Cora sat in her dim apartment, staring at her screen as she scrolled through old TikToks and archived news clips. The raids had started only weeks ago, but it felt like years. The days blurred together, each one heavier than the last, each memory playing like a fragment of someone else’s life. She clicked on a saved video and let the flood of memories consume her.
TikTok #1: The Checkpoints
The shaky footage showed a line of cars stretching for miles down a sun-baked highway. Drivers leaned out their windows, faces tense, while enforcement agents in black uniforms moved from car to car. The Circle’s emblem, a smooth black ring, endless and suffocating, was stitched onto their shoulders, their mirrored visors reflecting the heat shimmer off the asphalt.
A woman’s voice whispered urgently over the footage. “They’re stopping everyone. You can’t even get into the city without showing ID, and if they don’t like the look of you…” The camera panned to a family standing on the shoulder of the road, their belongings scattered across the pavement. An agent rifled through a suitcase while a child clung to their mother’s leg, sobbing.
The video cut abruptly, ending with a caption: “#StandAgainstTheCircle #NoToRaids.”
Cora remembered when the checkpoints were first introduced. The Circle had claimed they were only targeting criminals, illegals, and threats to national security. But soon, everyone had to prove their loyalty. The wrong background, the wrong last name, the wrong hesitation when handing over your ID, any of it could be enough to make you disappear.
News Clip: The Schools
The anchor’s voice was measured, unnaturally calm. “Enforcement Agents Conduct Citizenship Inspections at Local Schools.”
The screen cut to shaky footage of agents storming into a brick school building, their batons clipped to their belts, scanners in hand. Children pressed themselves against the walls of the hallway, their eyes wide with terror. The faculty formed a line in front of the main office, arms crossed, faces hard with defiance.
Principal Torres stood at the center, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. “You have no authority here,” she said, her words clear even over the chaos.
One agent stepped forward, visor reflecting the fluorescent lights. “This is a lawful inspection,” he said flatly. “Step aside.”
“No,” Torres replied.
Cora had seen the aftermath. Torres had been fired the next day, arrested the week after that. The school was shut down for “curriculum violations.” The teachers who had resisted had their licenses revoked. The students were reassigned, but no one knew where.
TikTok #2: The Tariffs and the Prices
A grocery store aisle. Shelves half-empty. A woman’s voice, frustrated and tired, narrating. “Bread is up forty percent. Gas is at ten dollars a gallon. Eggs are a luxury now. And this—” The camera zoomed in on a package of meat. “Fifty bucks for ground beef. Fifty.”
The screen glitched and cut to a news clip of the Chairman on stage, smiling that too-perfect, rehearsed grin. “This short-term pain is going to be worth it. The tariffs will bring back American strength. We’re taking back what’s ours.”
Then another jump cut, this time to a man standing at a gas station, his hands on his hips. “They told us this was to protect workers. But the only people getting richer are the ones running the Circle.”
Cora remembered when the tariffs had been sold as a bold move for the economy. They were supposed to hurt the enemy, whoever that was. Instead, they had driven up costs on everything, food, medicine, fuel, even basic necessities. The Circle’s solution had been to blame the same people they always did. Moochers. Liberals. Free thinkers. But now, they also blamed their old allies, claiming they too had taken advantage of the country.
But when would the pain be worth it?
News Clip: The Collapse of Programs
The next clip showed a group of senior citizens outside a Social Assistance Office. The sign on the door read PERMANENTLY CLOSED. The camera zoomed in on an old man gripping his walker, his face slack with shock.
“They cut it,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I worked my whole life. They said we’d be taken care of.”
The video jumped to a government press conference. A spokesperson stood at the podium, reading from a statement. “These programs were outdated and inefficient. By cutting waste, we have reinvested in real American families.”
Then another cut, this time to a woman clutching a crying child. “They stopped our housing assistance. They told me to find a ‘Circle-approved’ job. I had one. But they closed the factory.”
