Aldrich snapped awake as the loud mechanical horn echoed through the streets outside. He groaned, sitting up on his creaky cot, his lean muscles stretching. Running a hand through his damp silver hair, he tried to knead away the dull throb pulsing at his temple.
With a low sigh, he hauled himself to his feet, stretching until his body snapped with tension. Then, like clockwork, he dropped to the cold, chipped floor for his morning ritual. It was three hundred push-ups every morning, there were no exceptions. By the time he hit the last one, sweat slicked his skin, his breath coming in sharp bursts.
It was a muggy morning in the Lowlands, the kind that didn't call for wasting taels on heated water. He stepped into the shower, letting the icy stream shock his system, cooling the heat from his workout. He kept it quick, water was as precious as power down here, and surviving meant pinching every resource.
Towel slung low around his waist, Aldrich shuffled to the cracked mirror bolted to the tiled wall. He studied his reflection, sharp jawline, silver hair plastered to his forehead, and a lean, wiry frame carved from years of grit and training. Pretty boy, they often called him, though the term always stung more than it flattered. He scrubbed himself dry, then threw on his usual. A black shirt, black pants, black boots. Simple and practical.
For the past four years, Monday through Thursday, he'd been a regular at Monarch's Dojo, honing his body and martial arts. Today was no different. He stepped out of his cramped apartment into the dim, gray haze of dawn. The sun hadn't fully crawled over the horizon, but the Lowlands streets were already buzzing. They were Miners mostly.
They trudged through the dust, their heavy boots kicking up loose particles of sand as they headed for the ore quarries. Aldrich's eyes shifted to a squad of Red Core combatants patrolling nearby, their crimson laser rifles gripped with cold precision. They barked orders, herding miners toward a large strutter transport.
He averted his gaze. Lingering too long on those trigger-happy enforcers could earn you a smoking hole in your chest for something as petty as a wrong look.
He broke into a jog, weaving through the crowded streets toward Monarch's Dojo. Twenty minutes later, the skyline brightened, the sun finally peeking through the smog. Aldrich pushed through the dojo's heavy doors. Inside, the air bustled with the grunts and thuds of early arrivals already sparring.
Heads turned as he entered, and a few fighters offered nods or quick words of respect. Being the best brawler in the room had its perks. In the Lowlands, power earned you a crown, whether you wanted it or not.
Aldrich claimed a spot on the worn dojo mats, rolling his shoulders to loosen up. A familiar voice cut through the sound of the fists smashing against punching bags.
"Aldrich!"
He turned to see Herman striding out of the restroom, a grin splitting his broad face. He was very tall, probably the same height as him. However, he was bigger. Herman had dark and short hair that reached the base of his neck, his brown eyes were sharp and cautious, like they observed every movement. On the bridge of his nose was a small scar that looked like a short horizontal line. He had had that since he was a little boy.
"Beat you to the dojo, huh?" he teased, his deep laugh bouncing off the walls.
Aldrich's lips quirked into a smile. "Not everything's a race, you big idiot," he shot back, slapping Herman's outstretched palm in their usual handshake.
Herman had been his best friend since they were just kids dodging security drones at the eastend back alleys. When Aldrich had decided he was going to leave the slums to become a combatant, Herman was right there, signing up as well. When he had lost his mother, Herman had been there to console him. Even on days when he would break down, Herman would pull him back up. They were brothers from different mothers.
"Wrong!" Herman chuckled, eyes glinting. "Remember Ma Ackanam at the academy? She would always say every life starts with a race, and our existence is proof we are winners."
Aldrich snorted, kicking off his boots and starting his stretches. "You're sixteen, man. Stop quoting lessons from when we were five."
"Hey, Ma Ackanam's wisdom was gold, rest her soul," Herman said, kissing two fingers and pointing them skyward in a quick salute.
He dropped onto the mat beside Aldrich, mimicking his stretches. "We on the sparring table today?"
"Nah," Aldrich replied, glancing toward the center ring. "Veltroch pulled the top ten from sparring. Doesn't want us banged up before the combatant trial."
Herman nodded, but Aldrich's voice dipped, a rare edge of nerves creeping in. "You think we're ready for it?"
Herman let out a bellowing laugh, loud enough to turn heads. He always laughed like that, even when things got heavy, and Aldrich secretly appreciated how it steadied him. "You're the best fighter in this dump, and you're asking me?" Herman grinned, nudging Aldrich's shoulder. "If you're not ready, what chance do I got?"
