Chapter One — First Light.

Aspen’s alarm bellowed, its sound ricocheting off the walls. The overhead light blinked on, flooding the room with steady, unblinking white. He sat up without hesitation, his fingers tracing the edge of the bedsheets before folding them into a neat triangle. The room offered no encouragement, just monochrome surfaces and the faint hum of machinery.

He rolled out of bed onto the cold floor and began his morning workout: push-ups, squats, sit-ups. His muscles moved on autopilot. His breath was steady. His rhythm exact. His thoughts, absent.

Opposite the bed stood the entrance to the bathroom. He walked to the door and pressed the buttons. Removing his shirt, muscle shifted beneath skin like clockwork. The doorway narrowed around him as he stepped through, and warm water greeted him instantly — tropical, precise, unchanging. He did not flinch. He did not pause. He did not think. His left hand extended. Soap was dispensed. He washed with his usual regime.

Moments before the water shut off, Aspen stepped out. A warm gust of air enveloped him, drying his skin as he approached the sink. One hand braced against the wall; he stared into the mirror and exhaled slowly. No words. No expression. Just breath.

To the side of the sink, a metallic wardrobe blended into the sleek white walls, as if the room had been built around it. The hanger clattered as he selected his outfit without looking at the identical sets of ill-fitting clothes, variations of blue and grey. The fabric was stiff. The seams pressed against his skin. He did not adjust them.

Behind him, the gust of air redirected itself to the shower floor, flowing toward a gap in the adjacent wall where it collected the water. He returned to the bedroom. A small, motorised receptacle approached, instructed to retrieve the discarded clothes. He paused. The robot resumed its work. Another machine extended claws and rollers, smoothing out the bed, tucking it in. He watched. The room was immaculate once again.

He moved to the right side of the room, where a larger door waited. Walking to the monitor, he pressed the button. The door slid open, revealing a steel hallway lined with identical doors. He felt nothing as he passed through, mimicking the robots he worked with. His mind barely registered his actions.

Another button. The kitchen opened. The room with no windows blinked into existence: cold, sterile, empty. A steel workbench stretched across the far wall, crowded with machines. Between them, a single tap jutted out, no basin, no drain. On another wall, multiple chutes protruded from it, a sack filled with powders underneath, waiting. In the corner, a machine slumped in silence, its purpose long forgotten.

Aspen swiped a black circle embedded in the counter’s corner. A projection bloomed into the air: profiles, data, instructions. He scanned. Measured. Rehydrating the powders into nutrient pastes. Each paste was injected into a printer, shaped into familiar textures — an illusion of real food. He sent each bowl through to the dining room.

Aspen moved without pause. Without speech. His steps matched the rhythm of repetition.

Once he finished with the drinks, he found his place at the table opposite two other seats and counted to twenty, a withering look on his face as he did so. Promptly, the two Doctors entered from the same hallway and sat down in silence, loading up their own technology without hesitation. No greetings. No glances. No deviation. Another identical day.

After his day ended, Aspen returned to his bedroom. The doors slid shut behind him. *click* Relief flooded him, letting his shoulders relax for the first time, collapsing back onto his bed. He reached, stretching his back as he soaked up this moment. It was 18:50. The Doctors would already be recharging their brains by now. But not him — he didn’t need as much sleep as they did. His brain wasn’t as sophisticated, as he was regularly reminded.

He walked over to the window. It framed the high-rise buildings surrounding him. He cracked it open a little, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply — letting his face feel the motionless air. He missed the feeling of the wind, but it still felt fresher out there than the confinement of this suffocating building. It was a perfect night for a stroll... A rare smile tugged at his lips as he gazed over the city.At exactly 19:00, he lifted his hand to block the sensor. Across the city, automated shutters slammed down, swallowing the view. Everyone’s but his — Right on schedule.

Aspen opened the window wide and sat on the edge. He shifted to the right as far as he could and reached for the external water pipes, lined with industrial brackets, acting as an elongated ladder.

Once at the top, he took in the much-improved views over the rooftops, and through the gaps of the tubular, high rise buildings. Looking beyond the edge of this section, he glimpsed the trees lining it, in clumps, motionless. Even the forests here stood without soul. Beyond those trees, other sections could be made out by the collection of taller buildings which stood in the centre of each one. The sea, not visible beyond the miles of city laid around him.

Up here, it was still and quiet. Only the low continuous humming and the occasional sharp, static crackle of the plasma barrier above, was heard, as the air played around it.

