This story is written in a style that does not follow modern English conventions.
I come from a tradition where: Silence carries more weight than words, Status speaks louder than emotion, Dialogue is not explanation, but pressure, And each gesture can decide a kingdom.
The chapters are not "smooth."
They breathe in uneven rhythms - like real power struggles do.
If you expect the narrator to guide you gently, you will be frustrated.
If you need every emotion explained, you will feel lost.
If you believe a story must treat you like a child - you will hate this one.
But if you are willing to read between silence and blade, then welcome.
This is the voice of Rus.
Not as museums remember it.
As men did.
***
Silence tore John Grey out of sleep.
Not a scream. Not light. Not pain. Coal dust filled his lungs - thick, granular, alive. It flooded the room until the air itself seemed to collapse inward, like a mine giving way.
He sat up. His joints clicked - reluctant machinery coming back to life. The heart stayed still.
Sixty years of commands, signatures, allocations - and now he couldn't tell whom to save first: himself, or the city.
The bedside clock stuttered back to life. 00:55. 00:56.
He stared at it, as if his eyes alone could hold the second in place.
London beyond the window was dead. No tires. No wind. No shiver from the lamps under the bridge. The city waited - for him to rise, or not rise at all.
He lowered his feet. His knees cracked, dull and mechanical, like old pistons. The parquet was smooth, glacial, silent - a morgue trolley.
He stood. The body obeyed, unwillingly. The shoulder flared - same place, same pain, the day he'd learned about the nineteen dead. He shook his head, sharp, as if to knock the memory loose, and reached for the robe. The fabric felt alien, as though it belonged to another man.
At the desk, his fingers trembled - but already knew their path. The air above the papers was colder, as if the wood itself were cooling from the inside.
A folder waited there: Briefing Pack №12/7-C. Yesterday's signature. A small red seal in the corner. The paper drew warmth from his palm, as if it breathed. He gripped the edge, not letting go - that touch still held the last trace of order. Everything else had begun to drift.
The paper moved - not from a draft. It reached for his skin. He flinched. Too late.
The tablet blinked alive. Click. Once. Twice. Thrice. A white flash struck his eyes. He turned away, then back. The paper lay still in his hand, calm, innocent. His palm still remembered the burn - a cold that bit and vanished.
He froze. Fatigue, lack of sleep, stress - safe explanations. The other one - madness - he couldn't afford. He exhaled, set the sheet down, and looked at the screen.
The reports came in short, surgical blows:
Vysheslav-7. Seam drifting. Thirty-eight trapped.
Radomir-15. Wedge failed. One dead.
Cold. -11°C. Eleven thousand two hundred forty-seven homes without heat. Three hours, forty-six minutes.
He didn't blink. His mines. His orders. His guilt. The fingers closed, slow, as if they could still hold one tunnel from collapsing. He drew breath - short, like at the scent of blood - and let it go, quieter than he meant to.
The screen went black. His face looked back - grey, motionless. In the dark glass, his mouth already tasted of ash and iron.
Once, he'd ordered the degassing accelerated. The shaft had dropped, swallowing nineteen. The lift went down empty. Came back reeking. That smell still clung to him - the same that now leaked from the folder on the desk.
There'd been a boy - sixteen, taking his father's shift. John never learned the name. Only the sweater: yellow, striped. It had caught on the rail. Burned cloth, same smell.
The tablet stirred again. He opened the control log. Override. Halt extraction. Evacuate personnel.
Cancel Vysheslav-7.
The system asked for a signature - living. The time read: 01:05:21.
He picked up the pen. It creaked between his fingers, metal against stone. His hand reached toward YES - and stopped.
A pulse beat in his skull: a signature, or a life.
Something inside him whispered - not words, just a current: "Don't."
He drew breath; nails cut into his palm. The shoulders stayed still, the body waiting for sentence.
The pen moved. A single line.
NO.
He'd never chosen himself. Not once.
