The intense beam of light burned her retina and tore her from absolute darkness and a heavy sleep. In silence, she covered her eyes to block the light, but the burning sensation lingered, spreading in a halo that dug ever deeper into her eyeballs. Two cups were handed to her—one containing a single small pill, the other water. Out of habit, she took the correct cups, swallowed her dose, and lay back down.
​
The atmosphere was stifling, and despite the size of the room, it was overcrowded. People were packed together on mattresses and emergency blankets. Everyone tried to sleep, but the lack of privacy made it uncomfortable for all. A thought flashed through her mind: the pill she had just taken would take effect within an hour—enough time to slip out of the building and return.
​
She got dressed in the only corner that offered a bit of privacy in this former hall turned dormitory. A structure of planks and steel plates separated the wing from the rest of the station. When she was ready, she opened the door and checked for anyone on the platforms and around the corridor bends. Reassured by her solitude, she hurried to a staircase leading upstairs.
​
The old shops were crowded with people, but they were asleep. Two guards were talking at a counter in front of a screen; only their projected shadows and voices betrayed their presence. Their conversation echoed against the marble and stone of the building:
“Leda, 22 years old. She’s under hypnotics at night, but she has a tendency to run away—keep an eye on her.” “She took her dose on time. She was heavily drowsy.” “This patient is privileged. Keep an eye on her.”
​
Leda crouched low and crab-walked as fast as she could toward the nearest shadows. A balcony with a massive, unlit chandelier stood just ahead of her. Below stretched rows of platforms and more shops where the survivors of the apocalypse were crammed together. She climbed the stairs leading to the roof at an accelerating pace.
​
The cold winter air struck her violently. Above her, the stars shone in absolute darkness, broken only by a few luminous arteries—the avenues that cut through the city, linking places of interest day and night. She moved deeper into the garden. There were a few trees and patches of grass. No sound disturbed the serenity, which felt as though it came from beyond the grave. Only a biting frost reminded her that physical reality still existed.
​
But Leda was already no longer part of it. In her waking dreams, she saw a carpet of dead leaves, their orange hues capturing the last spectral light of a frail sun. Someone dear to her was holding her hand as they walked down a wide path lined with oak trees. His hands were large and reassuring as she laced her fingers through his. It seemed to her that nothing could disturb their peace.
Her eyes fixed on the horizon, night suddenly fell. She turned around, but instead of the warm palm she expected, a hand cuffed her wrist and yanked her violently aside. She heard sobbing, but no tears flowed down her cheeks as she struggled in vain against the forced separation.
​
When she came to, she was facing an illuminated tower that seemed to pierce the sky. A violent detonation shattered the atmosphere. An incandescent object began a slow descent, reaching the edge of the tower in a plume of gas and flames against the night sky. It was one of those rockets still used to transport people and goods between the world’s major metropolises—the last connection to a fractured world.
​
Leda had not left the city in over fifteen years, and her first feeling was envy toward those who could explore beyond its fortifications. She had come seeking freedom, yet a deep unease seized her.
​
A sound alerted her. It was the signal: a whistle imitating a bird’s chirp. She raised hers and blew. A man emerged from a small thicket hidden in the shadows. He wore a black hooded jacket and a white balaclava that completely concealed his face. A white falcon perched on his shoulder, its eyes deep, opaque black.
​
“Adil, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to come. Surveillance around me is tightening, but I’m glad to be here. You may withdraw,” she said to the hooded figure.
The man backed away and was swallowed by the darkness. The bird remained perched on his shoulder and answered her in silence:
“Leda, according to my estimates, there isn’t much time left. We must act or we’re headed for ruin.”
Adil beat his wings vigorously, as if to emphasize his words.
“That’s what I feared. They’ve started selecting even those who weren’t ready yet. I don’t know how much time I have left,” she said anxiously.
“There’s no reason to worry in the short term. They want you at full maturity, no matter how long it takes. But for the others…”
He let out a piercing cry that echoed off the buildings.
“You reassure me. It’s a fate I wouldn’t wish on anyone. What can we do for the others?
We’re too limited by our numbers, which puts us in a delicate situation where we must recruit more openly and risk being discovered. Leda, hope is slim. Technically there are more prisoners than jailers, but we have neither equipment nor technology. And while pharmacology calms the mind, it’s an invisible cell that subdues through dependency and dulled senses. We’ll have to rely on your intuition—and luck.”
“Very well. I’ll see what I can do. We should separate now before we’re spotted. I’ll contact you once I’ve made progress.”
Leda whistled again, and the hooded figure emerged from the darkness to retrieve Adil before vanishing swiftly. With little time left, she decided to return by the same staircase she had taken. If she wasn’t lying down at the precise moment the medication took effect, she wouldn’t fall asleep and would be left bored all night. The return trip was uneventful. She undressed and let herself collapse onto her roll-up mattress.