Aspen laid back on the floor, paying no attention to the cold damp grit under him. Up here he was at peace, up here he could pretend he was free. He watched the glow of the domed barrier, mimicking auroras as he moved his eyes to observe them, rolling a smooth pebble between his fingers.

The alarm was going off in his room. Another day. Time to start again. The dream lingered, a recurring dream from the day he met the doctors and their daughter. He heard the screams echoing around his mind. The screams of a desperate parent. The screams that set his future in motion.

"Time to get up. Time to get up," a soft voice repeated, bouncing around the room with no primary location. He pressed his holographic screen projector doc, to deactivate it.

"Good morning, Aspen. The time is 7:00 a.m. Doctor Virellan will be attending breakfast at 7:45 a.m. Your session will begin in the library at 8:15 a.m. Lunch will be expected for the doctor and guest at 12:00 p.m. There are no other alerts set for today," the soft voice finished.

Aspen proceeded with his routine once again and met both Doctor’s in the dining room for their breakfast. His service to Doctor Virellan and his family was a lifelong sentence, but it came with privileges — the greatest of which was knowledge. Unlike most Sapiens, he was allowed to learn, taught by Doctor Virellan himself. So, after breakfast, he met the Doctor for his studies before heading to work, in his favourite room of the apartment, the library.

It wasn’t a typical library for a doctor of the Sea City, Novaris. Because he had a fondness for old things, so the room was filled with dog-eared books and curiosities, each one carefully preserved in a glass observation box. Not to be read, of course. They were far too fragile now.                 Centuries ago, the last remaining books were recycled and outlawed, for the planet’s preservation. Libraries became databases, as everything was digitised. Aspen often wondered how The Doctor had acquired these copies, no one left the city anymore.

The library, with its glass-boxed relics and quiet corners, was his glimpse into a different kind of life. A life with texture, with history. It reminded him, ironically, of home, even as the city around him remained a cage. Here, among the fragile pages and forgotten objects, he pretended the world was still curious, still imperfect, still human.

He let out a short breath as he sat at the table in the middle of the room and accessed his study files, plucking at them from his virtual computer. He pulled down a news update Headline: “Kilometre-long isolation zone as unknown insect enters Section Eleven.” Another exaggerated headline. Another overreaction from Novaris’s leaders.

It was becoming background noise, almost a weekly ritual in the city now. How does a place so advanced fail to contain something as manageable as a virus? Aspen couldn’t make sense of it. When he first arrived, there was barely one breach a year. He continued to read on, the words drifting into his mind but not holding.

He began to wander back to those early memories. With not much to hold onto from the years before arriving at Novaris, though, the conditions remained prominent in his mind; the earth was cracked, scarred by centuries of human abuse. The sky hung heavy with the ghosts of failed technology, and the land below had splintered into barren stretches and acid-filled lakes. Places to seek shelter, few and far between. But through it all, there stood a refuge for civilisations, a gleaming, self-sufficient haven, rising from the depths of the sea, miles wide, impossible to grasp. Its architecture was unapologetic and intimidating, stretching both outward and down into the unknown. It held the brightest minds, sealed off behind an impenetrable, invisible bubble, its power apparent as storms flicked around it and giant waves were manipulated as they crashed over, revealing its dome shape. 

He looked on in awe, knowing that salvation lay just beyond his reach, his people denied for centuries. But despite it all, he remembered feeling scared of what hid away inside — behind its barriers. The mysteries, laced with undertones of fear. Living in the city now, seemed bland compared to his young, vivid, imagination.

And despite his bleak recollection of the land, the feeling of connection to his limited memories of family and community in the forests he loved, overpowered it all. He told himself, again-and-again that he was lucky to be here. But no matter how often he repeated it, the longing for the world beyond the city walls gnawed at him. It felt like a lie.

Aspen continued to scroll through the article. Finally processing its words. Section Eleven sat on the city’s outer edge, like every breach before it, far from the centre. He knew the quarantine would never reach him. Opening the conversations tab to The Doctor, he linked the article before typing.

His hand lingered over the send icon hesitantly, rereading his message, deleting and rewriting it. He knew it would reach empty eyes but hit send anyway.

Aspen: “I wonder, should it be suggested that the living situation should be reimagined with the aim of smaller communities, reducing the isolation zones?”

