I've been trying to exercise my writing muscles while studying for law school, so here's a short story I wrote during a study break. It's part of a bigger universe, but it's a brief scene that I wrote as an attempt to worldbuild. More to come later, maybe...?
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Juno Turner remembered the stories about the city that never slept. According to her mother’s stories, it was a city of millions upon millions, constantly bustling with activity. Giant screens eclipsed nearly everything else around aside from the massive buildings that scraped the skies. Smoke and laughter intertwined as buzzing machinery made up the heartbeat of the city. When she was a child, the bedtime stories made her yearn for life outside the walls of Vortan Reach—for a time when she could run in the open air, arms outstretched, feeling the warmth of the sun on her face, without a care in the world.
The last time she had seen the sun, it almost killed her.
She looked over the city, one arm dangling along the balcony railing. The deep scars of the earth, created by roaring water over thousands of years, were now filled with dotted structures, far more scarce toward the surface than at the center of the city. The artificial dome above served as the only shield against the harsh, unforgiving rays of the sun. Without technology, the city would be in a constant state of perpetual darkness.
Long ago, refugees from a town called Flagstaff had survived the initial Ashen years and converged on this spot for survival. Naturally fortified against the sun and nearly impossible to venture through without a guide or equipment, it became a natural defense against the Burned. Other human safe havens were far enough away to deter bandits. Now, the city of Vortan Reach simulated weather conditions—sunlight, wind, rain, heat, cold—to keep its inhabitants sane while living in voluntary captivity.
Juno fumbled in her pocket, retrieving a stick of Kepler B and her military-issue lighter. She put the Kep B between her lips, cupping her hands around it and waiting until it sparked that nostalgic, familiar glittery purple. The governor had the engineers occasionally crank up the circulating fans to simulate natural wind. Juno always thought that while it brought the citizens some sense of normalcy, it only truly benefited those who had now grown old and gray—the last ones to remember Earth before the flare. They had become few and far between, much more withdrawn and bitter than the rest of the canyon dwellers. The only one Juno had known was her grandfather, the former governor.
“Thinking about tomorrow’s expedition?”
Juno inhaled deeply, delicately plucking the stick of Kep B from her mouth to exhale a stream of heavily medicated purple smoke. “Private Darren,” she said, not looking away from her people-watching, “You, out of everyone, should know not to sneak up on a commanding officer.”
He stepped into the simulated moonlight, close-cropped brown hair turning almost silvery. The dog tags around his neck shimmered against his collarbone when he spoke. “Yeah, but I know how much you hate the patrols out there. Just wanted to talk to you about it for a sec.” Darren shrugged, warily eyeing the thin white modulator balanced between her fingers. “I don’t know how you smoke that shit, Commander.”
She shrugged, taking another puff before looking back at the scenery, watching as a young boy zipped through the narrow streets on a salvaged old mountain bike. “Military-grade poison is the best kind. You’ll learn soon enough.”
Darren saw the rigid, sharp outline of her implanted artificial spine against the thin fabric of her shirt. He swallowed, tearing his eyes away to instead focus on the mission briefing cradled in the crook of his arm. Commander Turner was infamous for the Prometheus incident, a mysterious above-ground expedition accident shrouded in airtight layers of security clearance. It was obvious that she had returned irrevocably changed from whatever had happened—a good third of her body was entirely or partially replaced with cybernetics. Her left arm was threaded through with artificial joints that peeked through the skin, something that often frightened new recruits. Despite the harsh reality of the city, cybernetics was a last resort. They didn’t want Juno’s talents to go to waste, apparently.
Whatever happened, it wasn't good, and everyone tended to avoid her line of sight.
He didn’t want to question the Kep B use, as most Reach soldiers relied on a steady supply of it for the numbing properties, but it was common knowledge that the only way to get it was from the Outer Rims—the furthest corners of Vortan Reach. The slums, carved into the far walls of the canyon, were known to host a sprawling complex of tunnels, the complete depths of which are unknown. That made the Outer Rims a perfect location for nearly every illicit and illegal market. He supposed that, given the fact that her body had to be heavily medicated around the clock to prevent cybernetic rejection, she had every right to a puff now and then.
“Are you listening, Private?”
Darren blinked. Juno was giving him a quizzical look, a metal hand outstretched toward him. “Yeah,” he said, handing her the touchpad with the mission briefing. “Sorry.” He straightened.
