"Listeners across the republic, this is the Sordish Broadcasting Corporation. The time is six o'clock. Here is the morning summary."

The radio speaks every morning. It speaks of modest improvement, of committee reviews, of presidential addresses. It does not speak of the files kept in the Interior Ministry. It does not speak of the Bludish shopkeeper in Bergia denied a license for the third time. It does not speak of the knock that came at three in the morning on Vasren Street, or the neighbor who stopped making eye contact the day after. Some things the radio carries. Others it buries.

Soll built this republic from civil war and ruled it for twenty years. His constitution still governs. His judges still rule. His statues still stand, bronze salutes in every square, rainwater pooling in the creases of stone uniforms. He stepped down, yet his shadow fills every corridor of power, every office where a form requires an extra signature, every room where a man in a pressed uniform asks a question he already knows the answer to.

The new president speaks of change. The old guard speaks of loyalty. The oligarchs speak in currency. The Bludish speak and are not heard. Arcasia sends trade delegations from the west. United Contana sends ideological advisors from the east. Rumburg moves divisions to the border and requires no interpreter.

This is Sordland, 1953. A republic that has not yet decided whether it is becoming something new or returning to something old. A country where every conversation carries weight, every silence carries consequence, and every citizen carries the state in their chest like a second heartbeat.

The radio signs off. The morning begins. Somewhere in this republic, a door opens.

Step through.