He watched as the small man glanced down at the message, his clean-shaven jaw tilting slightly. His hands were already moving to reply before he’d finished reading — quick, deliberate. He wore straight-lined clothes, partially obscured by his signature lab coat — a permanent fixture that looked pressed by design, not wear.

Doctor: “I have noted your observations, but concentration must remain on containing the virus to reduce the need to treat people and stop contamination.”

Doctor Virellan, of course, wouldn’t entertain a theory from a Sapien, biassed or not. He didn’t welcome change the way Aspen did. Still, his suggestion was a good one.

Change, however, was not something the city encouraged at all. Novaris was divided into sections, each one built and separated further by professions. Communal hubs sat at the centre, hospitals, labs, resource centres, all linked by electric transport tunnels. The living quarters of the residents were positioned around the edge of these centres. The residential buildings were identical, clinical, self-contained cylinders. Possessions were limited, banned under the city’s strict rules against waste and materialism.

Twenty sections in total, each racing toward the same goal: repairing the planet, securing the future. At the centre sat Section One, the original city. Now reserved for leaders and high-ranking residents, it held history and character, unlike the newer additions built as numbers grew and systems evolved. Novaris had remained largely unchanged for centuries.

The city was designed by geniuses, and the people of the city, or ‘Prims’, as Aspen would refer to them, mockingly, would not tamper with such an efficient system. The very notion of it would be quickly dismissed. This was a common theme among the people of Novaris, as well the Doctor knew.

Unfazed, Aspen stared through the glass case of a book, lost in thought instead of learning. The Doctor, too absorbed in his own articles to notice his daydreaming. But something broke his spell - the quiet presence of another person.

He was rarely allowed near others in the city. Prims were far too busy to have any kind of social life. But to him, a different face in the apartment was very welcome.

His eyes locked on her face, and for a moment, the world around him fell away. He blinked, holding it a moment too long, as if by concentrating on the simple act of forcing his eyelids down, it would controll the rush of emotions flooding through him. His heart hammered in his chest, loud enough to threaten the stillness of the room. He didn’t dare speak, didn’t dare make a sound, for fear it would betray him.

Liora was back. But she was not the same. Neither of them were, after all these years. She had grown into herself, more mature, more poised. Her clothes concealed the changes in her body, but He saw the wisdom in the way she held herself. Her posture was different, her eyes more aware, and there was a carefulness about her, as though she knew the pressure of the world’s future rested on her shoulders now too.

His own body had changed as well. He was taller, broader, his muscles more defined since puberty had swept through him. Yet when he looked at her, it was as though she was still that girl – The girl he used to sneak into whispered conversations with at night, sharing childish dreams and laughing at the world outside. Back then, they would sit so close their knees touched, trading secrets like currency.

But that was before. Now, even standing in the same room together, there was a distance between them.

He wanted to reach out, to acknowledge her presence in some way, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Instead, he focused on the desk in front of him, trying to ignore the longing feeling growing in his chest.

Liora took her seat and immersed herself in research articles on the screen in front of her — a quiet barrier between them. The low hum of the machines only added to the tension. Novaris’ cold environment was a reminder of their separation, their inability to connect as they once had in the past.

Doctor Virellan moved toward the plain wall near the door, his movements precise and calculated. A moment later, the projection from his desk flickered onto it, and the lesson began.

Aspen glanced briefly at Liora, his heart tugging. He had to do something. It felt wrong to leave things unspoken, especially now that she was back. She would want him to acknowledge her return, wouldn’t she? In a quiet, almost instinctual motion, he shifted his foot and slowly nudged his shoe against hers — the briefest touch. His chest tightened, his breath shallow as he waited for any sign from her. But to his surprise, her reaction was immediate. She quickly pulled her foot away, sliding it back under her chair, keeping her eyes fixed on her father as though nothing had happened.

He froze, his mind racing. Rejection was a shadow stitched into his skin, cold and inseparable. She had always been distant, cold, even — when The Doctor was around. But this was different. This was deliberate. She had shunned him.

His thoughts spiralled. Was she angry with him? Had he made a mistake? Or was he simply beneath her now? His heart, beat faster as worry seeped into every part of him. He struggled to shake the sting of rejection, but it lingered, settling deep into his chest.

Desperate to focus, he turned to his lesson, trying to drown out the feelings that threatened to overwhelm him. But his eyes kept flicking back to Liora, trying to make sense of her sudden withdrawal. Maybe she hadn’t meant to do it. Maybe she hadn’t even realized what she had done. Or perhaps there was another reason, something he didn’t understand.

