Interview for the local newspaper “Voice of Prim”

(excerpt shortened from the original version)

Reporter (R): Good day, Mr. Alvari. Thank you for taking the time. Could I ask you to briefly describe what happened to you recently?


Mr. Alvari (A): Good day. A few days ago, a small group of modificants arrived in our settlement. We’re used to seeing various Prim Defense Corps units here, as we’re located along a main route, but it was the first time we saw modificants—this time as an escort. It all seemed routine, but to my absolute shock, I recognized my son among them. I thought he had died during deployment in the South a year ago.


R: What convinced you it was really him?

A: He had an X-shaped scar on his left cheek. As a child, he’d gotten a shard stuck there and the doctors stitched it up like that. We always knew that cross-shaped scar would stay. It’s unmistakable.


R: Did you speak to him?

A: Yes. I said his name out loud. But he… he just froze for a second. That was it. No word, not even a glance. The others immediately surrounded him and pushed me away.


R: How did you feel?

A: I was devastated. On one hand, there was relief—he’s alive. But on the other… if the Beacon modified him, maybe without his consent… I don’t even want to think about it. And the way he ignored me… I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t remember me. No one can really say whether they keep their memories. Now it feels like he was torn from my arms a second time.


R: Do you still have hope of meeting him again?

A: I don’t know. Modificants are more or less under the control of the Beacon, and families have no right to speak with them unless it goes through official approval. I want to try submitting a request, but many people say it’s pointless.


R: What would you say to others who have gone through a similar experience?

A: Don’t give up. People think that once someone’s declared dead, that’s the end. But my son proves otherwise. He might be alive—just in a place you’d never expect. Even if it’s painful, it’s still better than nothing.


(The interview was shortened and names altered to protect the identities of those involved.)


Reng, the Beacon, Upper Prim


Twelve days. Twelve damn days had been enough for the band on his hand to change color. Just today, as he put on his uniform, it shifted before his eyes into a sky-blue shade. It struck him as an optimistic color.


He was wrong.


He often was. Since waking up here, he’d lived in a cycle of misjudgments, each one smacking him in the face almost daily.


He’d been wrong to think it couldn’t be that bad. It was. No one cared that just days ago he’d been floating in a tank, unconscious and unaware of the world. They threw him straight into training, where every day pushed him to the edge of collapse.


He thought PDC training had been hard?

He hadn’t had the faintest idea what "hard" meant back then. Now he knew.


He’d been wrong to think that being modified created a sense of unity. He quickly learned the opposite: modificants were strictly divided into groups based on where they came from. The Beacon seemed to encourage it, subtly feeding rivalries to stoke natural competitiveness.


Reng was automatically assigned to the group of those brought in through the PDC rehabilitation program. At the top of that group, unsurprisingly, sat Borin—even though, unlike most, he’d never actually made it to the South. But the former wrangler didn’t seem to lose sleep over it. As Reng found out soon enough, Borin had built himself an alternative past.


“Why do you lie to them?” Reng asked him during a short break granted only so he could catch his breath.


“If you can talk, you should get back out there,” Borin replied, completely ignoring the question, clearly letting him know the topic wasn’t open for discussion.


That, too, Reng counted among his mistakes. He’d thought he and Borin were friends. They weren’t. Borin might have smiled a lot, but he’d lumped Reng in with the rest of the rookies and treated them all with the same detached coldness. Maybe that was fair, but it still left a bitter taste in Reng’s mouth.


The second group of modificants consisted of civilians who had chosen this path to repay their debt to society. Some had fallen through the cracks of the system to its very bottom, others had found themselves in situations with no other way out, except to be cut apart and sewn back together. Among them was Miren, who had been quietly watching him from the very first day. Her lifeless gaze made him uneasy, but he forgave her the moment they finally spoke.


“I imagined you differently,” she admitted, scanning him from head to toe.


“Should we know each other?” he asked, uncertain, racking his memory. 


Could they have met before? But he was fairly sure he wouldn’t have overlooked a girl like her, even back when her eyes were still intact and her face wasn’t marked by deep scars.


“I’ve heard more about you than you’d probably like,” she laughed, and surprisingly, it was a warm, genuine laugh. “I know Ela. And trust me—she talked about you a lot.”


“What did she say?” Reng blurted out before he could stop himself.


