345.A.E (After.Earth)
The sun or what passed for one hung in the sky, a pale, warm light spilling over a city vast enough to be its own country.
This was the seventh compartment.
Stretching nearly 500 kilometers, it pulsed with life, home to 1.33 billion souls. Ten towns sprawled across the land, flanked by more than thirty-five villages, each a patchwork of human survival against the relentless expanse.
On the outskirts of one such village, atop a gentle hill, sat a modest cottage. Not grand, not ostentatious but just enough to hold a family.
Down the slope, a girl ran toward it, her figure framed by the sickly light above. Wind clawed at her long black hair, tugging strands across her face, but she barely noticed. Her smile caught what little warmth the light offered, a fleeting brightness against the muted gray of the world.
Her hair was so shiny and straight it could make any lady jealous. From a distance, she seemed out of breath, but up close, it was clear she looked refreshed, her cheeks flushed from running up the hill.
As she neared the cottage, a figure standing by the door came into view. It looked almost like her only paler and weaker, as if life itself had been leeched from it.
The figure's blue eyes shone brightly, drawing attention immediately. Though her own eyes were brown, they didn't make her any less striking.
Closer still, the cottage revealed its age. Cracks ran across the walls, paint peeled in places, and the house seemed older than it truly was, a quiet witness to the years it had endured.
As she reached the top of the hill, a familiar, soothing voice greeted her.
"Here," it said, offering a cup of water. It was Lyra, her twin sister, standing patiently with a small, tired smile.
Elara took the cup, her fingers trembling slightly, and drank. The water had a strange taste, but it wasn't harmful and in the 7th compartment, that was as good as it got. Complaining wasn't an option.
"How was the town?" Lyra asked, her voice calm, yet curious.
Elara gulped down the last drops before replying, breathless: "Same as always. Streets crawling with people barely surviving. Buildings falling apart. And surviving on scraps from the 5th compartment… if that counts as living."
The final sip left her feeling slightly refreshed.
Then, as if remembering something that might brighten the moment, her eyes lit up.
"Lyra! I heard news from someone in town they say the gates are expected to open in three days!"
For the first time in hours, a small smile appeared on Lyra's pale face. Hope, however fragile, had arrived.
To an outsider, such news would hardly be cause for celebration. The gates were only ever opened when the Assemblage needed laborers people dragged from their homes to mine on distant planets, harvesting resources that couldn't be found aboard the ships.
Fathers, sons, cousins… all sent off under the pretense of "service to the Assemblage."
More than half never returned. Radiation, harsh environments, or worse turned into bait for the alien creatures that roamed those worlds. The lucky few who survived often returned broken, hollowed out by forced labor.
But to the sisters, this news carried a different weight. For those fortunate enough to work as maids or test subjects for the Assemblage in the 5th compartment, a temporary return home was possible. Their mother was one of those fortunate few.
Hired as a maid for a branch of the Ashford family in the 5th compartment, she earned just enough not luxurious, but enough to keep the family of five fed and clothed.
Elara passed the cup back to Lyra, a small smile tugging at her lips, before stepping fully into the cottage, the familiar warmth of home enveloping her like a fragile shield against the harshness of the outside world.
he inside of the cottage wasn't impressive. It never had been.
Nothing in the living room stood out just two worn-down chairs pushed close to a small center table that doubled as their dining table. A pot of fading flowers sat on the windowsill to the right, doing its best to make the place look alive.
To the left, a narrow staircase led up to the rooms.
In the next heartbeat, Elara was already ascending it, her footsteps light but urgent. She reached one of the doors and pushed it open so forcefully that the hinges squealed in protest, the wooden frame trembling as though it might split in two.
Inside, a boy stood with his back to her, his small frame outlined against the dim light coming from the window. He looked no older than thirteen.
Short golden-brown hair, posture too stiff for a child, and a stillness that didn't belong to someone his age.
He turned at the sound of the door, his gaze meeting hers.
Those eyes clear, beautiful, an icy shade of blue gave him an elegance that didn't match their life here. He looked like a noble from the stories their mother used to read, back when things were simpler, back when there was warmth in their evenings.
And yet…
With this handsome young man staring at her, all Elara felt was the overwhelming urge to punch him square in the face.
Because this was her older brother.