He loaded his own screen, gulping hard before typing a brief message to her. His hands hovered above the keys for a moment, and then he hesitated, curling his fingers, wondering if it was even worth trying. Would she reply? Would she even care?

Aspen: “Hello, it's been a while. How have you found your studies?”

It was nothing too personal, of course — anything which could be traced needed to look professional, impersonal. He saw the light of the screen shift by a whisper as the darker message appeared on her display and bounced off her pale face.

She entertained it for a mere moment before swiping it away and returning her gaze to her father’s lecture. Reporting on his latest findings in the laboratory.

Aspen studied her face for clues. Soft brown waves tied back off her face revealed a slightly pointed chin, and small strands brushed against her defined cheekbones. Her eyes were large, once glistening with hopes and dreams, but the light was gone today.

She blinked softly as she listened, ignoring the feeling of his eyes watching her, and remained focused.

He looked back at the Doctor, trying to follow, but his mind drifted. Had he done something wrong? Had the absence shown her how different they were? Did she now see him as the others did? Just a novelty, a servant? His emotions, heightened by prolonged isolation, churned beneath the surface. His mood was now tainted. He focused his eyes too hard on a spot on the wall, letting The Doctors voice fade into the background. And in the moment, memory returned — back to the first time they’d met in Novaris.

Liora had been sitting in the conference room for hours, her attention drifting in and out as the adults droned on about the latest medical review. In this place, nothing changed. No surprises, no spontaneity, just a rhythm of precision. Everything was timed, everyone in place, every moment accounted for. Liora was bored beyond measure.

She had been invited to attend the conference today because children were sometimes encouraged to observe the adults, though it wasn’t as if anyone expected her to understand the medical jargon or complex statistics being tossed around. In fact, the adults barely even noticed her presence. She was just another quiet, observing face among a room full of experts.

Her attendance here was rare. Children were usually kept from the adult world, their time consumed by brain-building activities, lessons, simulations and endless practical tasks. The expectations for children of Novaris were astronomical. They weren’t allowed to wander, to play, or to simply explore; their worth lay in their potential. Education, contribution — never curiosity, never freedom.

Liora understood more than they thought. She could follow the logic of the graphs, the cadence of the data, even the subtle shifts in tone when someone disagreed. But understanding wasn’t the same as belonging. Her brain grasped the patterns, but her heart still longed for softness, for something more.

And so, she sat in the conference room, hands folded neatly in her lap, trying to stifle the overwhelming sense of boredom that gnawed at her. The air in the room felt cold, the floor beneath her feet smooth and unyielding, mimicking the rest of the city. Blends of sleek white and stainless steel, always polished, always perfect. She wanted nothing more than to slip away, to escape into the quiet corridor outside and see the world beyond.

As Liora looked around the room, she realised no one noticed her. No one would. They were too wrapped up in their discussions to spare a second thought for her. She was a shadow in a room of light, a child-shaped silence.

The desire to get out was too strong to ignore. Quietly, she stood up from her seat, trying to be as unnoticed as possible. Her shoes clicked softly as she walked. She didn’t even glance back, certain that once she left, no one would care. No one would realize she was gone.

The door to the corridor slid open silently. Triggering a sequence of panels to light up the entire ceiling. The space beyond was exactly as it always was — quiet, empty, and cold. The soft hum of the ventilation system was the only sound. She caught the sight of the cleaning robots as they returned into the same-shaped gap in the wall, making it complete again. She stepped into the corridor and immediately felt a sense of relief. This place, outside the pristine confines of the conference room, was far more interesting — though it offered little sensory input, it was forbidden.

The corridor stretched ahead, harshly lit. Doors lined the walls. Off-limits, like everything else. Beyond the glass, stores held only necessities. No signs, no colour. Nothing was meant to be browsed. Everything in this place was functional, nothing more. And yet, she wondered what it would be like to step inside, to see it up close, to touch the things that were delivered by drones but never chosen or explored by someone like her.

She imagined a world where she could choose. Where she could pick a food, not for its nutritional value but for its scent. Where she could ask a question not to impress, but because it bloomed inside her like a wildflower. She made the choice, to commit; she walked deeper into the corridor, her footsteps barely a sound against the floor. There was no one here, no one in the transport hub, no one in the stores. Just her and the quiet hum of the city, so controlled, so predictable. Yet still, she felt a flicker of excitement, a spark of something different in the air. The world outside was hers to find, even if only for a moment.

