To take a step. Then, to take another. That was Jord’s mantra.
It was already late – ten to midnight – sky dark and bleak with stars unseen. The day had already fled by the time Jord understood that His job prospect as a store clerk was just another honeypot of toxicity and exploitation – worse than the last mansion that he fled.
That morning he welded a small ember of hope, but now, now it laid smouldered in a crater of rage and hopelessness.
His eyes wandered the familiar street he had walked countless times – first for school, then for work. He had left school with bright eyes and brighter dreams, but now – if someone pried deep enough – they’d find them buried alongside his hopes.
How foolish now he felt, thinking that he could plot a path towards a better future. His skin crawled at the thought of grovelling before his old boss, begging to be taken back. Yet the thought of asking for help was no better. The walls seemed to close in as he weighed his options, each one felt heavier than the last, until the asphalt itself seemed to lunge at him to drown him and all his sorrows with it.
A bout of vertigo hit him. He stopped near a lamppost and took a deep breath. The world, now back on its axis, stood still at last. The breath, however, carried the acrid scent of piss. He didn’t know what to do – whether to weep, to laugh, or perhaps to lose himself and do both at the same time.
He felt drenched in exhaustion and emptiness, but still, a step had to be taken to be guaranteed reprieve from the harsh environment. Perhaps, if only in thought, a small crime could be committed to pass the day in the local jail – something minor, insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Vandalism, maybe. He glanced around but found no mark and no guard to share his exploits with. After all, easy targets like wooden benches had long been replaced by iron thrones, bolted into the cobblestones; The city hall, solemnly proclaimed through the gazette, insisted it was for the good of the environment – wood rots, they said. But Jord, like most, knew better.
Yet he tried anyway. The chairs didn’t even budge. Frustration gnawed at him as he turned to the lamppost, but it too resisted his efforts. Finally, he pulled out his phone, flinging it at the glass of the lamp. It missed. Of course, it missed.
Desperation surged as he tried to climb the lamppost instead, but his weary body betrayed him, sliding down after every futile attempt.
Dejected, he retrieved his phone, checked for damages – there were none – and slipped it back into his pocket. With a heavy sigh, he began his long march home.
Past the shuttered pharmacy, its neon cross dead. Past the playground, swings creaking in the wind like hanged men. His boots scuffed through pamphlets for a union rally two winters gone, ink bleached to ghosts. Somewhere, glass shattered. Laughter, sharp and mean, echoed off the carcass of the abandoned paper mill.
A figure lurched from a doorway – drunk and desperate, reeking of alcohol and defeat. Jord sidestepped, heart hammering, but the man just spat and crumpled against the wall. Now he clutched his head. ‘What did go wrong?’ He muttered to himself.
Jord walked faster. The cold gnawed through his jacket. Halfway home, he passed the old bus depot, its timetable still advertising routes discontinued years ago. A feral cat yowled from the rafters of a building left to rot.
By the time he reached his block – a row of brownstones hunched like broken teeth – the chill had seeped into his marrow. The key rasped in the lock, too loud in the stillness. Inside, the air hung thick with the sour musk of unwashed dishes and resentment. He crept forward, soles grazing the floorboards to mute their groan. Past his parents’ door, its frame leaking a slit of blue TV light. Past his brother’s room, where muffled snores rumbled like distant turning cogs.
His own door yielded with a whine – once again, he’d forgotten to oil it. A plate of congealed stew waited on the table, its grease haloed under the desk-lamp''s glare. The sheets, though tucked with military precision, smelled faintly of mothballs and mildew. He shoveled the cold food into his mouth, barely tasting it, then collapsed onto the mattress. Sleep came swift and depth-less.
It was well past first light, and nobody stirred to wake him his own fault, he thought; should’ve set an alarm. He rose and shuffled into the kitchen, greeted only by blissful silence and the rumbling of outside traffic. He tore off a hunk of stale bread, drizzled it with honey, and washed it down with a mug of milk. he thought, crumbs scattering as he chewed.
