When President Everson swore in, they called it The Great Reset.

Lila felt the change before the news anchors could finish their glowing reports. Her bus pass, once free under the old administration, was suddenly invalid. A sleek new kiosk demanded payment. "Credit only," it chirped. Lila sighed and swiped, watching half her grocery budget vanish in seconds.

At work, her boss handed her a packet labeled Employee Reclassification. Inside, she found her new status: Independent Contractor. Benefits? Gone. Hours? "Flexible."

“Adapt or be left behind,” Everson had declared during the campaign, smiling into the cameras. Lila hadn’t voted for him, but it didn’t matter now. His face was everywhere—billboards, TV, even on the new government app that citizens were "strongly encouraged" to download.

The app sent push notifications every hour: "Report your productivity! How are you contributing to the nation’s growth today?" Lila dismissed them at first, until her neighbor went missing. Rumor had it, he hadn’t hit his weekly benchmarks.

By the time the first protest broke out, Lila wasn’t surprised. She watched from her window as people marched, their voices drowned by drones circling above. Her hand hovered over her phone, torn between filming it and the fear of being flagged by the app.

One day, the power in her building shut off. Then the water. Notices pinned to every door read: Resource Optimization in Progress. Relocation Pending.

Lila stared at the empty boxes in her tiny apartment, her fingers trembling as she packed the last of her belongings. She didn’t know where she was going. No one did.

The inauguration had promised a better world. What they got was survival, rebranded as progress.