Time: 10:00 AM. Monday. First Week of the Semester.
Location: Main Campus – Main Campus Building.
In Kalin High, there is an old saying whispered through dormitory halls:
"This is not a school. It is a nation-state with homework."
The words are spoken with neutrality and indifference, repeated quietly across campus corridors. They are never meant as a joke, though they are often received as a warning.
Kalin High is not an ordinary campus. It is a student-run city-state, governed, regulated, policed, and sustained entirely by its youth. There are no teachers, no principals, and no adult administrators to impose authority. Everything is automated. Lesson plans, schedules, and assignments are distributed by artificial intelligence and completed at the students' own pace. Instruction is delivered through holographic modules, while infrastructure and logistics are maintained by drones.
The absence of adult influence is not neglect. It is intentional.
The institution implements a self-learning political simulation program in which students maintain order, manage systems, and shape their own society. To its architects, it represents the future. To those living within it, it resembles chaos.
Two forces keep that chaos in check.
The General Student Body Council, known as the GSBC, is built on policy, infrastructure, and quiet diplomacy. It is meant to represent the student body, yet over time it becomes the bastion of the system's rigid bureaucracy. Resented by nearly everyone, it is nonetheless regarded as indispensable, bearing the weight required for the school to survive its own discord.
The Disciplinary Committee serves as Kalin High's armed wing. When diplomacy fails, they do not. Unlike the Council, confined to its tower, the Committee walks the halls. Its presence is sudden. Its judgment is silent. When they arrive, movement stops. They wield fear and authority like sword and shield, raised not for fairness, but to preserve control under the banner of peace.
Everything else belongs to the clubs.
There are hundreds of them, each representing an ideology, a culture, a sport, or a shared fixation. Each governs its own territory. Some operate like sovereign states, complete with constitutions. They issue permits, patrol borders, accumulate resources, and wage proxy battles through debate, influence, or the occasional ambush in the quad.
At the heart of the main courtyard rests a bronze plate, inscribed with a single vow:
"Freedom to All Ideologies."
It is not a motto, but a principle.
The school never chooses a side. It allows every faction to rise or fall on its own terms. Here, students are free to act as they wish, but never free from the consequences they alone must bear. There are no failsafes. Only absolutes.
Kalin High exists as a proving ground for memory and endurance.
Most students spend their first day weighing club offers, taking aptitude tests to determine compatibility, or wandering through debate halls, capitalist towers, and esports arenas.
But beyond the sunlit courtyards of the Main Campus, past the automated walkways and polished glass, there is a boundary.
The Kalin River.
Reflected in the school's colors, horizontal bands of teal, cerulean, and cyan, the river becomes part of the institution's identity. It divides the campus not only geographically, separating the Main Campus from the East Bloc, but philosophically as well.
Ambition from ideology. Comfort from discipline. Future from memory.
Few students cross it, and fewer return unchanged.
Because on the eastern bank, where the monorail falls silent and towers give way to ruins, stands another kind of district.
Time: 10:00 AM. Monday. First Week of the Semester.
Location: East Bloc – The People's Plaza.
The East Bloc.
A sector of concrete, shadow, and silence. There are no advertisements, no soundtrack, and no digital banners hovering above the walkways. Only walls, tall and grey, cracked at the edges. These dense slabs are built for permanence, not for appeal. The air carries the faint scent of damp concrete and rust, like a basement sealed for too long.
The surfaces, however, are not entirely bare.
Lines of posters stretch along the corridors. Some are freshly repainted; others have faded into relics. A few are torn beyond recognition, while others are designed to be impossible to ignore.
Slogans in bold, block lettering declare themselves from every passageway:
The Party Is Watching (And Deeply Caring).
Freedom Through Structure.
Join Today. Or Explain Yourself Later.
Some are propaganda. Others look like warnings. A few were simply reminders—
Report Malfunctioning Faucets to the East Bloc Infrastructure Committee.
None of these notices are digital, yet all of them remain. They do not advertise or compete for attention. They endure. Here, even silence carries meaning.
The East Bloc is not a district of ambition. It belongs to the stubborn, to those who reject polish. To those who think too much, or not at all. To those who cannot be managed, only contained as unspoken variables. To those too strange, too principled, or too exhausted to smile through slogans.
And finally, to those the system cannot, or chooses not to, categorize.
Here, ideology is not a brand. It is a burden. A ritual. A habit that refuses to die.
Some call the East Bloc a graveyard of ambition. Others call it a warning.
But for those who remain, for those who practice old rites in abandoned hallways, who ski between buildings in winter, who prepare their gear for another coastal incursion, who host underground screenings of experimental films, and for those who dig tunnels without explanation, the sector remains something else entirely.
Something stubborn. Something sacred.
Ours.
Somewhere across the plaza, a drone zips overhead, announcing the morning's debate results.