Munching, He pictured his family weekly pilgrimage: his father’s work boots polished to a dull shine, his mother’s hands rubbing her grandmother’s ring, Elia standing tall beside them.
They went for the communion of shared breath, not scripture – his mother had told him so years ago, her voice rough from age and smoke. The church was a sanctuary, she’d said, and for an hour each Sunday, they could pretend they weren’t cogs in Thamburg’s rusted machinery. Just bodies, warm and flawed: singing off-key, fumbling prayers, passing the collection plate like a beggar’s bowl. For a moment, the weight of their lives didn’t vanish – it simple shifted.
Jord hadn’t crossed the threshold in years, but Elia still endured. Of course he did – Elia had mastered the art of folding himself into whatever shape the moment demanded. The hymns dragged now, and the sermons trite for they recited the same hollow homilies about patience and piety. Yet Jord soul ached sometimes, phantom pains where the pew’s wood once pressed into him, where his brother’s elbow would nudge him to stand, to kneel, to perform.
His gaze drifted to the fridge its door plastered with unpaid bills, a church calendar circling Sundays in red and reality slammed into him like punch in the gut. The first order of the morning was to set an agenda again: To plot a path.
The question hungered at him like a starved wolf. Those old bastards had taken him for a fool, led him by the nose to abandon the old man employ. Now, to crawl back? Grovel before his old begging to be reinstated? Or try his luck with the Blackhand? But now he knew no one, and no one in the know knew him. And him him to turn backwards, and reopen a closed chapter? To disown his promise to Elia? Ha. Unthinkable. He snorted, rose stiffly, walked outside, closing the door behind him.
The road greeted him with its usual pallor – cracked tarmac, boarded shopfronts, the sour tang of neglect. A neglect that afflicted near a million souls.
The cobbles beneath Jord’s boots were uneven, their weathered grooves mapping generations of heavy tread. He walked without direction, letting the rhythm of his breath – sharp inhales tinged with the acrid bite of the last distant foundries – sync with his steps. The canal’s murky water lapped at moss-slick stones, its surface oiled with rainbow sheens that shuddered in the wind. A fractured pane in a boarded-up warehouse caught the weak morning light, scattering prism shards across his path. He paused, tracking the dance of fractured colour over old cobblestone. For a moment, the city’s growl – the clatter of goods trains, the sawtooth shouts of hawkers – fuzzed into white noise. His fingers brushed the cold iron of a rusted bollard, its pitted surface grounding him. In, out. He walked on, the knot in his chest de-spooling thread by thread.
RESTORE ORDER. RECLAIM YOUR FUTURE.
Citizens of Thamburg –
Times are hard. The streets grow lawless, your families unsafe. The so-called "unions" and "militias" peddle chaos, not bread. But there is another path.
JOIN THE CITY GUARD
Steady wages. Three meals a day. A bed off the streets.
WE OFFER:
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Purpose: Protect your Neighbors from looters, arsonists, and foreign agitators.
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Pride: Wear the uniform of civic duty.
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Pension: Secure your old age while securing the city.
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‘I was starving, my children crying. The Guard gave me a rifle – and a future.’
– Sergeant V. Harken, Former Dockworker
THE CHOICE IS CLEAR:
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Chaos: Anarchy in the alleys, your children scavenging scraps.
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Order: A clean uniform, a full belly, and the gratitude of Thamburg.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
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Report to the Citadel at your leisure. Bring your hands, your loyalty, and leave your grievances at the gate.
THAMBURG STANDS STRONG WHEN ITS PEOPLE STAND TOGETHER.
He stood frozen, the now smeared paper cold in his palm. To take it would solve everything – now. But at what cost? What would Elia do? He frantically paced around. His teeth found the thumbnail again, gnawing at the frayed ridge. A terrible path of violence, once again, unrevealed before him, a path he knew like a mother tongue. His childhood hadn’t been gentle, and the chaos that scorched the nation of Meridia had robbed most of its residents of their life-hood. Even now, he could taste the pang of hunger, the metallic tang of a muffed baton’s kiss, the absurd thrill of sprinting from guards with friends who’d later vanish in acrylic smoke.
