Tyler wakes before the sun has a proper name for the day. Light under the curtains is thin, the kind of gray that tells you the weather will not be your friend. He lies very still, listening—small, careful motions—so the house can keep pretending everything is ordinary.
From the kitchen a kettle begins to sigh. Melissa's voice, already moving in the room, sounds like a song she sings when she is trying not to think. Silas is at the little table by the window; the morning paper folded under his forearm like a small, familiar wound. He has the habit of reading the top line twice, as if scanning might change the news into something kinder.
Tyler sits up, rubs the sleep from the back of his neck, and watches them through the half-light. He is twenty, an age that demands impatience and still leaves a boy's hunger in his hands. In the mirror over the dressing table his face looks like someone else's: not unhandsome, but tired in a way that has nothing to do with youth. He runs his fingers under his eyes and finds the faint shadow of yesterday's worry. He dresses carefully—shirt clean, shoes tied with the practiced economy of someone who cannot afford small mistakes—and moves through the house so his presence is a hush instead of a disturbance.
The kitchen smells of onion and tea and the faint, comforting grease of last night's frying. Melissa puts a damp cloth in the sink and hums while she pours. There is a bowl of porridge and two cups of tea waiting. Silas folds back the paper and looks at Tyler with that look his father learned in a bank: measured, polite, a little tired around the edges.
"Interview today?" he asks, voice thick with both hope and the kind of polite caution the world takes to its debts.
Tyler answers with a small nod. He does not need to tell them he has been to three interviews in the last month. The house knows the rhythm: the waiting, the false promises, the ring of a phone that never meant an offer. Melissa forces a smile she keeps like a bandage.
"You eat," she says. "We'll borrow the extra for the bus if—" Her sentence trails; everyone in the room knows how thin the margin is. Money is the hush behind every word.
Silas taps the paper, a tiny, pointless gesture of authority. "Keep your head straight," he says. "Don't let them bully you. And don't talk politics in there." It is the sort of advice that sounds brave and useless at once.
Tyler sips tea and lets the heat slip into his chest. He wants to say something clever—something that will soften the edges of this morning—but cleverness is a luxury he cannot spend. Instead he answers with a practiced calm, the kind he has used since high school to turn teachers' irritation into interest. "I'll be fine," he says. "I always am."
Melissa presses his hand against hers for a second, a small, human proof. He lets himself believe it for the length of a heartbeat, then unhooks the belief and tucks it carefully away again.
Outside, Darsen City is waking like an animal with a sore leg. The early smell is diesel and old bread; the sound is metal complaining, the distant howl of a traffic jam that has not yet learned mercy. Tyler pulls on his jacket and closes the door with deliberate care. The hallway of their building is neat—painted a pale yellow, the landlord's attempt at dignity. This is not the sort of house where doors hang by a hinge; neither is it a palace. It sits somewhere squarely in the middle of being enough and not enough, and that middle—this middle-class fulcrum—keeps the brown of worry from tipping into desperation. He likes that, and hates it all at once.
At the street the city makes itself plain. Vendors are already arranging their wares under tarps, shouting small prices. A pair of teenagers in Ignaros patch jackets argue about some local fight; posters for a Veyra youth lecture flutter on a lamp post nearby, pasted over a peeling propaganda sheet from the last election. The city wears its politics like dirt on sleeves—visible, unavoidable. Buses pour out their passengers, a wet clatter of umbrellas and backpacks; two men in uniform argue about a late train schedule with the sharp, bored cadence of men who trade their small dignity for a paycheck.
Tyler's walk to the station is a series of small observations he doesn't show the world: a cracked tile in a pavement that will trip someone by lunchtime; the restaurant with a crooked sign that used to be full and is now saving on staff; a Solaris temple that has two bodies in it and more empty benches than not. Religion, here, is a costume rather than a conscience—an ornament you drape for festivals and then leave on the hook. The party banners and the temple lights feel like props in a play whose audience has stopped pretending to be surprised.
At the corner, a bus empties like a half-eaten loaf. People push with a polite violence—steps, elbows, the human insistence that someone get ahead. A woman jabs with an umbrella, and for a second the city is a collage of small aggressions. Tyler stands with the others, clutching his satchel like it is the only solid thing he owns. He breathes in the cold morning air and thinks of the interview: the building with glass that blinks like an eye, the receptionist who will smile like she owes you nothing, the manager who will ask questions about "fit" while glancing at a name on a scrap of paper—someone they will hire because of a lunch or a favor.
He does not hate the people in the line. He understands them too well; the face of this city is his face if he squints. He watches a man in his thirties help a kid climb aboard, then gives the child a coin. Small kindnesses drift through the crowd like wind. But the kindnesses are not enough to hold up the whole city.