No one in the East Bloc looks up.
Time: 10:00 AM. Monday. First Week of the Semester.
Location: East Bloc – Revolutionary Club Headquarters, Meeting Room.
The East Bloc Building stands at the sector's center. A blocky, rectangular structure, brutalist and angular, it is built with the charm of a bunker and the defiance of a memorial. Its windows are few and cracked. Its doors are heavy. Its corridors carry the faint scent of toner, iron, and dust that no longer circulate.
Inside, on the second floor, the Revolutionary Club holds a strategic meeting in a bunker-like room.
The interior resembles less a student clubroom and more an ideological time capsule. The walls are painted in uneven shades of red, scarred by old burn marks. Frayed flags hang from the ceiling. In one corner, a stack of mimeographed recruitment flyers from three semesters ago remains unsent.
As decoration, there is only a single bust of Lenin, who, inexplicably, appears to be wearing a pair of sunglasses.
There are no smartboards, holographic screens, or voice assistants. Only a spluttering laptop, patched together with duct tape, hums like a tired tractor. It is the sole piece of functioning electronic equipment in the room.
The light bulbs buzz faintly as they flicker unevenly. A kettle near the windows whistles softly, futilely announcing its continued existence.
Then, without ceremony, a girl steps onto the elevated platform. She is barely taller than a standing lectern. Without hesitation, she produces a wooden crate labeled COMRADE ELEVATION and places it before the podium. She climbs onto it, raising herself just enough to command the room.
Svetlana Zoryeva – Chairwoman of the Revolutionary Club.
Her olive military coat is draped over her petite frame like a banner too large for its pole, worn with absolute authority. Brass buttons catch the flicker of the ceiling bulbs. Her short, thick dark-brown bob bounces with every motion. Steel-gray eyes spark like a fuse before a riot.
She radiates conviction at maximum volume. She does not merely command attention; she seizes it, throttles it, and reshapes it into ideology through her own brand of righteous fury. Her presence is a paradox: fire in a teacup, a megaphone strapped to a matchbox. Somehow, it works.
She slams her leather-bound quote book onto the podium.
"Comrades, this semester's first council begins now. Time: precisely ten hundred hours. We are on schedule."
Her voice carries the same contradiction. Deep. Strong. Uncompromising.
At the center of the room, seated at the long wooden meeting table with perfect calm and half-lidded judgment, is Natasha Molotova, Vice Chairwoman and, by obligation, Minister of Budget for the Revolutionary Club.
She wears a beige trench coat, mundane in appearance yet elevated by her presence into something quietly elegant. A patterned scarf is tied with aristocratic precision. Her long auburn hair is pinned into a loose knot, and her cerulean eyes drift toward her notepad, as though this entire meeting were a weather pattern she predicted days ago.
Her posture is impeccable in a high-backed upholstered chair that once belonged to a disbanded etiquette club. The crimson fabric is worn, but its spine remains straight. Like her.
"Noted," she says calmly, "though you spent two minutes accusing a poster of ideological fatigue."
Natasha's tone is measured and soothing. Every sentence sounds weighed and deliberate.
"I inspired it to stand straighter," the Chairwoman snaps.
To the right, hunched behind a battered laptop, sits a younger student on the verge of collapse, yet determined to hold herself together despite the club's increasingly precarious situation.
Mariya Malenkova. The club's strategist, secretary, and designated crisis manager.
Her twin braids flinch with every keystroke. Her fingers move rapidly across the keyboard, while the rest of her hands remain hidden inside the sleeves of her cardigan. Her round glasses fog with nervous energy as her eyes dart between spreadsheets and the club's event log.
Her chair, a rolling model missing two wheels, is stabilized with bricks. It remains functional, if precarious. Much like her week is already shaping up to be.
"W-We have received thirty-nine emails," she mumbles. "Ten are spam. Eight are asking about registration protocols. Three ask if we were responsible for the corn-shaped smoke cloud during the freshmen orientation."
"I told them it was metaphorical!" comes a shout from the far end of the room.
That voice belongs to Irina Kuznetsova, Minister of Propaganda, pyromaniac in spirit, self-declared corn enthusiast, and proud catalyst of most hallway evaluations.
She kicks her boots onto the table. Her khaki bomber jacket is streaked with paint. Her short red hair juts out in chaotic defiance of gravity, and her amber eyes gleam as if she swallowed a firecracker and enjoyed the aftertaste.
She sits sideways on a cracked white monobloc chair, one leg partially melted and uneven. It creaks with every shift, but she insists it possesses revolutionary spirit.
"It was a statement! A symbol of our revolutionary vibrance! I explained this during my interpretative mural presentation!" Irina grins wildly.
"That wasn't a mural," Mariya mutters, adjusting her glasses. "It was a billboard hijacking. And it almost set the west wing roof on fire."
"I stand by it," Irina declares.
