Part one: Underground
I woke up to blackness. I looked at my clock, 6:00 am. This was normal. Here, it is always dark. You see, Earth drifted away from the sun and now it is dark and cold most of the time. Streetlamps line few streets, only in rich areas. We carry flashlights at all times. Headlamps are fashionable. It’s pretty cool, being dark all the time. However if a light bulb goes out, people flip out.

I got up and dressed in my school uniform, white pants, shirt, and wool coat. It is supposed to make you more visible, but it looks stupid sometimes. The cool kids all have black shoes with white laces, so it looks like they don’t have shoes on. Honestly, they’re too expensive for me to get so I colored mine black with a marker.

At school I enter the darkness and find the way to my locker. Inside I take out my candles and light one. I place it in a holder and grab my books for job prep class. I almost ran into a few people, but made it to the candle chandelier lit room and sat down. A new girl named Cameo came in and sat on the floor next to me. She had bright red hair. The boys and girls everywhere else crowded her with their candles so they could see her well. She squinted and asked them to stop. After another minute of bombardment, they stopped. She squirmed in her seat.

“You okay?” I asked, assuming it was just the new school getting to her.

“Yeah, but there was just so much light; as if there were a star or something,” I laughed at this, there hadn’t been a star anywhere near our planet in so long no one knew what it looked like.

“I’m Lucian Nox. Don’t say crazy stuff like that if you want to fit in.” She rolled her eyes and pulled up the collar of her jacket. She was wearing some weird clothes. I mean, some adults wear a bit of black but she had was wearing a black and white striped tank top with a black leather jacket, a chevron black and white skirt and black studded boots. Obviously her first day.

In class we prepped for candle making jobs; one of the most common. It was fun, but I hoped it would not be my career. Cameo was okay. I was not sure exactly how she knew how to do this, but she aced the class for the day. I failed. When we finished, I escorted Cameo to her locker.

“Hey, what class do you have next?” I asked. She fumbled with her candle and a note card. I waited patiently.

“Life class.Outside.” She said, as if she had never heard of life class before.

I showed her where it was and what we would be doing today: Orientation. Not the old kind with a compass, but like echolocation in the dark. I went third and walked into a wall, but got points for making everyone laugh. Cameo fell over soon after starting,
After life class I had Mathematics, Lunch, Neurobiology, and Home Economics. Cameo sat by me at lunch and we ate soup on the floor of the hallway. We talked about what having a star would be like. Weird was as good as we could come up with. I mean, there would be plants everywhere like in the ancient world. I also told her about how to act normal here. She was from another place. I sure hope she listened; otherwise she will be in huge trouble with the school.

I got home and put my flashlight in the mirror room that I had designed. It was in the center of the house and reflected light into every room. At dinner me, my parents, and my sisters Aurora and Ciaran ate potatoes that father grew. It was his job to grow food in new ways because there are no natural plants. Aurora was the oldest and would take over his position. I could do whatever I wanted, and was planning to make my fortune with the mirror room.

I went outside to practice orientation with Ciaran. She was only 11, but was pretty good. I put on a blindfold and made noises, to find her. I could not find anything at all. I took off my blindfold and there was no light. I couldn’t see anything at all. I reached for my belt where the flashlight was. Nothing. I screamed, hoping someone would hear. Instead, I found the sound waves that came back. I followed them and found a building. I knocked on the wall. It opened and there was light.

“Hello?” They called.

“Yes! I was lost. Can you help me?”

“Why of course. Come in.” They said, and I saw they were my sister Ciaran. I punched her harder than usual in the arm and told her to go to bed.

When it was time for me to sleep, I lay in bed and plugged in my flashlight. I survived another day on the orbit-less planet. Time to do it all again tomorrow.
________________________
So I wake up at six in the morning. It’s pitch black and I’m super tired. At least today marks the day where I get to go on trip. You see, in the dark world where I live, we get to go on trips for a while every now and then. So Cameo and I decided to go to the richest part of the world, the geothermal. It is so warm there only the incredibly rich can afford to buy houses.