When the bus groans and moves, Tyler finds a narrow window seat and lets the conversation around him slide like a torrent he is not in. A man across from him complains about the new tax code; two women talk quietly about a son who joined a youth group and now wants to be a leader; a boy taps his phone and watches a feed of protests downriver. Tyler looks at them all without really seeing any one face. He catalogues how people speak, what phrases they use to smooth their fear—"It'll pass," "We'll manage"—words that in this place are ritual rather than reassurance.
By the time the bus shudders to a halt near the interview building, the city has already done its morning work: it has made everyone smaller and more practical than they were the day before. Tyler stands, shoulders squared, a small shielded thing moving through a day that knows how to disappoint. He steps off, pulls the strap of his satchel over his shoulder, and walks toward the glass doors, toward a waiting room full of other people whose faces were carved from the same grey hope as his own.
He does not feel heroic. He does not want to feel anything dramatic. He wants, with the most honest selfishness of the morning, only one thing: a chance to stop watching and start changing, somewhere—anywhere—he could make a small difference. For his parents, for their country, for the cold that sits like a stone on the center of his chest.
He breathes, and the breath clouds and fades. The glass doors bob and his reflection shivers, then steadies. He pushes open the door and steps inside.
The warmth inside the building was artificial, the kind that came from recycled air rather than comfort. The glass door swung closed behind Tyler with a soft click, sealing out the noise of Darsen City and replacing it with a quieter, more suffocating kind of pressure.
His shoes tapped lightly on polished tile that looked cleaner than anything he had walked on that morning. A receptionist arranged pens with the precision of someone determined to bring order to a world she did not control. Her eyes flicked upward, landed on him briefly, then dismissed him in the same movement—he wasn't the type who needed attention.
Tyler didn't mind. Being ignored was easier than being noticed in places like this.
He adjusted the strap of his satchel and took in the lobby as he passed: a fake plant meant to suggest prosperity, old magazines that pretended last year's economy was still stable, a motivational poster about "opportunity" curling at the edges. Everything in the space tried too hard to look hopeful, and that desperation made it worse.
A sign pointed down the hall:→ Recruitment & HR
Tyler followed it.
The hallway smelled faintly of old carpet and burnt coffee. His footsteps felt too loud, even though he walked softly. A few other people were ahead of him—two young men in shirts that didn't fit right, a woman holding a neatly folded resume to her chest like a fragile treasure, a gray-haired man rehearsing lines under his breath.
None of them looked hopeful. They looked… suspended. Like people waiting to be told whether they had permission to live another day without falling apart.
Tyler slowed down behind them. He didn't know if he was nervous or simply tired. Maybe both. His thoughts blurred into an instinctive cataloging of details:
The scuffed heel of the woman's shoe
The way the older man kept smoothing his hair
The wrinkle of anxiety between the young man's brows
The faint tremble in someone's hand as they held a pen
Every detail told him a story before anyone spoke.
The waiting room door was open. Warm light spilled out, but not the comforting kind. More like the yellow light of a hospital corridor—bright enough to show every flaw.
Tyler stepped inside.
Rows of plastic chairs lined the small room, most already filled. People clutched folders like shields. A cheap machine brewed coffee in the corner, filling the air with the sharp, bitter smell of disappointment pretending to be energy.
He chose an empty seat near the wall, far from the door but close enough to observe everyone.
Voices murmured in low tones around him:
"…jobs are drying up; my son's been searching for months…""…heard the HR manager only hires people with connections…""…Ignaros League protesting again today—just a distraction…""…Veyra groups talking about reforms but they're all the same…"
Tyler didn't look at the speakers directly.He watched their hands instead—because hands rarely lied.
A jittery tap against a knee.A thumb rubbing circles into a palm.Fingers tightening around resumes until knuckles whitened.
He understood their fear.It was the same one that lived quietly beneath his ribs.
He didn't join the conversation.He didn't need to.
Observing was easier than participating.
A man in the corner laughed bitterly. "Politicians pray louder than priests, but only when cameras are on. And people still believe them."
Soft chuckles followed—tired, resigned.
Tyler's gaze drifted to the front desk where names were being checked off. A clipboard lay half-buried under coffee cups. Someone had scribbled "Interview Schedule – Delays Expected" across the top.
He exhaled slowly.
This wasn't just a waiting room.It was a mirror reflecting everything broken about Darsen City:
a system that made people beg
a society that rewarded connections over merit
leaders who fed division while pretending to preach unity
a population drowning quietly in expectations they could not meet
Tyler folded his hands in his lap and stared forward, steady and still.
He was used to waiting.Used to watching.Used to swallowing words no one wanted to hear.
A door opened to the right.Someone called a name.
Not his. Not yet.
He straightened his posture anyway.
He wasn't sure whether it was hope or habit.