Chapter One: The Tower and the Signal
The Tower of London had never been so quiet. No tourists. No beefeaters. No ravens circling the sky. Just the wind scraping against the skeletal remains of The Shard, its jagged edges silhouetted against the dim glow of distant fires.
Elliot adjusted the frequency on the battered shortwave radio, twisting the dial with slow, deliberate precision. Static crackled, the ghosts of a hundred lost voices whispering into the void. Somewhere beyond the electrified walls dividing London, someone might still be listening. Someone might still be alive.
“This is Elliot Burns, broadcasting from the Tower. If you’re out there—if you’re still human—respond.”
Nothing.
It had been three days since he’d last heard anything from another settlement. Three days since Cambridge had fallen. If no one answered soon, he’d have to accept what the government refused to: England was lost.
Chapter Two: Before the Fall
The world had changed overnight.
It started with the London Stability Act, an emergency order passed under the guise of national security. Parliament claimed it was temporary—a necessity in the face of economic collapse, climate disasters, and the riots spreading across Europe. Food shortages turned once-prosperous cities into battlegrounds. The Thames Barrier, overwhelmed by a catastrophic storm surge, flooded entire boroughs, forcing thousands into state-run refugee zones.
Then came the real crackdown.
Curfews. Military checkpoints. The first mass blackout in Westminster. The government called it an accident—an infrastructure failure. But when the power returned, key activists, journalists, and opposition leaders had vanished. Their homes ransacked. Their families relocated to the mysterious Reformation Centres.
The rumours spread. Some believed the government had found a way to control minds. Others feared something worse—an experiment, a purge, a culling of the non-compliant.
Elliot had been one of those journalists, once. Before they came for his wife.
Chapter Three: The Survivors
A voice crackled over the radio.
“…Elliot?”
He froze. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if he had imagined it. Then, the voice again—clearer this time.
“This is Gabriel Vega. We met in Cardiff, remember?”
Elliot’s pulse quickened. Cardiff. Six months ago. The underground resistance had been trying to smuggle civilians out through the old ferry routes. Gabriel had been one of the leaders.
“You’re alive,” Elliot breathed.
“For now,” Gabriel replied. His voice was tight, weary. “But we’re running out of time.”
“What happened?”
“The North is gone,” Gabriel said. “Manchester, Liverpool—wiped off the map. The government isn’t containing anymore. It’s full extermination now.”
Elliot felt his throat tighten. The official government line had been that the North was “self-quarantined” due to biochemical contamination. Now he knew the truth.
“Where are you?” Elliot asked.
“Outside the walls. Near Croydon. There’s a safe route under the city—one of the old underground stations. We can still get people out, but we need your help.”
Elliot turned toward the boarded-up windows of the Tower. He had supplies. Weapons. But what Gabriel was asking? It was suicide.
Then again, staying here was suicide too.
Chapter Four: The Escape
Elliot left the Tower at dawn.
The streets were hollowed-out husks of what they had been. Parliament Square was now a graveyard of burnt-out police vans and skeletal drones hanging from power lines like dead birds.
He kept his head low, moving quickly, avoiding the street cameras where he could. The government patrols were more advanced now—no longer just soldiers, but autonomous machines, scanning for movement, for heat signatures, for anything that didn’t fit their algorithm of obedience.
At London Bridge, he saw the aftermath of a recent purge. Bodies, piled in a ditch. Their wrists marked with the red tattoo of Reformation.
Alice could be here.
The thought nearly stopped him. He had searched for her after her arrest. Searched every records database, hacked into surveillance feeds, bribed informants. But there had never been a trial. No official documentation of her fate. Just silence.
He clenched his jaw and kept walking.
Croydon was still miles away.
Chapter Five: The Underground
Gabriel was waiting at an abandoned tube station, a rifle slung over his shoulder.
“You look like hell,” he said.
Elliot smirked. “Good to see you too.”
They moved quickly through the tunnels, the stale air thick with mildew and the metallic tang of rust. The deeper they went, the more people they saw—families huddled together in makeshift camps, faces hollow with hunger.
“This is what’s left,” Gabriel murmured.
“How many?”
“A few hundred. But it won’t be enough.”
Elliot frowned. “For what?”
Gabriel turned to him. “To fight.”
Chapter Six: The Choice
The resistance’s plan was simple. A mass exodus through the old sewer tunnels, leading south to the coast. But first, they needed a distraction—something big enough to force the government to look elsewhere.
“The Tower,” Gabriel said. “We can use the radio. Expose everything.”
Elliot exhaled slowly. “And what happens after?”
Gabriel was silent.
They both knew. The government wouldn’t allow the truth to spread. If they did this, they weren’t just signing their own death warrants—they were condemning anyone left in London.
But if they did nothing?
Then the last free voices of England would vanish in the dark.
Elliot looked out across the ruined platform, at the families clinging to hope in the shadows.
They had already lost so much.
He nodded.
“Let’s make them listen.”
Chapter Seven: The Last Broadcast
They returned to the Tower under the cover of darkness.
Elliot adjusted the frequency, his hands steady despite the fear clawing at his ribs. The government’s jammers were strong, but the Tower’s old transmitters were stronger. This signal would reach beyond the walls.
He pressed the button.
“This is Elliot Burns. If you’re hearing this, you already know the truth. London has fallen. The North is gone. The government is lying to you.”
Static. Then, faint voices.
Not from the radio. From outside.
A floodlight ignited the room.
Through the shattered windows, Elliot saw them. The black-clad soldiers of the regime, weapons raised.
No escape.
Gabriel stood beside him, rifle at the ready.
“This is it,” Gabriel murmured.
Elliot nodded. And then, into the microphone, one last time:
“Tell the world what happened here.”
Then the door burst open.
And the Tower was silent once more.
Epilogue
Days later, the transmission reached the world.
And the people listened.
For the first time since the fall, they fought back.