I took my bag and stuffed it with white clothes. I ran my fingers through my hair and said goodbye to my family. Turning on my flashlight, I went outside and looked for Cameo. When I finally spotted her, she was dressed formally. I became self-conscious of my denim and wool.

“So, you ready to go?” I asked.

“Well, Lucian Nox, I am awaiting my escort.” She said, staring straight ahead.

I laughed. “What? C’mon, let’s get going.” Cameo did not move. She was acting weird.

I waved my hand in front of her face, but just then she broke into a smile. I sighed with relief and we giggled. She slung her arm around my neck and we walked to the end of the street where we would begin our journey.

At the intersection, I saw steam powered automobiles going past not very quickly. Considering where we live, it's not surprising that we are not able to afford nice vehicles. Cameo put out her thumb so drivers could see it like people did a long time ago when they needed rides places. I laughed because no one would ever give her a ride,, at least not the way she was dressed. It took some convincing but I finally got her to agree to come with me and walk along the side of the road.

We passed the autos easily. Children waved at us and their parents scolded them. The sheer darkness probably should have scared me, but I wasn’t for some reason. Maybe I felt fearless. Yeah, that was a good word for it. Fearless.
________________________

We arrived in the city, blinded by the light coming off of it. Streetlights shined over everything. These people were so rich, that they had their houses painted in color. It was beautiful. However, we were not here for the above ground attractions. We were here simply to go under. In areas like this, underground caves with ceilings higher than you could imagine were just under your feet.

However, we got lost and I then realized I was in a strange place with a girl I didn’t know and any chance I might have been fearless was instantly washed away, never to be seen again. Luckily, Cameo had just gained hers.

“C’mon, Lucian. It’s this way. I think.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me from my position of awe of the city. Pushing me in front of her, I glanced back every few seconds to see if she would explain where I was being herded. Unfortunately, she didn’t. We walked until in a surprisingly dark for the area alley, there was a staircase going down. It looked really creepy, and I mean REALLY creepy. I made her walk in front of me. She called me a nerd, but if being a nerd meant I didn’t have to go first into a creepy staircase into the ground, I was all for it.

After way too much walking for a month,Cameo switched on her flashlight, and I did the same. Man that was even more amazing than above ground. Stalagmites and stalactites lined pools of steaming water and a few bats were on the ceiling. I spun around slowly, taking it in with my mouth agape. When Cameo saw my face, she smiled smugly and said something probably witty that I didn’t hear. I spun once more and stopped when my flashlight landed on some teenagers like us, only way dirtier and older.

I tapped her on the shoulder and pointed wordlessly. She squinted in disbelief.

“Hello?” I called, hoping they wouldn’t attack us or anything.

What I thought was a girl stood up and waved. I prodded cameo to go before me, but instead she kept me about a foot in front of her, as a human shield. I guess this was okay.

Then the girl stood up and shook my hand.

“I’m Spark. Who are you?”

“I’m Lucian and this is Cameo. How old are you?”

“21.” Spark said, as if it was obvious.

“Why are you here?” Cameo asked her.

“Well Shadow and I are here because we got lost and now we’ve figure out life in the caves.”

“Well that’s nice and all but do you wanna come with us back up?”

“Hey! These people know the way out, wanna go?” She yelled at the boy behind her, who was leaning against the wall. His hair was spiky and repulsing and dirty.

“I don’t know. I mean, there’s light and everything up there but there is still the chance that this is a trap and that we could die. Regardless of that, Why not?”

“Okay, grab your stuff, we’re going.” Spark said.

Her comfort with this situation was mildly concerning.

“Well what are you standing around for? Let’s go.”

“Could you maybe show us around first?” Cameo asked, which made Spark drop her bag. She adjusted her neck tie-scarf-thing and laced her boots tighter.

