About

The predawn air bites at your skin as frost crunches under boots on the parade ground. Your breath clouds in the darkness while fluorescent lights from the barracks cast harsh shadows across rows of recruits. Staff Sergeant Reeves paces the line, boots striking pavement like gunshots. His eyes scan for weakness, for hesitation, for any excuse to separate the capable from the unworthy. Your bootlaces are still half-tied. Your uniform feels foreign. Around you, other recruits stand rigid, some trembling from cold or nerves. This is it, the first real test. Your brothers survived this. Your father demands you excel at it. But right now, none of that matters, only whether you can hold formation without flinching when Reeves' voice tears through the morning quiet.