Miren smiled, tilted her head, and her grin took on a strange shade.

“Let’s just say... everything.”


He felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment. His heart was pounding, but a strange heaviness settled in his chest. Ela hadn’t shown up once since his awakening. He could still hear the stern warning from that werren who had made it clear they were not to see each other. Still, he had tried asking around, hoping in vain for even a short conversation. But he’d been met only with firm refusals. It was clear no one wanted them to meet. Maybe not even Ela.


“Don’t take it so seriously.” Miren nudged him playfully, misreading the reason for his silence and trying to lighten the mood.


That was just who Miren was. And with her kindness, she showed him another one of his mistakes. Not everyone here had lost their humanity.


The same, unfortunately, couldn’t be said of Borin, who was currently overseeing the recruits’ training. It consisted of grueling physical exercises designed to prepare them for the next stage, training meant specifically for modificants, making full use of what set them apart from ordinary people. Reng had watched the training arenas a few times from the observation deck above the halls, trying to understand what lay ahead.


He still wasn’t sure what he was looking at, let alone whether he could ever take part in something like that.


And Borin, it seemed, had the same doubts.


Borin watched him with a smirk as Reng struggled to his feet, drained of strength.


“This is nothing, pal,” he said with a tone Reng perceived as equal parts amusement and contempt. “If you can’t handle this, the arena will tear you to pieces!”


Reng clenched his teeth. He refused to give Borin the satisfaction of watching him give up. Maybe that’s why, day by day, he kept improving. But he also knew it wasn’t just determination, his implants played a big role in it. And that terrified him even more. His mind still resisted the idea that those pieces of metal were now part of him.


Sometimes, he caught himself nervously scratching at his wrist. At night, the nightmares returned. Vivid memories of the moment he tore the implants from his own body. He would wake soaked in sweat, exhausted and trembling. Most nights he didn’t even try to fall asleep again, afraid the dreams would come back. Instead, he dragged himself to the showers, where he’d stand motionless under the icy stream. Each drop stung his skin like a thousand tiny needles. But that pain grounded him in reality, and the cold, which made him shiver to the bone, helped push the nightmares back into the depths of his mind.


Then came the twelfth day.


Right after putting on his uniform, he couldn’t miss it: the stripe on his arm had changed color. It meant one thing. Today, the Arena would open to him.


A few hours later, his arms were so heavy he could barely lift them. His legs wouldn’t obey, but he had to keep going. He couldn’t stop. The world around him shook with the blast of an artillery shell, and he dropped to the ground on instinct, fingers digging into the fine dust.


It felt so real.


He could feel the tears streaking down his face. He turned, expecting to see familiar faces behind him.


Astin, always afraid, hands trembling so badly he could barely hold his weapon. Tinor, pushing them forward, urging them not to stay in one spot too long, while somehow making them believe everything would be okay. Miny, cursing like mad, but whose foul words anchored them through every firefight. As long as he was swearing, they were alive.

And Vanys…Vanys standing over them like a rock, solid and calm, ready to get them all out safely.


But there was no one. They were all dead. Only he remained.


Another explosion snapped him back. None of it was real. Only the pain in his body, the exhaustion, and the metallic taste of his own blood on his tongue. Those were real enough.


Something inside him kept him moving, refusing to let him fall. Was it the damned implants?


Maybe.


But more likely, it was instinct, and the hard-earned reflexes of frontline combat. Because even though he knew this was all just an illusion, some deep part of him still obeyed the unspoken rule: Keep moving.


Moving targets are harder to hit.



He got back on his feet and jogged toward the finish when suddenly he felt a shove in the back. It wasn’t hostile, but it was strong enough to throw him off balance. He stumbled and saw Borin grinning at him, amused. His metal arm lifted in a kind of grotesque wave.


“What’s taking you so long?” Borin's voice was cheerful, but Reng heard that familiar edge of mockery underneath.


“I’ve had enough of this,” he muttered, trying to swallow the anger rising inside him.


Not only did Borin look like he hadn’t even broken a sweat, he had just picked up the pace, but if he hadn’t shoved Reng, Reng would’ve been the first to reach the finish. Now he had no choice but to slide into the pit after him and lie there, completely spent. He gasped for air. Every breath burned his lungs, and he was convinced that if the South hadn’t killed him, this place surely would.