Yet, only Jord’s parents lingered in his mind as they always had: voices sharpened to scalpels, eyes dissecting his every stumble. They tried, he’d remind himself. Their love was a ledger – rows of labour traded for meals, calloused hands gripping his brother’s report cards like salvation deeds. They’d bent their spine to the endless hard work, gifting their sons threadbare uniforms and a roof that dripped ambition. But he couldn’t forget their lashings. “Ungrateful,” his father would mutter, knuckles whitening around his belt. “Your brother never –” a refrain that often stung worse than the old man’s cincture.
It was the only choice that made sense to Jord a pragmatic surrender to the arithmetic of survival. By joining the city guard, Jord would trade his fraying morals for a uniform and a wage packet thick enough to staunch his family’s bleeding coffers. No more skulking in the docks’ shadows, no more rationing the food. The guard’s coin, however tainted, would buy them medicine, silence the landlord’s threats. Let Elia’s gaze linger on the badge; let his father’s jaw tighten at the compromise. Better a son in service to Thamburg’s rot than another corpse in its gutters.
And so, with resolve as hollow as the Mayors promises, Jord trudged towards the City’s bureaucratic heart.
The journey spanned an hour, each instant measured by the sound of the sloshing water. The Citadel fortification loomed ahead – a relic of the Varicritian empire, its fractured walls now housing the city’s bureaucratic heart. Two bridges punctuated the route, their arches sagging under the weight of silent histories.
The first bridge bore scars of neglect: potholes patched with asphalt gone brittle, rusted railings. Beyond it, the streets tightened, buildings older with their height inflated by cyclic nature of construction. The second bridge, though no grander, wore its age with a veneer of care – swept pavements, lamp-posts and walls free of graffiti, the polished surveillance cameras pivoting like watchful predators.
Here, the Citadel’s shadow stretched long. Its remaining grand walls, pocked with time, framed a compound of steel-clad annexes and flickering LED signage. The air thickened with the static of bureaucracy – permits, quotas, fines. No opulence marked this seat of power, only the sterile efficiency of a system that had long since traded paper for spreadsheets.
The bureaucracy heart was no stranger to Jord. More than once, he’d scraped too close to the law’s teeth – petty thefts, bar scuffles, nights in cells that stank of ammonia. Thankfully, the clerks’ digital ledgers had missed his worst crimes. But the ghosts lingered: a cautionary notice here, a sergeant’s narrowed glare there. Now, with a prayer to whatever gods monitored the halls, he trudged forward, gambling that they misplaced his records.
He walked until the lobby yawned before Jord, its vaulted ceiling strung with fluorescent lights that buzzed. The air hung thick with the smell of cheap disinfectant. At its end sat one of the clerk’s desk – made of frosted-glass and stainless-steel, its surface empty save for a computer and a stack of papers.
To her back stretched halls. Jord took a glance, and quickly read:
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Before he could read the next hall the clerk surprised him, making him almost jump in surprise.
‘State purpose.’ She said. Her expression hovered between weariness and detached efficiency. A laminated name tag read “M. Voss” in fading letters. When she spoke, her voice carried the monotone cadence of someone who’d repeated ‘Next in line, please’ ten thousand times.
‘Good-morrow. And, yes… hm, yes. I would like to enquire about the city guard.’
‘That’s it?’ Jord asked, thumb grazing the calluses webbing his palm.
‘
Jord hesitated, the prickling weight of indecision tightening his collar. Was the form meant for Public Records or the Guard? With a shrug, he tucked the single page into his jacket, its edges already damp with sweat, and trudged toward the City Guard’s hall.
After a pair of stairs and some wrong turns he found the entrance of the hall. Nothing major, just a sign above the door that stated what he already knew. Firmly, he opened the door. Inside he found a small group of people, by quick glance he numbered them to be about four, five with the clerk (who had bags under his eyes) sitting in front of a desk, he started to see a pattern here, all clerks seemed more dead than alive.