"Of course you do," Natasha replies evenly, without lifting her gaze from the notebook.
"Kuznetsova," the Chairwoman says sharply, "if you mention fire, explosions, or corn again, I will personally reassign you to custodial propaganda."
Irina straightens immediately. "Then let us pivot. Pamphlets."
Mariya exhales slowly. "You already tried edible pamphlets."
"They were revolutionary and biodegradable," Irina beams. "Revolution you could digest."
"You gave half the Debate Club stomach cramps," Natasha replies. Her tone remains flat, particularly when addressing the Propagandist's more creative initiatives.
"Symbolic resistance always involves risk," Irina insists. "But hear me out. Fog machines. Three of them. Rooftops. Timed to the anthem. Spotlight on me. We call it: The Glorious Smoke of Reawakening."
"No," says the Chairwoman.
"Denied," says Natasha.
"I… I don't even have a budget line for that," Mariya whispers.
Irina folds her arms and sulks. "This is why no one remembers our slogans."
Near the windows, in the far corner of the room, another figure remains seated. She does not move. She does not react. She is untouched by the storm of proposals and objections.
Liliya Ivanova. The unofficial enforcer of the Revolutionary Club.
She wears a black blazer, freshly pressed and faintly lethal. Her scarlet necktie, tucked neatly beneath the lapels, resembles a sheathed blade. Her long jet-black hair, trimmed with surgical precision, veils unspoken intent, while her crimson eyes communicate deterrence without effort.
Her gaze is still, cool, and unreadable, like a loaded chamber awaiting a signal.
She sits on a sleek, unmarked interrogation-style chair: jet black, immaculate, and somehow always a degree colder than the rest of the room.
She does not interrupt. She does not comment.
But when Irina speaks, Liliya smiles. Just slightly.
Irina stops talking.
Svetlana clears her throat. "Now then. Regarding last semester's… outreach metrics."
"We recruited zero," Natasha states plainly.
"I prefer the term ideologically refined selection process," the Chairwoman replies without hesitation.
"We had one visitor. He believed we were a pop-up museum," the Vice Chairwoman continues, unfazed.
"We instilled purposeful discomfort," Irina adds cheerfully.
"They ran," Natasha counters.
"They will return," Svetlana says. "When they realize this school has become a machine of vanity. We offer structure. Truth. Stability. We are the conscience this place pretends it does not need."
Mariya raises her hand. "Our complaints included phrases such as: 'shouted at without warning,' 'chased with a clipboard,' and 'offered a flyer during a fire drill.'"
"You flipped a table," Natasha adds.
"You used a megaphone indoors," Mariya mutters.
"…and a flare," Irina supplies, smiling.
Svetlana pauses. "All right. That one may have been misinterpreted."
They all sigh.
None of them leave.
Not Natasha, serene and severe, posture crisp, gaze steady, already filing objections before they are voiced.
Not Irina, wild and loyal, drumming her fingers in restless rhythm while sketching a new slogan in the corner of her pad, half a grin masking full intent.
Not Mariya, tired but essential, typing at her battered laptop with the precision of a field medic in crisis, recalculating timetables as though each keystroke might save the semester.
Not Liliya, silent and unreadable, rising only when necessity demands it, white gloves folded with purpose, eyes always several moves ahead.
And not Svetlana, fiery and defiant, standing as though the world has not yet worn her down, chin high, coat stiff, as if defiance itself can be maintained as posture.
Despite everything—the poor turnout, the complaints, the tightened budgets, the cracked windows still awaiting repair—they remain. Not for popularity. Not for spectacle. But for the belief that someone at Kalin High must remember what purpose looks like.
Svetlana steps down from the crate and moves toward the meeting table. Her chair is unremarkable, an ordinary classroom seat, too small for authority and too plain for leadership. It bears the weight regardless.
"Fine," she says. "We rework the plan. We moderate our tone. We consider smiling. Strategically."
Natasha sets down her notebook. "Do we actually have a plan?"
The Chairwoman holds her gaze. She waits a moment, then turns toward the cracked window.
"…No. But we will find one."
Mariya exhales. Irina picks up her marker. Natasha sips her tea. Liliya sits motionless, observing with intent silence.
Outside, the wind curls around the East Bloc building like a whisper of history refusing to fade.
Beyond the cracked glass, a torn banner flutters against the cold air.
Its edges are frayed. The fabric, once a bold revolutionary red, has faded into rust and brick. The gold thread is dulled by years of sun and rain, but the emblem endures: a clenched fist rising from the center of a five-pointed star, angular and defiant, pointed skyward.
It is not a relic, but a message.
Not a decoration, but a declaration.
Even in silence, it shouts.
РЕВОЛЮЦИЯ ПРОДОЛЖАЕТСЯ
The Revolution Is Ongoing.
Not clean. Not pristine. But still hanging. Still seen.
Just like them.