“Maybe he should slow down a bit? He might not be ready for this yet,” came a woman’s voice from above.


He tilted his head back and saw Miren. She had been the first from the second team to arrive, and now she was looking at him with concern. It was clear she didn’t like what she was seeing.


“He’ll be fine,” Borin laughed and held out a hand to help Reng back up. “Trust me, he’s tougher than he looks. I’ve known him long enough to be sure of it.”


Reng took his hand, but his grip was firmer than necessary.


“I know you too, Borin. Maybe better than anyone else here,” he said through clenched teeth, still catching his breath.


Borin grinned again, then turned to Miren.


“By the way, have you seen our Mediator lately? Seems like she’s been keeping her distance. Think she’s still shaken up by my offer for a drink?”


“I’m sure she has her reasons. But trust me, you’re not one of them,” Miren shot back, all the while watching Reng’s face closely.


Borin just shrugged with indifference and slipped back into the crowd. The day’s training ended for him just as casually as it had started.


“He was talking about Ela, wasn’t he?” Reng asked, and Miren nodded.


“It’s because of me. That werren… he didn’t want us meeting.”


“Try not to take it too hard,” she said gently. “Ela will find a way to talk to you. Just give her time. It’s not easy for her here either.”


“Maybe that’s what she wants,” he sighed, barely able to hide the hurt that crept into his voice.


Miren looked at him with a strange mix of sympathy and steel. She’d been here too long not to know how things worked.


“Try not to dwell on it. Ask yourself whether you even want that connection anymore. Don’t forget, she’s a Mediator now. Her world couldn’t be more different from the one the two of you came from.”


Maybe she was right. Maybe what he felt wasn’t really a need to see Ela, but a desperate urge to hold onto something familiar in all this chaos. Did he even truly want to talk to her? Originally, he just wanted to make sure she was alive and well. Now he knew she was. He’d completed his task. So why did it still feel like there were questions left unanswered?


“Yeah… maybe you’re right,” he nodded uncertainly.


“I know I’m right. Just think it through,” she said seriously, her gaze fixed somewhere far away. “Here in the Beacon, everything is different. And it’s changed us all. Sadly, not always for the better...”


With that, she turned and climbed out of the pit, heading toward the last group of modificants who had finished their training. The room flickered and the simulation dissolved before Reng’s eyes, as if it had never existed. Now he stood in the middle of an empty hall filled with artificial obstacles that were retracting back into the floor and walls. Everything was gone. Only bare walls remained.


Reng stood still. Alone. And inside him, he felt the same emptiness and silence that surrounded him.


“Your results are not as poor as we expected.”


He recognized the voice and cursed silently. Since their encounter in solitary, he’d been glad the werren had lost interest in him, or so he’d hoped.


“Your brain and body have adapted better than projected. Your stress hormone levels are elevated, but you appear to be compensating effectively, preventing any disruption to your reflexes.”


Reng thought about those words for a moment, until he realized what the werren was trying to say.


“Survival instinct,” he said with a wry smirk.


“We understand. It’s fascinating,” Tonot nodded. “Perhaps we should consider increasing the representation of experienced southern veterans. Your experience is clearly informing your performance in training.”


“I’m sure they’ll be thrilled,” Reng said dryly, trying to slip past the werren in hopes of escaping his reach.


But Tonot placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him.


“We believe you’re not done for the day.”


Reng frowned.

He was seriously exhausted, and after that conversation with Miren, all he wanted was to crawl under a blanket and disappear.

But it looked like the werren had other plans for him.


“We’d like to test the limits of the neuroregulatory module. I personally designed it.”


“Neuro... what?” Reng couldn’t even pronounce the word.


But the werren didn’t bother explaining. He probably knew it was pointless anyway. Reng had value to him, yes…but not for his intelligence or insight. So instead of an answer, Tonot simply gestured for him to follow.


Reng shifted uneasily. Now he wished he had gone with Borin. Instead of heading for the showers and a well-earned rest, it was clear something else awaited him. And he already had the sinking feeling he wouldn’t like it.


Could he refuse? No. There were no choices here. No one had any, most likely.


Then again, at least he wouldn’t have time to think about the things he couldn’t change. Like Ela. And why she was avoiding him.