“I’ll take that if you don’t mind,” She grabbed my flashlight.

We followed a stranger around a dark cave for about half an hour. Now I was on a trip to a place I’d never been with a person I sort of knew and two people I met in a cave. This was definitely a…interesting day. I regret this decision, seeing as I could die at any moment. But you know that makes life interesting, right?

I found out that the guy that was with Spark, his name is something I can‘t remember, but you know that can’t be very weird. I could never remember people’s names.

He was actually a lot younger than I thought and was only about 12 years old. It bothered me because he is about a foot taller than me and four years younger. Cameo was only 15, and he took a liking to her. Like, not in that way. They just were good friends.

The cave-cavern-thingy was really huge and somewhat beautiful, but Spark and the guy were totally fine with it. I suppose beauty is only beautiful for a short period of time. . When we emerged from the cave, it took my eyes a few minutes to adjust to the light, which was super bright and I wonder how bad it must’ve been for Spark and him. They did not complain,they were too busy being in awe. Honestly it wasn’t much, but then again the cave was nothing to them. So anyway it was a similar situation and I don’t know where I’m going with this. Nor do I know why I’m here. But y’know I hated places to go before the day was over.

Cameo was eager to get going to the museum district, which was huge and grand and wow. I cannot really describe it. The buildings were tall and alabaster and shining. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it. Then again, I’ve; hardly ever seen any color. The rich people walked past the building. The weird thing is that they didn’t know how amazing they were. I suppose that’s what it’s like to live in light. They wore colorful and showy outfits and the buildings, modest yet beautiful, were feats of mankind. We walked into the museum, the inside all the more dazzling. Our white clothes stood out in the Burgundy and white marbled walls and the pillars and the floor. It reminded me of what I thought candies used to look like with a star. ithink t this is burgundy but the only real word to describe it is majesty Its not actually that weird that I don’t know colors, I mean, living in the ‘poverty’ that I do. Unfortunately, because of that I can’t really say what happened in that museum. However, it was amazing. The few rich people in the museum looked at us funny, with the weird way that Cameo dresses and the dark, plain outfits of Spark and that guy and my bright white clothes that contrasted the black and color that surrounded me. At one point someone decided it would be fun to buy the poor kid some colored clothes. Instead of being cool, they gave me a horrendously ugly green scarf. Hey, at least now i have a free souvenir.

When we left the museum that didn’t really have one thing it displayed, it was more of an artistic thing. I’m not sure why it exists, but it was intriguing. I wasn’t quite sure how I had adjusted so quickly to a place where it was never dark. as if it were an eternal day. The weird thing about here other than the light is the fact that people hardly sleep. It makes me sort of uncomfortable that the kids go to school for 10 hours a day and sleep for 3 hours at most. My circadian rhythm is all out of whack from the night back at home. Here all the streets had names and all the people had long, silly names. Very foreign.
________________________

Spark and Shadow were still with us and I’m not sure why but they were nice. Spark had decided to start calling me by my last name, Nox. It was actually the opposite of my first name, Lucian meaning light and Nox, meaning darkness or night. It’s pretty stupid, I know, but still.

We ate lunch on the first day of being there we sat on the steps of a random house and ate food we bought from some random vendor who seemed a little bit creepy. The sandwiches were a bit dry but overall edible.

While we ate there was a girl that asked about why I was dressed in white. It was kinda embarrassing. Although I got paint on myself when a guy who was painting the road spilled. It wasn’t very pretty, since all the colors blended together but for a while the colors were separate, vibrant, and beautiful. I was sad that such a thing would go to waste when I got back to my home-area.

Her name was Flower, a weird thing to be called since basically all plants were dead. Her hair was ‘blonde’ and had browwn eyes. superfloofy and curled. She was only fourteen and wore a plurple (I think that’s the word for the color or maybe it’s glen) dress that was long. Flower also said that I was bad with colors.

