The city was always damp.
Not from rain—rain had become rare—but from condensation, from steam vents and coolant runoff and the breath of too many people packed too tightly together. The kind of damp that seeped into clothes and lungs and never quite left.
Technology had advanced exponentially as the decades passed. Automation, artificial intelligence, planetary logistics—miracles, according to the regime. Humanity had never been safer. Never more efficient. Never more unified.
Everyone was happy.
Or so they said.
To the rest of the world, we were the model nation. Prosperous. Dignified. Clean. Strong. A shining proof that order could be perfected if people simply trusted it enough.
Inside the city, it was something else entirely.
Debauchery rotted in the streets beneath immaculate holograms. Criminals operated openly, not because they were fearless, but because enforcement had become selective. Neighbors passed each other without eye contact. No one stood up for anyone else. Talking invited attention. Attention invited questions. Questions invited consequences.
There was no trust left among the people.
And yet, blind faith endured.
The regime will feed us.
The regime will stop the crime.
The slogans repeated endlessly—etched into walls, whispered by drones, burned into the corners of every digital display. Faith was mandatory. Doubt was treason. And despite the promises, everyone scavenged. Everyone stole. Everyone survived however they could.
The elite watched from above, insulated behind security fields and glass towers. To them, we weren't citizens. We were inventory. Wine aging patiently, waiting for slaughter.
"Trust in the regime," the advertisements said.
They said it everywhere. On trains. In alleys. In homes that barely qualified as shelter. There was no shortage of propaganda in this age—only of food.
In one alley, a boy crouched beside a dumpster.
He was thin, starved down to angles and bone. He found something edible—week-old refuse still sealed enough to risk—and tore into it with shaking hands. He ate quickly, knowing better than to linger.
He was right.
Others came like rats. They didn't speak. They didn't hesitate. They tore the food from him, shoved him into the concrete, kicked until he stopped moving. When they left, they took everything.
The boy lay still in the damp, lungs burning, stomach empty.
Hungry.
Critical.
Forgotten.
This was the city.