But before she made it to another door, Liora heard footsteps of a passer-by and panicked – it would be seconds before she was seen. Quickly, she crawled into a short, narrow entryway — designed for machines, she felt it unlikely, she would be discovered there. Unbeknown to Liora, concealed behind this particular door lay Section One's main water reservoirs.

An alarm began to sound. The young Liora panicked once again, scared to be found out, she began to run deeper into the room, not taking care to notice the pool of water just metres away, barely concealed between the floors it sat between. Her thoughts raced, not with logic, but with instinct. She was ten. Brilliant, yes. But still ten.

Meanwhile, the footsteps had belonged to a Prim guard, escorting a twelve-year-old Sapien boy who had just arrived in the city. Aspen. He was being led past the very door Liora had disappeared through. Like all new arrivals, he was to be taken to a sector hall where his future in Novaris would be organised. But before they reached it, they paused, drawn by the sudden blare of the alarm. She turned toward the source, guiding him not away but into the heart of the disturbance.

Others emerged from nearby buildings, their faces tense, their movements swift, responding like a colony of ants, each knowing its place without a word. Aspen, still disoriented, followed her lead, swept into the current of urgency now pulsing through the corridor.

The screams lingered in his head for the second time that day.

“Are you following, Aspen?” The Doctor was staring at him blankly.

Aspen cleared his throat. “Yes, of course, please proceed,” he said.

He was very easily able to lie to the Prims without too much questioning. As such black-and-white thinkers, he had found it easy to convince them. The Doctor continued with his presentation. Now that he had noticed his distracted state, Aspen told himself to snap out of it and focus.

After the lesson, Aspen continued like he did every other day — To prepare lunch, he came back to the kitchen and reloaded the holographic screen into the air. The work bench mirroring his actions with his reflection. He uploaded the latest dietary plan for each person in the house. Mixing their exact concoction of food as per the instructions — beginning with the Doctor's partner, Doctor Zorvain then onto Liora’s. He snooped onto her health log, eager to feel closer to her.

She’s lost weight, he thought, shaking his head. They’ve not been looking after her: Liora couldn’t afford to lose weight. Nearly as tall as her father, she was still dainty, like a girl a strong wind might carry away. A happy coincidence, he thought, that she’d never truly feel the wind beneath the plasma barrier shielding them, from the earth’s cruelty.

Like everyone in the city, Liora’s complexion was pale, despite the sun bulbs embedded in the buildings. But he always thought she wore it best: her eyelids, cheeks, and lips glowed faintly pink from the capillaries beneath. Contrasting with her soft, brunette waves.

He felt annoyed that they hadn’t been looking after her correctly. Not your problem anymore, Asp. He distracted himself with his work, but a familiar name (or rather, the absence of it) entered his thoughts. No Ann again today?  — Anise was Aspen and Liora’s childhood minder. She’d been the closest thing he’d had to a mother in the city. As he got older, she was gradually phased out of his life, like all the other children of Novaris.

He began to prepare his own rehydrated, 3D-printed, and bland meal. Sometimes he tweaked the instructions — adding or removing ingredients, hoping his meal plan might shift. But the flavours never changed. How he longed to taste something real. Joining the family, he swallowed it down like every other day.

On to the next job: He checked the programming on the house robots clean-up sequence and started it up before returning to the screen. Aspen yawned as he checked that the next order of food had been automatically reordered ensuring there were no anomalies. He headed to the laboratory.

Unfortunately, this didn’t mean leaving the apartment; In the city, every living quarter was identical, except for the workspace. Each profession had its own area in its section, with rooms tailored for isolated work, infection control, and maximum efficiency. For Doctor Virellan and Doctor Zorvain, they were allocated one of the lab homes to work from, divided to allocate half the space to each Doctor. That was how she preferred to work. Aspen paused for a moment, bracing himself before he knocked on the door.

“Enter,” replied Doctor Zorvain. He opened the door to reveal a blond-haired woman in an oversized lab coat staring carefully at her microscope.

“Good afternoon, Doctor Zorvain, can I be of service to you this afternoon?”.

She didn’t break her gaze as she responded, “Not today.”

With that, the door clicked shut, the sound echoing off the shiny walls.

Relief.

She’d given the same answer for eight years, and still, his chest loosened every time. A few hours of freedom, rare, unsupervised, his own.

Aspen’s steps lightened as he turned back toward the library. Not realising she’d be waiting.