The air smelled of sweat, smoke, and something more—hope, maybe. Kirion moved through the crumbling back alley of the outer district like he'd lived there all his life. In a way, he had. Not the physical place, but the spirit of it: broken promises, desperate faces, hearts still beating despite everything. He wasn't just a witness anymore. He was the flame.
"Status?" he whispered into the comm clipped inside his collar.
"Cameras down. Feed looped," came a voice—calm, precise. His daughter.
The mission was simple, but nothing ever was. Distribute medical supplies to wounded civilians the government had abandoned after the last raid. This was no longer charity; it was rebellion.
He met Rudo in a half-collapsed clinic that still smelled faintly of antiseptic and ash. Rudo had once been a surgeon. Now, he stitched together bodies with stolen thread and trembling hands.
"You're late," Rudo grunted, nodding to a bundle of gauze Kirion pulled from a hidden pocket sewn into his coat lining.
"Not late," Kirion said, glancing at the reinforced shadows of the door. "Just watched."
They worked in near silence, treating a child with burns, an old man with torn ligaments, a pregnant woman who hadn't seen a doctor in months. For hours, Kirion's hands became the resistance—precise, steady, and relentless.
Later, he stood on the rooftop of a burned-out library, watching the skyline. He had no title, no badge, no political power. But below him, people were beginning to speak his name.
Not as a fighter.
Not as a hero.
As justice.
He closed his eyes, the wind brushing his face. In a world that wanted silence, he would be the scream.