Sleep didn't come easy in Iron City.
Not anymore. Not after the trials, the observation, the endless calculation of every move Marcus had made. The thin mattress in his room offered no comfort only a place to rest enough to keep functioning. Yet even in the dark, he felt the city's pulse, subtle and constant, pressing against him. Cameras, vents, sensors all watching. Always watching.
He tried lying flat, closing his eyes, counting breaths. But the memories of the simulation war clung to him. Every decision, every misstep, every split-second adaptation played on repeat. His mind refused to shut down.
A soft chime echoed through the walls—another message, another reminder that Iron City never paused.
REST PERIOD: LIMITED
OBSERVATION CONTINUES
Marcus groaned and swung his legs over the mattress. His ribs ached, his arms burned, and yet the city demanded more.
Hours or maybe minutes later, he was called to the observation deck. The trainers didn't knock. They didn't announce. They simply waited, and Marcus knew better than to ignore it.
The room was stark, lights too bright, monitors lining every wall. Marcus's reflection stared back at him in the polished steel panels. Bloodshot eyes. Muscles twitching with fatigue. The mark on his collar pulsed faintly in the light.
A trainer stepped forward, clipboard in hand. "Sleep deprivation is part of the test. Recovery is limited. Mental resilience is under evaluation."
Marcus didn't respond. Words wouldn't matter. Actions did.
The trial began.
A series of tasks, small at first, then impossible, assaulted him. Calculations, coordination, rapid responses to visual and auditory cues. Holographic enemies, weighted objects, timed sequences all designed to fragment attention, strain focus, force fatigue.
Minutes bled into hours. Marcus kept moving. Kept reacting. Kept surviving. But sleep deprivation was a slow killer. His reflexes dulled, vision blurred, thoughts scattered like smoke in the wind. Pain and exhaustion became part of the landscape.
The city's sensors didn't miss a thing. Every blink, every hesitation, every slip of posture was recorded, evaluated, fed into unseen systems.
At one point, Marcus stumbled. Just slightly. A miscalculation, a delayed reaction. The system recognized it instantly. The holographic enemies adapted. The floor shifted beneath him. A vent released smoke directly at his face.
He coughed, eyes watering, but he pressed on. Survival wasn't just about skill anymore. It was about endurance. About refusing to stop when the world wanted him to fail.
Hours later, when the trial ended, Marcus didn't collapse. He didn't even breathe a sigh of relief. The monitors displayed results: reaction degradation, fatigue index, decision accuracy all better than the system had expected.
A message appeared on his collar:
SLEEP DEFICIT: SEVERE
MENTAL RESILIENCE: EXCEEDS STANDARD
CATEGORY: UNPREDICTABLE
NEXT TRIAL: IMMINENT
Marcus rubbed his temples, forcing his eyes open. The mark on his collar seemed to pulse brighter than ever.
Iron City didn't allow rest. It didn't reward survival. It demanded adaptation.
And Marcus Cole was learning how far he could go before the city broke him.
Somewhere deep inside, he knew the real danger wasn't exhaustion. It was forgetting who he was while the city remade him.
He wasn't going to let that happen.