resisted nuclear weapons. He saw his reflection in it for the first time, illuminated by lightning. Thirteen years old. Sixty pounds soaking wet. Matted hair. Hollow eyes. A ghost of a child that China had forgotten existed.
His skull hit the tower at the exact point where its surface met the ground.
The crack was oddly quiet—like stepping on a bird's egg.