​
“One, two, three,” he repeated, striking in rhythm. He let the body bleed out into the gutter. His field of vision narrowed and widened with each pulse in his temples. A veil covered his sight, and a sensation of lightness forced him to sit on the curb. The person continued hemorrhaging in spasms, producing indistinct gurgles—the only responses left to his agony.
“Sing, little bird of paradise, sing despair and suffering,” he muttered to himself, overwhelmed by a new surge of adrenaline that made his heart pound like a war drum. The man tried in vain to stop the blood from flowing from his gaping wound. The pallor of his face resembled wax.
​
For a moment, he forgot his memory—of a gallant man who had stolen his heart and carried it with him into the grave. He drowned in the clarity of his thoughts like in the pure springs of a mountain peak. A light blinded him deep within his pupils, like a lighthouse guiding him toward distant, unknown shores—those that welcomed the first glimmers of dawn. Like a skiff sailing at the edge of the horizon, inseparable from sky or sea.
​
He had a brief lapse, then stood up. The body lay inert, drained of blood. Its faintly smiling face appeared in his mind. He had always possessed a sense of emotional restraint. His heart seized as if tightened by barbed wire. His breathing stopped for a few seconds. He took the person’s head, pressed it against the curb with his foot, then struck with his axe as hard as he could at the neck until it detached. He picked up the head and placed it in the bag with the axe.
​
A tango melody gradually emerged from nothingness. With it came a consciousness that grew stronger as the music rose. Leda’s mouth was extremely dry, as it was every morning—an effect of the medication. An incoherent hubbub quickly arose as everyone struggled to get up. There was already a line to change clothes, in a corner curtained off for privacy.
​
She was more the type to shower in the morning than at night, so she headed to the women’s washroom. No one was there yet, so she quickly undressed and washed. As she finished changing, someone called out to her:
“Leda! Did you hear? Someone was decapitated—they didn’t find the head,” said a woman her age who seemed to know her.
“Where? Who was it? Who told you?” she replied quickly, though she didn’t remember her interlocutor.
“I heard it from two people in the west wing while I was coming back from chores. They saw it with their own eyes returning from their night shift—it was on Rue de Rennes. Must have been someone important; the place was crawling with gendarmes. If it had been one of us, they’d have already thrown us into the Seine. Shall we have breakfast together?”
“No, sorry, I don’t have time. I have to report to the infirmary before my rotation—a simple electrocardiogram.”
Leda thanked the woman and apologized.
​
The metro she took from Montparnasse station, where she was housed, now served only a limited number of stops. She had to get off at Châtelet, then take Line 14 to the François Mitterrand Library. Being in an empty train—no passengers, no driver—was a strange experience. Still, her solitude was broken when she exited and reached the library building. A group of gendarmes stopped her, checked her identity, then let her enter.
​
She completed her exam and headed to a room where about a dozen people were in visible distress. She greeted them and asked:
“What’s going on? Someone’s missing, right?”
“Yes,” they answered almost in unison. “Bastien and Léa are missing.”
“No one saw them this morning? I’m pretty late—they should already be here.”
“No. I take the metro with Léa, and she wasn’t there this morning,” said a young man, raising his voice above the heated discussions.
“Silence. Everyone to your seats. We’re starting,” said a middle-aged woman as she entered.
Everyone quickly sat down and took out what they needed to take notes. The professor began:
“In the last lesson, we discussed the ecological cataclysms that struck the world over the past two decades—particularly the floods that submerged one-tenth of the territory, causing a massive exodus to higher ground spared by rising waters. Today we will talk about the Selection—an initiative designed to carry out the morally difficult task of choosing those who would have access to the safety and infrastructure of the unaffected cities, sheltered behind their fortifications. Does anyone have an idea how this process was implemented?”
“Using artificial intelligence?” a woman behind Leda answered.
“That’s a bit vague, but not incorrect. The millions of refugees posed a real threat to the scarce resources and limited space of a city like Paris. Even with synthetic food production, there wasn’t enough yield to feed such a population. Money had already lost its value as order gave way to chaos. Martial law was declared, and a junta was established—this marks the birth of the Free City of Paris.
As for the Selection, every citizen was required to contribute to the common effort. Since space was limited, a way was needed to quickly identify those who would bring the most value to society. The solution was to use data recorded by various artificial intelligences and to deploy intervention teams from the gendarmerie and the army to extract them and bring them here.”
​
Someone entered and asked Leda to accompany them. She complied. Outside, she was informed that she had been reassigned to a different location, effective immediately. Two gendarmes escorted her to the exit.