"We can't screw this up, Herman," Aldrich said, his voice low and heavy. "Fail this trial, and we're stuck waiting four more years for another shot."
Herman nodded, leaning back on his elbows, his usual grin fading. "Yeah, and our minority rights expire this year. Come January next year, I'm seventeen. And you, in March. After that, we're adults, sent to choke on ore dust in the mines for the Highlands. That's not my life, man."
He wasn't wrong. Mining was brutal, but it was the least of their worries in the Lowlands. The gray disease was the bigger threat. It was a very rampant disease there. It was the major reason for their low life expectancy.
The only cure? A core. Red, yellow, orange, blue, green, white, each a very expensive lifeline. However, the military strongly restricted the sales of all but the white ones, and even those were priced so high most Lowlanders couldn't dare to dream of affording one. Not in a world where a decent meal was already a stretch.
Aldrich's jaw tightened. His mom had withered away from the gray disease two years ago, her coughs echoing in their tiny apartment until they finally stopped. His dad? Gone even longer, but not by the gray disease, no. He was killed up there in the highlands, leaving Aldrich and his mom to scrape by. Now, it was just him, alone, with the trial as his only way out.
Aldrich's mom never stopped calling his dad's death a mystery, and it always gnawed at him. He didn't get it. To him, his dad's life was the real enigma. A Lowlander who'd clawed his way through the combatant trial, becoming one of the elite, yet he never pulled them out of the slums. No Highland penthouse, no white core so they could live a better life. Just him and his mom, left to choke on the Lowlands' ashy air. Even as she wasted away, his mom defended him. "Don't blame your father, Aldrich," she'd rasp, her voice thin but fierce. "He did this for us." She never explained how.
When they brought back his dad's belongings after he died in some Highlanders' war like they mentioned, when Aldrich was just ten, there was barely anything. A worn knife, a cracked watch, a few taels. Nothing to show for a combatant's life. But his mom? She couldn't let it go. She refused to believe he was gone, clinging to some hope that tore at her heart. It broke her faster than the disease ever could.
Aldrich's blood boiled at the memory. He blamed his dad for every cough that shook his mom's frame, for every day she suffered until the gray disease stole her two years ago.
Herman's heavy hand landed on Aldrich's shoulder, yanking him out of his dark thoughts. "Stop brooding, man. We're gonna crush that trial together."
Aldrich exhaled, standing up with a faint smile. "Why do I even worry when you're around?"
Herman clicked his tongue, fake-gagging. "Ugh, save the mushy crap, pretty boy."
Aldrich's eyes narrowed. "You called me that just to piss me off, didn't you, you idiot?"
Herman's laugh boomed as he sauntered toward a free punching bag, his broad shoulders shaking. Aldrich scoffed, shaking his head, and turned to his own prep. He wound white cloth tightly around his knuckles, the familiar ritual grounding him. Standing, he closed his eyes, letting out a slow breath.
In his mind's eye, a perfect clone of himself materialized, same silver hair, same lean frame. When he opened his eyes, a faint, shimmering figure stood before him, an exact replica, flickering like a glitch in reality. "Haha! Been a while, man," the figure spoke. This was Aldrich's secret.
Aldrich glanced around the dojo, heart pounding, but as always, no one batted an eye. To them, he was just another fighter bouncing on his toes, ready to shadowbox. No one else could see the clone, his mirror image, standing right in front of him, staring back with his own sharp eyes.
He shoved the thought aside, dropped into a fighting stance, and lunged. To anyone watching, he was sparring with thin air. But in Aldrich's vision, his clone matched every move, a silent, relentless opponent.
It started when he was ten, after he found a scrawny cat behind his apartment, half-starved and shivering in the Lowlands' dust. He nursed it back to health, and it became his shadow, curling up beside him at night.
Then one day, it vanished. Aldrich sobbed for weeks, praying it would come back. One morning, it did or so he thought. He scooped up the cat, grinning, and ran to his mom. But her face crumpled with worry. "Aldrich, there's nothing there," she said, her voice soft but scared. He swore he felt the cat's warmth in his arms.
The doctor called it psychosis, a kid's mind buckling under loss. They gave him pills, and the cat faded away. But as he got older and ditched the meds, it wasn't just the cat. He could summon anything or anyone in his mind, almost as real as flesh and blood.
They moved, spoke, and fought like the real thing. Maybe it truly was a mental disorder, maybe something else. Aldrich didn't care. He turned it into his edge, conjuring opponents to spar, each one a perfect echo of someone he knew, down to their fighting style. That's how he'd honed his skills, battling ghosts only he could see.