Hunger and Lilijoy were lifelong companions. In fact, hunger was perhaps the most reliable and constant company in Lilijoy’s short existence, always at her side, holding her in its hollow embrace. On those rare occasions that hunger was not present, it never strayed far, and was always eager to return.

It was her old friend who woke her, gnawing relentlessly in her belly.

The main staple of her diet up to this point had been the mysterious sky pellets that fell to earth with some regularity in her territory. A single brown pellet, small enough that Lilijoy could enclose her fingers around it, could give her enough energy to last a day or more, but the pellets never did more than keep hunger at arms length. On the days when she could not find any, she would truly suffer from pangs and the racking ache of emptiness, at least until her stomach gave up entirely.

Mooster would only allow her and the others to eat one pellet a day, if they could find one at all, and the one time that Lilijoy sneaked an extra pellet, she felt nauseous and irritable for the next day, so she didn’t even mind Mooster’s rule much. Still, on this particular awakening hunger was in rare fighting form, as was its less familiar sibling thirst.

Water was not overly abundant around the Piles; the majority of the territory was arid, and much of the ground was either a hard glassy stone, or sand and dirt that had been deposited over time. There was a ravine at the edge of the land, where water was known to collect, but most importantly, there was a seep at the very lowest point of Night’s Safety, where small amounts of water would rise through cracks in the rocky floor. This water could be carefully collected, and kept the worst ravages of thirst at bay from the group. During rainy times, the lowest floors would become entirely flooded, and then the water would be foul and not fit for drink, but during those times they would collect rain water, so it was rarely a problem.

Lilijoy opened her eyes and looked down. She was wearing a white cloth sack with holes for her arms and head. It had a little fringe around the bottom, just below her knees, and the fabric was smooth and soft. It was by far the nicest garment she had ever worn. She was still in the room where Marcus had brought her, though the light was now at a comfortable level.

Any curiosity she may have had about her surroundings was overwhelmed by the needs of her body. She saw that the water she had been drinking was still on a small table where she could reach it, and happily satisfied her thirst, trying not to drink too fast. Marcus was nowhere to be seen, and Lilijoy was starving!

She looked around the room for anything that might be edible, but saw nothing she recognized. She was on some kind of soft, brown rectangular surface that attached to the wall on one side. It was very smooth, almost slick, and where she pressed down on it, a little depression would occur, only slowly rising when released. Aside from the small table where she found the water, there was the large blocky table with the compartments where Marcus had kept his tablet, and a single chair. Mooster had had a chair that no one besides Grabby was allowed to sit on, so Lilijoy recognized its function, though this one looked to be in much better shape.

The light was coming from another one of those glowing strips, this time mounted on the ceiling over the middle of the room. There were also two large rectangles set into two different walls, which she figured were doors, though they were very different from the partitions between some of the spaces in Night’s Safety. Those were made from scavenged materials, like reeds, hardened grasses and leaves and twigs from the hardened trees. The only other door she was familiar with was the large metal barrier that sealed off Night’s Safety from dusk to dawn.

She was still contemplating her options when one of the rectangles slid sideways and Marcus entered from a brightly lit space beyond. The light strip on the ceiling began to glow brightly and Lilijoy made an “eep!” sound and covered her eyes with her working arm against the light.

“Sorry about that! I should have know those big eyes would be sensitive,” said Marcus. The lights faded back down in both rooms; the door he came through remained open.“If you don’t mind, I need them just a bit brighter so that I can see what I’m doing here. I hope you don’t mind wearing a pillow case. It was the best I could do in a short time!"

He pulled something from a pocket. “I got you a little something to eat. It won’t taste like anything out of Augside, but it’s better than nothing!”