Cora had known it was coming. The Chairman had spent months railing against “government handouts,” promising tax cuts and personal responsibility. But those tax cuts never trickled down. They vanished into the Circle’s hands. The oversight boards were dissolved. The watchdogs disappeared.
And the people who had once cheered the Chairman’s speeches, the ones who had scoffed at “moochers” and “welfare leeches,” were now realizing they were the ones being discarded.
TikTok #3: The Resistance
The video opened in a dark classroom. Students whispered urgently, passing around markers and poster board. The camera zoomed in on a sign: “Schools Are Not Battlefields!”
A teenage boy held the camera steady, his voice barely above a whisper. “They came for the kids today. They didn’t get anyone this time. But they’re coming back. We have to do something. We can’t just let this happen.”
Then a cut to the school parking lot, where a small crowd of students and teachers held signs. The caption read: “We are not afraid. #SaveOurSchools.”
Cora remembered when that clip first surfaced. It had been hopeful. Defiant.
Two days later, the school was closed for “restructuring.” The boy who had filmed the video was gone. His account deleted. His name erased.
TikTok #4: The Social Credit System
The video opened with a shaky, pixelated screen recording of a banking app. A notification popped up in bold red text:
“Transaction Denied. Account Status: Restricted.”
A woman’s voice, laced with frustration and fear, narrated over the footage. “They locked me out. I can’t withdraw cash, I can’t pay my bills. All because I posted something critical about the Chairman.”
The screen glitched and cut to a news clip of the Chairman at a rally. “Only the loyal should prosper. The weak, the corrupt, the traitors? They don’t deserve what we’ve built.”
Then another clip. A protester from a past rally, now marked with a warning overlay: “DISSIDENT. BANNED FROM UNIVERSITY.”
“The Chairman’s billionaire friends built this system. They used our own words to decide if we get to participate in society at all.”
The video cut to a mother denied hospital care for questioning the rising cost of food. A war veteran, funds frozen, after criticizing the military opening fire on protesters.
The Unity App notification dinged at the bottom of the screen:
“Reminder: Your Unity Index Score is under review. Please confirm your compliance.”
The video ended with a caption:
“This will probably be my last post. If I disappear, you know why.”
TikTok #5: The Border War
The video opened with chaotic, handheld footage of the border at dusk. Gunfire crackled in the distance, and plumes of smoke rose from burning vehicles. Sirens wailed as border enforcement agents ducked behind their trucks, returning fire at unseen attackers on the other side. The camera panned wildly before settling on a news chyron flashing across a TV screen: “Gangs Declare War on Border Agents—Bounty Issued.”
A man’s voice, breathless and panicked, narrated over the footage. “This isn’t a skirmish anymore—this is war. The cartels put a price on every agent’s head, and now we’ve got shootouts at the crossings every night. Border agents are running people down in the streets. Look at this!” The screen cut to grainy security footage of an SUV plowing through a group of unarmed migrants, bodies flung like rag dolls across the pavement. Another clip followed, this time of an agent stepping out of his truck, scanning the carnage, then calmly getting back in and driving away.
The video cut back to the original poster, their face pale in the glow of the screen. “What is happening?! We sealed the borders, we cracked down, we did everything they told us to—and now it’s worse than ever.”
The caption below the video read: “This isn’t law and order. This is slaughter.”
Cora pushed the button on her phone, the screen going black. The room plunged into darkness.
The power had been flickering for days, rationed now that their closest trading partners had blocked energy exports. The Circle had promised resilience, promised that their country would stand strong on its own. But now the lights were going out, the factories were silent, and the cities had become graveyards of empty streets and hushed whispers.
She sat motionless in the darkness, staring into nothing, feeling nothing. The anger had burned out. The fear had dulled. There was only exhaustion, the slow, creeping numbness of watching everything fall apart in real time.
The silence pressed in on her. No notifications, no news, no voices, just the distant sound of sirens in the streets below.
The final phase had begun.
And there was nothing left to do but wait.
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