MILES POV
"We're running out of time." She tightly grabbed my arm.
"Hurry, Miles!"
The siren tore me awake before I could see her face. Every damn time.
I jerked upright in bed, dragging in air so sharply it hurt my chest. Sweat clung to my skin despite the coldness of the room, and for a moment I could still feel water in my lungs.
"All units report to their duty posts."
The announcement echoed through the speakers overhead in the same emotionless voice it always used. Calm. Controlled. Mechanical.
Like nothing in the world had ever gone wrong.
My eyes shifted toward Jeff.
He was already dressed in uniform, adjusting the strap of his rifle with tired movements. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, and the room's dim lighting only made him look worse.
"You did it again," he muttered, not with irritation this time. It sounded closer to concern buried under exhaustion.
I rubbed a hand across my face slowly. "Sorry."
Jeff stared at me for a moment before shaking his head lightly.
"It's getting worse, Miles." He grabbed his rifle from the locker beside him. "You should probably get yourself checked before..." He paused.
Then stared up at me.
"You know."
He tried to sound casual, but his grip tightened slightly around the weapon.
That told me enough.
After he left, the silence inside the room felt heavier than before.
My gaze drifted toward the bottle sitting on the table beside my bed.
Ominizode.
The label beneath the name read: The best sleep aid in Sector Four.
I scoffed quietly under my breath. The pills clearly weren't doing their job.
Fourth nightmare this week.
Same beginning, ending right before I could see her face. Always running toward something terrible without understanding why. But the feeling keeps getting worse.
I pushed myself out of bed and headed toward the shower. The water barely stayed warm long enough to matter.
I stood there anyway, letting it run over the cuts covering my arms. Most of them were old, thin marks layered over newer ones. None had healed properly. Around here, nothing ever really did.
By the time I finished, the pipes had already begun coughing rust-colored water.
I dried off quickly and opened my locker.
My uniform came out first, stiff from too many washes and too little care. Then something small slipped free and hit the floor with a metallic clink.
I froze.
The compass rested near my boots.
Old. Scratched. Worn smooth around the edges.
It was the only thing I remembered inheriting besides my name or so I was told.
For some reason, looking at it made the dream feel real.
My fingers closed around it slowly before I slipped it into my pocket without thinking too much about why.
Getting dressed had become routine years ago.
The sleeve of my jacket caught against my wrist where the stitching had started coming loose again. I tugged harder until the fabric settled back into place.
Barely holding together.
Just like everything else here.
Outside the room, someone started coughing violently in the corridor. I paused while fastening the last button on my jacket, waiting for it to stop.
It didn't.
Eventually, I finished dressing anyway.
There was no point waiting for people to recover anymore. The air outside felt thick the moment I stepped into the sector.
Not fresh. Not rotten.
Just heavy.
Like the entire place had been sealed shut for too long.
People moved through the narrow pathways quietly, heads lowered, eyes tired. Nobody spoke unless necessary now. Even conversations felt rationed.
Near the well, a woman lowered a bucket into cloudy water and stared down into it hopefully.
I already knew what she would see. Nothing clean. Still, she kept checking every morning like hope itself had become a habit she couldn't break.
I kept walking.
The elder's house stood open on my left. I nearly passed it before movement inside caught my attention.
His wife stood over an empty pot, stirring slowly even though there was clearly nothing inside it. The motion never stopped,when she noticed me standing there, she smiled gently. I didn't understand how she still managed that.
"Heading out?" she asked.
I nodded quietly.
One of the children lay nearby beneath a thin blanket, chest rising slowly with each weak breath. The other sat awake in the corner watching me carefully.
He didn't blink once, so I looked away first. I always did.
The patrol vehicle waited near the gates with its engine already running.No one wasted fuel unless they had a reason to.
That alone made my stomach tighten.
The ride toward the patrol station passed mostly in silence. Outside the reinforced walls, the land stretched into dry wasteland scarred by deep cracks and dead earth.
Nothing grew out there anymore.
By the time we arrived, the others were already gathered near the upper platform.
