Elderly and Sick Citizens' POV –
Location: Zone 22C – Refuge Sector, Former Royal Hospital District
Old Miriam's Voice, age 87
"Child, turn that thing up… yes, the BBN broadcast. I want to hear her voice."
The nurse nodded, adjusting the cracked volume knob of the old television. The room buzzed with static before Amara's image sharpened on the screen—stoic, composed, shadowed in power.
"She looks just like him," I muttered. "That same emptiness in the eyes, same posture... like she's made of marble and vengeance."
All around me, the long ward of withering bones and coughing breaths quieted. Even the man beside me, blind and barely conscious from radiation exposure, tried to raise his head.
The announcement replayed again:
"Attendance at the Blackwood National Gathering is mandatory. No soul exempt. Absence is treason. Consequences are death."
No soul exempt...
"They expect us to attend," one of the patients whispered, voice trembling.
"Ha," another elder croaked from his cot, voice brittle like dry leaves. "They want us—sick, dying, half-buried—to drag our bones and oxygen tanks across Blackwood territory for a show."
"Not a show," I corrected. "A warning."
Because we knew the truth that the young didn't fully understand—this empire wasn't built on freedom or democracy. It was forged in blood and silence. And Chris Blackwood's absence? It wasn't a crack in the wall—it was a threat in disguise.
"Maybe he's dead," a young nurse muttered under her breath.
I turned my head slowly, my gaze slicing through her arrogance. "If he were dead, Amara would be wearing white and the earth would be trembling."
There was silence again.
The broadcast ended. But the streets outside continued to rattle—convoys rolling past, armored B.A.M. soldiers stomping boots that shook the glass. No one could sleep. Not tonight.
I watched my wrinkled hands shake lightly on the bedsheet.
In my years, I'd seen five regimes rise and fall. I'd lived through the Great Collapse, the Black Currency Uprising, and the Number Law Revolution. But I had never—never—felt the kind of fear that came from not knowing where Chris Blackwood was.
He was chaos in the body of a king. And if he chose silence?
Then the explosion was coming.
Location: District 3 – Recovery Shelter B, Cancer Treatment Facility
Jasper, 15 years old, stage 4 leukemia patient
The TV flickered from BBN to static. My mom turned it off.
"I don't think we can make it," she whispered. "You're not well, and—"
"We'll go."
She looked at me like I was crazy.
"Mom… I don't want to die in here. If they say it's mandatory, it is. This is the Blackwood Empire, not some republic. They will execute us if we stay. Even me."
She broke down in silent tears.
I wasn't afraid of death. Not anymore. I was just afraid that if we didn't go… someone would come to take us. Not soldiers. Something worse.
And deep inside, I wanted to see her. Amara. The woman who stood in Chris's place. The one who stared at the nation through a screen and didn't blink once.
If anyone had answers, it was her.
So yeah. I'd roll my IV pole through fire if I had to.
In Every Corner of the Empire…
The elderly wept in silence. The sick prayed for strength. And even the forgotten—the crippled, the outcasts, the disabled—begged their caretakers to dress them, roll them out, carry them if necessary.
Because in Blackwood, mercy wasn't written into the law.
And tomorrow...
Everyone must show up.
Or everyone would pay the price.