The old miner came back to him, humming under his breath, something about a window lit at night. John had asked, "Why sing underground?"
The man hadn't answered right away, only smiled. Now John understood - to remember why you return.
Thirty-eight lives. A weight that bent the spine. If even one of them still breathed below - he must. The world didn't answer. It paused - the second before impact. A crack. The bulb burst, dry as bone.
Glass scattered, chiming. Outside, a transformer howled. Or a wolf.
John froze, leaning on the desk. The paper lay before him, flat, still. His signature blackened like a burn. Only his breathing filled the room.
Then the phone rang. The sound punched through the silence, muffled, as if from underground. He looked at the receiver, didn't move. With every second the ringing grew louder, closer - someone wasn't calling the phone, but him.
He couldn't stand it. He lifted the handset.
The voice hit immediately - no breath, no greeting, sharp as a snapped wire.
"What have you done, John? The network's down. All channels are dead. Re-sign it. Now."
He stared at the display, said nothing. The man on the other end hesitated, then went on, his tone cracking.
"Sir… don't do anything stupid. You know why you're there - to sign, not to think."
John exhaled and heard another man's breath - one who'd learned to live off bones.
"Don't cancel Vysheslav-7. That's a direct order."
John inhaled slowly, like before a dive. He knew the cost of the words and said them anyway, calm, flat: "If the grid runs on corpses - let it fall."
"You goddam - " The voice broke into rage, but he'd already cut the line.
He didn't move. His heartbeat hammered in his neck, his temples, his fingers. He could feel it: time was out.
He grabbed the phone again. His hands shook but found the numbers.
"Shaft thirty-one. Bring everyone up. Compensation's on me."
"Sir, that's illegal…"
"Do it."
He let the receiver fall from his hand. The air stopped. He waited - for a sound, a signal, anything.
Nothing.
A pause. A click. Silence.
He stood there. Nothing happened. The room held only his breath. Only him - no screens, no voices, no orders.
Seconds didn't move; they hung in the air like dust after a blast.
Then the heart stumbled. Beat - pause - beat again. Off rhythm, as if someone else were giving the command.
He tried to shout, but his throat stayed locked. Tried to straighten; his spine twitched. Not fear. Not pain. Something else.
The body no longer obeyed.
He couldn't remember the last time anything inside him had said no. All his life he had been command. Now the body lived - without him.
The screen flickered. 00:44:47. The system kept running, signing, without him.
He blinked. It had been 01:10, or 01:11, before. Now - 00:44:47. Time ran backward.
Each second dragged, numbers falling, not rising.
The folder on the desk arched as if it drew breath, then split from the inside - a fine crack, like glass giving way, but the sound came through him, not around him.
The tablet blinked once more, then froze. The screen whitened - a flash. The folder was gone. In its place lay a book - white, smooth, cold.
On the cover, the words: Volume I. Alexander.
He touched it without meaning to. The pages opened on their own. When he tried to pull back, it was already too late.
The paper darkened; ink stirred. Pain - pure light, no blood, no wound. The smell of iron rose, sharp as current under skin.
The book trembled. One page pulsed - his pulse, only now inside the paper. He wasn't holding it anymore. It was holding him.
Air vanished. No blast. No light. A single word, silent: "Reset."
The body didn't fall; it simply ceased to be. The world turned inside out, like a pocket - no sound, no colour. Somewhere deep, a bell rang. Not a sound, but a command.
Rise.
The smell hit first - hot iron and wet earth. Memory followed. The air was thick, like steam off blood; it carried smoke, sweat, the crack of splintered wood, and the stench of burned arrows.
He opened his eyes. The light was pale, unearthly - not sun, not London.
A forest, shattered and burned. Smoke drifted between fallen pines; underfoot, the mud shone dark with rain and blood.
He stood, unsteady, feeling not skin but metal beneath his fingers. Around him the battle roared: shouts, steel, horses screaming, the dull rhythm of bodies breaking and rising again.
Through the din, a voice cut clear:
"Alexander."