I barely took two steps before something slammed into my side. The impact knocked me straight to the ground.
Laughter broke out almost immediately.
"A point for Dylan!" Noah shouted between laughs.
I groaned under my breath as Dylan flexed proudly above me like he had accomplished something impressive.
Noah sat nearby with a bottle loosely hanging from his fingers. Nobody knew how he kept finding alcohol, and nobody bothered asking anymore.
Humor was one of the few things he still clung to desperately.
"You look miserable today," Noah said.
Dylan smirked. "Jack Frost finally losing his cool?"
I pushed myself back up slowly, dusting dirt from my sleeves.
Before I could answer, Ava stepped between us.
"Cut it out," she said softly.
Unlike everyone else, she never needed to raise her voice to be taken seriously.
Her hand rested briefly against my shoulder as she looked up at me.
"You okay?"
The question sounded genuine enough to make something tighten painfully in my chest.
"I guess," I replied.
Ava studied my face for a second longer like she didn't believe me, but she let it go.
Shawn arrived moments later and stopped once he got a proper look at me.
"Jesus miles," he muttered. "You look half-dead."
"I feel half-dead."
That earned a quiet laugh from Noah, though it faded faster than usual.
He leaned forward slightly afterward. "Still having those dreams?"
I nodded.
The bottle in my hand felt colder than the wind around us.
"Every night," I admitted quietly. "Same thing over and over again."
Nobody interrupted this time. That alone made me uneasy.
"A girl keeps showing up," I continued. "Red hair, I never get to see her face."
Dylan scoffed automatically, but his eyes flicked toward the wasteland afterward.
"She keeps warning me about something," I said. "Like she's trying to stop something before it happens."
A short silence followed.
Then Noah spoke.
"Yeah, but is she at least hot?"
Normally that would've gotten a better reaction. This time, the laughter felt forced. Even Noah seemed aware of it.
He gulped down on his bottle as though it would erase it.
I walked toward the edge of the platform and stared out across the wasteland.The earth outside the walls looked worse today.
Cracked open, dry, wrong.
Tracks stretched across the dirt several meters away.
Too deep to belong to patrol vehicles. Too large to belong to humans. Something about them made the hairs on my arms rise slowly.
"I don't know," I muttered. "Something feels off."
The wind swept across the dead land in long dry waves, carrying dust and the faint smell of something rotten underneath it.
Behind me, nobody answered immediately.
Finally Dylan walked over beside me.
"This is sector 4 Miles, something always feels off." he said. "Sentinels are just stories, Council propaganda to keep people scared."
He sounded confident, but he kept his eyes fixed ahead instead of looking directly at the tracks.
"And even if they were real," he added more quietly, "that was years ago, they're all gone."
I stayed silent.
Because deep down, I knew something had changed.
The wind shifted again. For one brief second, the tracks smelled fresh, quiet. Too much, like there was something out there.
Ava held my wrists and gently pulled me down onto one of the benches nearby.
"You need sleep," she murmured.
I was too exhausted to argue.
My head rested against her lap while her fingers moved slowly through my hair. The motion felt careful, almost absent-minded, like comforting people had become automatic for her long ago.
My eyes slowly closed.
And the dream returned immediately. Blood covered everything.
Bodies floated through a dark red river beneath my feet while smoke swallowed the sky above.
She stood ahead of me again, her back facing me. White dress soaked crimson.
"Wait," I called out.
The distance between us vanished instantly. Then she turned to me, and finally, I saw her face. Her eyes were amber, wide with fear.
"You're too late," she whispered shakily. "They're already here."
"Who?"
Her hands grabbed my arms tightly.
"I'll find you. " She whispered.
"Who are you?"
Her breathing quickened unevenly before her grip suddenly tightened.
"Wake up, Miles!"
I jolted upright. Sirens screamed across the entire sector. Heavy footsteps thundered against steel platforms while distant gunfire tore through the air below us.
Then the announcement came.
"ATTACK! ATTACK! SECTOR FOUR BREACH CONFIRMED. SENTINEL PRESENCE DETECTED."
Another gunshot rang out.
Closer this time.