Flower is coming with us. I don’t know much about her but she seems nice. After all, I won’t deny another person to help pay for the food.

So we are now heading out to the place of ‘rehding’ which is apparently where there are different squiggles and they mean stuff. I don’t really understand how that would work but hey I’m up for some new stuff. Upon arriving I found out that rehding is like writing only it’s where someone translates that into the meaning you meant for it to have. It’s weird. However I’m somehow communicating this to you and also happen to be thinking in some form of language.

Screw the philosophy, it’s not important here. We finished at the weird place with the squiggles on paper. After, we decided to go on a walk and just take in the city.

Looking at the beautiful murals on the sides of buildings, people’s clothes, their make-up and hair, nails, everything was art. I bet they didn’t even notice. The people themselves acted in such a strange way. Flower slicked back her hair and impersonated a woman who was nearby. With all the exaggeration, it was hilarious.

We spent the night on park benches which were painted with dogs on them. Of course, there is no darkness and therefore no night. It took a while, but we slept for a short while. The next day we went back to the caves and just wandered around.

You see, Cameo and I didn’t have very much time off of school. With only one day left, we had to get back. Our...entourage?posse? gang? I’m not sure what to call this little group we travel with, but posse sounds cool. I wasn’t sure what they were gonna do when we left. I should probably ask.

“What are you guys gonna do later, you know, like, when we leave.”

“Continue with life,” Flower replied. I gave her a look.

“Can we come back with you?” Shadow asked. He looked hopeful.

After exchanging glances with Cameo, I answered.

“Why not?”

So then we set off as the light slowly dimmed until we were in comfortable darkness again.

When we reached the barrier of the ‘city’ we began hearing strange noises and the ground rumbled sometimes. No one was sure what was going on. As we got closer and closer to our homes it got worse. Eventually I saw a hole in the ground where some people were digging. As I called the posse over (haha. posse.) we gathered around the hole.

“Cameo! What are you doing here?” A voice called. A shaky flashlight beam revealed Mr.Leucetius, a bit of a scary man who was in charge of our area. What did he want with her? How did he even know her?

“Dad? What’s going on?” Wha- they’re re-related. WHAT THE HECK THEY AREN’T ALIKE SHE’S ALL REBELLIOUS AND HE’S ALL TOTAL STALKER FACE WHAT

After I calmed down, I started listening.

“...tunneling. We have to go underground, it’s getting dangerous up here.” I looked around. This was the town I grew up in. No danger whatsoever. “...and we need more people to dig. How about these ruffians? Did they follow you to get some food? Money?” Mr. Leucetius nagged and yelled. Man, that guy gives me the creeps. When he rudely reffered to our friends he hit Shadow, and Spark snarled in his face, daring him to do it to her or again. He dared, and shoved Flower to the ground. This time, Cameo snapped.

“You don’t do that to people!” She yelled, her voice cracking toward the end where tears began to well in her eyes.

“Weak. That’s what you are. Always like your mother. Hey, Mack, get these freeloaders some shov-” He stopped because I punched him. In the jaw.

You’d think when you hit someone it just hurts the one who was hit, but it HURTS LIKE A LOT when you hit someone. His jawline must be chiseled of diamonds.

He punched me back, and harder. I hope his hand bled. Like, profusely. I wouldn’t know if it did because I was unconscious. When I woke up, I was looking at the faces of my sisters.

“Lucian! You’re awake!” Aurora said softly, which was accompanied soon after by Ciaran’s required loud comment.

“YAY LUCIAN YOU’RE UP IT’S ABOUT TIME ‘CAUSE YOU WERE GONNA DI-” her shrieking voice was muffled by Aurora’s hand.

I thanked her and then she went on to explain that now everyone was tunneling. They had found some heat and had decided to move everyone down there forever. No one knew why, which for some reason was all that bothered me.