Jord slumped into a seat, took out his phone, and launched into a mindless game, droning out the voices. He waited, thumb jabbing at the screen, until a glance upward revealed only one woman ahead. He slid the phone into his pocket, straightened, and feigned patience.
The door creaked as the final applicant departed, Jord ears ringed with the clerk’s robotic, ‘Next, please.’
Jord rose.
‘Ah, yes. Good-morrow. I wish to enquire about the city guard position,’ Jord said as he settled into the chair directly facing the clerk.
‘Good-morrow. Name and place of residence?’ The clerk asked. Jord took in the clerk''s tag, and it stated: A. Hargrave.
‘Jord. Jord Whittaker. The Boltworks, number twenty-two.’
The clerk leaned back. ‘The ’37 Dock strike,’ he said, not looking up. ‘You were detained under Commissioner Veld’s tenure. A messy business.’
Jord shifted, the wooden chair digging into his spine. ‘What’s that got to do with –’
‘Twenty-three percent.Hargrave cut him off. The glow of the screen gave his face an almost sickly pallor. ‘Quarterly revenue drop. Pension fund shorted eight hundred grand marks.’ His voice flattened, the way accountants recite funeral costs. ‘They still let you sleep at night, those principles of yours?’
‘Principles? I …I-You Jord leaned forward, knuckles whitening on the desk’s edge. ‘You lot sent the dogs to crack skulls over a fucking spreadsheet–’
‘Language, Mr Whittaker.’ Hargrave tutted, pulling a form from his drawer. He slid it across the desk without breaking eye contact. ‘Let’s not dwell on the past. After-all the City isforgiving, provided one understands one’s position on the totem pole.’
Jord stared at the header: FORM 8-C: EMPLOYMENT WAIVER. The text swam – renounce past affiliations, relinquish claims of complaint, comply with the public stature.
‘Sign,’ Hargrave said, ‘and we’ll pretend that your little mishaps over the years never happened. If you sign your record will be expunged, a clean state if you will.A fly buzzed against the window behind him, trapped. ‘Or keep brooding about the past. See how that feeds you.’
And Jord, for all the reluctance that he held, signed.
Hargrave’s lips curled into a faint, practised smile. ‘Welcome aboard, Mr Whittaker. May your tenure be long, and your efforts serve the betterment of all.’
With a swift motion, he retrieved the signed form, tucking it neatly into a file.
Hargrave glanced at the clock on the wall before turning his attention back to Jord. ‘You’ll report to the Citadel Guard’s department on Monday at 07:00 sharp. That’s Building 3, east wing. Present yourself to Officer Lory at the reception desk.’
Jord frowned. ‘07:00? What happens if I’m late?’
Hargrave adjusted his glasses, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘You won’t be late, Mr Whittaker. Tardiness suggests a lack of discipline, and the Ministry has no room for the undisciplined.’
‘Right,’ Jord muttered, his voice tight.
‘You’ll receive your training schedule upon arrival, along with your uniform and a copy of the Guard Code of Conduct. I’d recommend familiarising yourself with it thoroughly.’ Hargrave’s tone shifted, more clipped. ‘Failure to adhere to protocol won’t just reflect poorly on you; it will be considered a breach of contract and thus require the payment of perceived damages in full.’
Jord clenched his jaw but nodded. ‘Got it.’
He slid a business card across the desk. ‘In case you have further questions. Though I suggest you don’t.’
‘I’m sorry, but – ’ Jord was not sorry, ‘I still have a paper that I signed at the receptionist, what should I do with it?’
‘Submit it at the Hall of Public Records, along with a fee of ten marks,’ Hargrave said. ‘Farewell, Whittaker.’
Jord stood, the weight of the moment hanging heavy. Without another word, he turned and exited the room, leaving the seat vacant for the next claimant.
Leaving the clerk’s room, submitting the paperwork to the public records hall, and finally exiting the citadel left Jord in a daze. The clerk had cornered him, plastering in his face the reason he’d failed to climb the social ladder.
Jord couldn’t decide whether to seethe at the man’s gall or begrudgingly admire his twisted pragmatism. For now, he started trudging home, shoulders slumped beneath the weight of it all.