The words echoed through the timber rows, hollow and harsh. Pryna felt a cold, sharp dread twist in her stomach. Early. Not in three days. Now. The dam was already failing, the engineered disaster unfolding before its scheduled destruction.
“The bunks…” Gavril muttered, his knuckles white against Luka’s shoulder. His gaze fixed on their cabin, a dark, squat shape through the gray curtain. “They want us penned.”
Pryna yanked her brother closer, the heavy bundle of tarp digging into her ribs. His small face was upturned, confused by the siren, the urgency in their stride. He did not understand the hydraulic gates. He only knew the rain and the chill.
She remembered a different downpour years earlier, when the Ministry's Agricultural Initiative swept through Verdon. Her parents, idealistic and earnest, had embraced the promise of collective prosperity, trading their small plot for shares in the grand state plan. Pryna, then barely a girl, had clung to her mother’s worn skirt, listening to the persuasive speeches about bountiful harvests and a glorious future. They were told their land would be transformed into a model collective, and they, as pioneers, would lead the way.
Instead, they were led onto a transport truck, their faces beaming with naive hope. Pryna watched them go, a small, cold lump forming in her throat. Weeks later, a terse official letter arrived, stating her parents had been ‘reassigned’ to a distant, unspecified industrial project for 'failing to meet quotas.' They never returned. Their shares, the paper they had trusted, became worthless. It was then, watching Luka turn a splintered wooden wheel in the dirt, that Pryna learned her lesson: state promises were scrap, a direct line to the trench. The only things that mattered were what you held in your own hands, and the people you protected. She would not let Luka follow their path.
Now, the same cold certainty settled over her. The state was not just abandoning them; it was actively orchestrating their demise.
They burst into their cabin, soaked and panting, the smell of damp earth clinging to their clothes. Irsa, who had finally made her way in, was already shedding her sodden coat, her face a mask of furious indignation. “They’ll pay for this! My bonds! My investment! This is a state-sanctioned theft!”
Before Pryna could respond, before Gavril could even close the door, a heavy boot slammed against it from the outside, pushing it inward. Yefim stood framed in the doorway, his broad silhouette blocking out the rain. Behind him, two gaunt-faced Enforcers, their drab coats glistening, carried short-barreled rifles. Their eyes, though, were fixed not on Gavril, but on the small, unassuming cupboard.
“Pryna Tolza,” Yefim’s voice was a flat, guttural growl, utterly devoid of the usual bureaucratic cadence. “Gavril Moroch. We’ve received reports of… unauthorized hoarding. In light of the developing… state emergency, all private stores of foodstuffs are to be immediately surrendered for redistribution.” His gaze flickered to the tarps bundled near the hearth. “And what are those?”
Pryna, still clutching Luka, stepped forward slightly. “Hoarding, Yefim? We just happen to believe in a full larder. A family must eat, after all. Or have you forgotten such basic principles?”
Yefim’s lip curled. “The Republic provides, Tolza. You will comply. For the good of all.” He gestured with a stiff hand at the cupboard. “Fill a sack. Now.”
Gavril shifted off the cedar wall. He stepped squarely in front of Pryna, his broad shoulders blocking the dry-goods nook. He said nothing, simply stood, an immovable mountain of quiet defiance. His gaze, usually placid, was now a deep, unsettling stillness.
Yefim’s face darkened. “Moroch. Do not test me. This is not a request.”
Gavril met his stare without flinching. Then, with a slow, deliberate reach, he slid the wooden latch across the shelf doors, seating the peg with a sharp click.
The Enforcers shifted, their rifles nudging forward. Yefim’s hand twitched, hovering near the holster at his hip.
“Oh, Yefim,” Pryna’s voice was deceptively sweet, cutting through the tense air. She set Luka down, placing a hand on Gavril’s arm. “Still parroting the Party slogans, even as your ship sinks. Tell me, are the emergency overflow channels part of the Republic’s grand provision too? Or is that just a creative new way to manage… population control?”
A gasp rippled through the small knot of youths who had gathered in the cabin’s entrance, drawn by the commotion. They exchanged terrified glances. The siren still wailed, distant but insistent.
“What… what is she talking about?” a young woman whispered, her face pale.
Pryna’s smile widened, devoid of warmth. “Oh, dear. Has no one told you? The dam, that glorious concrete wall upstream, is not just for power and irrigation. It’s also for… emptying the basin. Permanently. And you, all of you, are the chosen few to fill it.” She gestured around the cabin with a theatrical flourish. “Your ‘assigned barracks,’ as the horns put it, are your drowning troughs. And your bond investments? Worthless paper, just like the promises.”
Yefim’s face, already flushed with rage, turned a mottled purple. His eyes, usually cold, blazed with a terrifying fury. “Silence, you traitorous wench!” he roared, his hand snatching his service revolver from its holster. The dull metal gleamed in the dim light.
He leveled the barrel at Pryna’s chest, his finger tightening on the trigger. The assembled youths screamed, scattering back into the rain. Gavril tensed, a primal growl rumbling in his throat, ready to spring.
But before Yefim could fire, before Gavril could even launch himself forward, a heavy *thwack* echoed in the small space. Yefim’s pupils contracted, a choked rattle catching in his throat. He swayed, then crumpled to the floor, a thick, bound stack of papers spilling from his hands. Irsa Vant stood behind him, breathing heavily, her face white with shock and triumph. In her hand, she clutched the thick, cord-bound brick of Republic Reconstruction Bonds, the heavy paper corner crumpled and stained, her grand investment serving at last as an iron-hard bludgeon.