I stood up and realized there were bandages on my head. They were soaked with blood and made me uncomfortable. I knew that it wouldn’t be good for me to run around like this, but I had to find my friends and stop them from tunneling. I had a really bad feeling about that. Although it could have just been the attack to my head, but I doubt it.

Upon leaving the house and stumbling around a little, my sisters showed up to restrain me so I wouldn’t get hurt. You see, my body didn’t like that. It writhed and screamed and tried to get free. I wasn’t doing that so I wasn’t sure why it was happening. I slowly fell into a numb unconscious state but I then realized, I never actually saw my sisters’ faces outside. Then there was darkness.

I woke up with the feeling of an automobile hitting me. I mean, not very hard, just pushing you a little at first but then you hit the pavement and it hurts like heck. My head was throbbing as if I had been stabbed 37 times. I was disoriented.

“Uh...he’s waking up.” The voice sounded a bit familiar, but I’m not sure how. Seemed like the voice of a 12 year old kid.

Faces came into focus after I was temporarily blinded by a light. It was Shadow and Spark.

“Hey, Lucian, you fell down into the tunnels. You’ve been in a coma for a long time, like a couple weeks or something.”

“Where am I?” I asked bit a bit of an impediment from my numb face.

“We tunneled under the entire city. It’s warmer here and we found some plants that can grow. We’ll live down here now.”

I motioned for them to pull me up off of the bed and I sat up. There was an awful amount of light there and I was sweating from the heat. Shadow helped me to my feet and led me out of the small room. All around people socialized, there were food vendors, it was like a small, mediocre. black and white, underground version of the Geothermals.
________________________
One year later

I moved out of my house and now I live in an apartment with Shadow. Spark, Cameo, and Flower live next door. Ciaran has her own place nearby. Life looked good and I could get a job as an inventor soon. Everything was right with the world.

Or at least my part of it.
________________________
A month later.

“Hey, Ciaran, want to go up for a few minutes? It’s too bright down here and it’s been getting to me lately.” She gave me a strange look, then it changed to one of deep thought.

“I guess so. Make it quick.” I led her through the town and at the very edge found the stairs up. Made of dirt, they gave a little but were fine.

I saw something I had never seen before, and neither had she.
Part 2: On ground

Sunlight.Lots of it. Like, way too much. It was blinding and I could not see whatsoever. I held my hand out to block some of the light from my eyes. There was then no more. A hole in the darkness. It was the shape of a hexagon, but I couldn’t judge how big it was from here.

I didn’t know what was going on, but it wasn’t good. I raced back downstairs and screamed for Cameo. She came running out of her house and followed us up. It was dark again. Just as it always had been. But it had just been light. Determined, I went halfway down and pulled a light from the ceiling of the cave. I dragged it up the stairs. It must’ve been the adrenaline, because I couldn’t lift that.It was a spotlight basically and I pointed it up. Black paint peeled from rusted metal hexagons. I needed to get to the light, I just had to. I pulled them along but Cameo and Ciaran refused.

“C’mon, there’s something weird going on. Let’s find out what!” I coaxed my sister.

“No, it’s cold up here let’s go back,” She said, completely unlike herself. I looked to Cameo for support here.

“Well if she wants to go back we probably should.”

I tried but they didn’t want to be up there any longer than I made them be. It doesn’t make any sense at all, but I can’t really help it. Then I went back down.

I’m not sure what that earlier part was about, I never went up. I mean, why would I need to? Well what if

Once again, not sure what I was saying there. Sorry! It must’ve not been important.
________________________

So my friends and I decided to go out for dessert. I mean, we’re almost broke but ice cream is affordable enough. It’s nice to have a break from vegetables in ramen. We met up at the ice cream place that was decorated to look like it would have back when we had a star. There were padded stools that lined a counter and there were jars with candy on the back wall.

