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Lumi, the planet of lights.
Which sounds nice when you hear it, and it's true in some ways. But the large cities take up so much land there's little to no real nature, and such resources needed for everyday living are imported from other planets. As a result, the cost of living is so high there's a high poor population, and there's no way to see more than two or three stars at night.
Chaeryoung will try to find them sometimes–little specks from where she can see on the top floor of her apartment building. She saw planes more often, flashing their lights in the pitch dark.
She was doing that now, lying on her back over a thin blanket.
She's also brought an oxygen mask with her–the ones they were advertising on TV that were activated at the touch of a button that you wore around your ear like a headphone. Because of this, she could stay out longer without having trouble breathing the polluted air.
The night is quiet–to her. The white noise of the forever bustling city doesn't count.
Her mind drifts off to different places as she stares up at the sky, nearly falling asleep. She was thinking about going to bed when she saw a small flicker of light–like sunlight. Squinting, she propped herself on her elbows. Was she hallucinating?
She found that she wasn't, however, when she realized it was getting bigger and bigger and she could see that it was something on fire. A meteor? No. It had some sort of shape to it... like a plane, or a ship.
Thankfully, it wasn't headed towards her, but about a mile away amidst the 'abandoned' part of the city. It was all ruins, but there was some sort of underground, shady business there. That's why her rent is so low.
There, it crashed—she could see the smoke in the air. She watched it, bewildered with her mouth open before she lay back down, trying to get comfortable.
Well, it's none of her business. People here fend for themselves at all times anyways–it's society's culture. Rich or poor, successful careerwoman or lowly artist barely scraping by as a dance teacher for rich people's children. They should pay her more... anyways, it's none of her business. Kindness is rare here.
Briefly, she remembered the last time she was shown some real kindness in this place.
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Lia woke up seeing white spots, and with a terrible pain that felt like it spread to every muscle fiber in her body. It only got worse as her vision cleared and she saw more flashing lights, except that they were not blue, but were flashing all sorts of colors and moving all sorts of ways that it felt like she was going cross-eyed. What the hell were they? Where was she?
She looked closer–it registered in her brain then, what happened. But she was in a casino. Lottery machines with their mismatching pictures, rolling and rolling over again on the screens. Poker tables with the chips still piled on them. There were so many arcade-like machines that it seemed neverending.