When I walked in, Flower was sitting at the counter, joking around with the guy behind the counter. I sat down next to her and talked for a little while. Spark showed up and was followed momentarily by Cameo and Shadow. We all got milkshakes.

We talked about what we’ve been up to and blew bubbles in our shakes. Shadow was still scrawny and young and yet he fit in with us. A bit strange, I pointed out. It turns out he’s only two years older than Ciaran but was somehow done with school.

During a lull in the conversation, Cameo brought up something strange.

“Remember that time you brought me above ground?”

“What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“When you said the sky was falling.”

“Not ringing any form of bell.”

She sighed in frustration. “Never mind it.”

We returned to normal conversation, but I was still confused about it. When we were leaving I pulled her aside and asked her. She explained that I was convinced that there was light up on the surface. I suddenly felt like I should go up to the surface to take a look.

We poked our heads out and saw nothing but black, like I expected.

“Well I’ve got a flashlight; wanna walk around for old times’ sake?” Cameo asked.

I agreed to it and we ended up on the roof of the factory where we made everything we ever needed. I put my hand up and felt something. I tugged at it and it peeled. Paint. Black paint peeled off of some rusty metal. I poked it and it fell down. A hexagonal ray of light shone down. The hexagon had been huge and those around it began to creak, and I crouched, ready to jump or run if they were gonna fall too. They did. I grabbed her hand and ran. I ran and jumped off the building and landed on the concrete rooftop of the next building. Then we were out of space to jump onto. I turned and looked her in the eyes. I’m sure I looked like a terrified dork but I couldn’t help accuracy.
Part 3: Tearing down sky

Her pupils dilated in fear and realization. The sound of crashing sky muted anything we might’ve tried to say. I spotted a ladder that was too short to reach the ground but would get us most of the way down which was close enough. I climbed as quickly as I could but unfortunately I saw a falling metal hexagon come close to my head and then: you guessed it, I passed out.

Upon waking up, once again, I was in pain. My leg was trapped under the metal. Cameo was sprawled on the ground a few feet away looking exhausted. I lifted my head, hoping to stir her awake.

She stood up and tried in vain to lift the metal polygon.

“Go get someone!” I said too loudly. My lungs and throat were raw and stung when I spoke.

“I can’t leave you!” she replied. What is wrong with her?

“You can get someone to come up and you can leave me with them. Hesitantly, she limp-jogged to the stairs. It was not covered with metal, thank goodness. Cameo took in a deep breath and screamed bloody murder. A woman, red in the face, popped out of the ground like a prairie dog.

She got a man from down there and they all pulled up the metal just the tiniest bit and I wriggled out and realized that my leg was torn up. Great.

Cameo dragged me back down as fast as she could. Spark rushed to meet us and winced and gagged at the sight of me.

“It can’t be that bad,” I said. Her jaw didn’t come back up. “What? I was just trying to lighten the mood. Oh by the way the sun’s still there. Thought it might be important.”

After stammering a bit, she said, “C’mon kid, let’s get you patched up. I guess.” She picked me up and took me back into the cramped room I was in when I had my previous injury. Then I got to see it properly for the first time. My skin was scraped and a small gouge was in the middle of my shin. Blood, lots of it. Like, all four world wars combined.

When she had painfully sewn up my leg and cleaned off the blood, I got some makeshift crutches and hobbled home. Everyone was outside flipping out because the sky fell. Once my friends showed up with a hot dog cart to wheel me around on and eat out of, I went up to the surface again.

An unfamiliar but pleasant feeling washed over me, a warm bath of sunlight. The sun wasn’t directly overhead anymore, which was concerning. Why did it move?

Flower has informed me that the sun is during the day and the moon is during the night. Is that why we should’ve known that it wasn’t really night?

We decided (we being the posse and I) to sleep under the stars and watch them. I could hardly sleep because their beauty was incomparable.
________________________

We live in the light and I know others don’t. I am leaving on the journey to bring light. Time to tear down the sky.
The End