He handed her a bar of brownish substance, that Lilijoy grabbed, sniffed once, and then attempted to cram it into her mouth entirely. She realized her mistake immediately, as it was far too big, and her mouth was still very sore. She tried to bite it, but the combination of her sore mouth and missing teeth only led to her jaw getting stuck in the firm, slightly soft and sticky substance. To be so close to having something in her stomach, only for it to be stuck uncomfortably in her mouth was the final insult in her traumatic and disorienting adventure, and she began snuffling pitifully, tears running down her face as she tried to dislodge the bar without removing any teeth.

She looked up at Marcus with big watery eyes. His face was twitching and an inadvertent chuckle escaped as he watched the pathetic spectacle. Lilijoy made her tribe’s hand gesture for annoyance and anger toward him, and like a dam breaking, Marcus doubled over in hilarity at the sight of the tiny goblin-like girl sitting on his pullout couch, with her large round head and huge dark eyes looking at him in confused anger. Thin strands of hair floated every which way, her mouth was stretched around the protruding food bar, while she held her outsized hand out on a pipe-stem arm and extended her middle finger.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he managed to say. “This is not nice of me at all. I promise I’m not a bad person, it’s just...” He lost control of his laughter again, “...so unexpected! Here, let me help.”

After a minute, Marcus was able to help Lilijoy pry the food bar out and break it into smaller pieces. She chewed slowly, eyeing him suspiciously, as he sat down in the chair across from her.

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“I know it’s not much for flavor, but it’s way better for you than what you’re used to,” he said. “Anyway, I can’t imagine how disoriented you must be….” Seeing the look in her eyes, he clarified “Confused? Upset? Afraid?” Lilijoy nodded as she chewed, so he went on.

“I hardly know where to begin, and we don’t have much time. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” Lilijoy shook her head, and he continued. “How old are you?”

She shrugged, swallowed and said,”I remember about ten rainy times.”

“So maybe twelve to fourteen, plus or minus,” his hand waggling. “And you come from the indigenous...I mean...you live close by?”

She nodded. “Next to the Piles.”

He smiled. “Oh, I like that. The folks here call it the Line. Or less formally, the ‘crap track’"

Lilijoy nodded seriously. “Yes,” she said. “Because it is like a person who is crapping while they crawl along. I think that is a good name.”

Marcus’ eyes twinkled. “Anyway, what do you know about the past? Do you know where your people came from? Do you know anything about my people?”

Lilijoy had to think hard about this one. She didn’t know what was true and what was just stories, and she didn’t want to seem foolish to Marcus. He was the smartest person she had ever met, even if he did talk nonsense half the time.

“I heard about the blue-sky time. I heard about the live foods. I heard about predators stealing people’s boost and eating them.”

Gaining confidence, she continued in a rush, “I heard about people who could fly, and that the world used to be bigger, and people lived in boxes and there were giants who squished lots of people, and...” She paused for a breath and Marcus tried to cut in ineffectively “...it’s probably just stories anyway. Oh, and the factory mine...” (she pronounced it in two syllables ‘fac-mine’), “...has drums that scare the predators away, and it eats ghosts and turns them into the piles so the piles are cursed and...”

Marcus cut in a bit more forcefully, “Wow. Okay. Wow. Thanks, Lilijoy. There’s a lot there to unpack. I think that all stories have some truth, and there is no truth without stories to hold it. When you meet people who think that their truth has no story holding it, be very careful. Those are the most dangerous people, because they have the most dangerous story.”

“Lilijoy doesn’t know many people.” she admitted. “Only about three hands.”

“So about fifteen in your group? How much of that is family?”

Lilijoy looked at him quizzically. “All is family. Family is all,” she said.

“So Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles?”

“None of that stuff. Mooster and Grabby have boost. One hand of Bros. Then rest.”

It was Marcus’ turn to be confused. “It seems we’re back to our language barrier,” he said with a sigh. “Can you tell me what boost is? You mentioned that ‘predators stole people’s boost’ and then that Mooster and Grabby...” He looked over at Lilijoy with a raised eyebrow, making sure he had the names right. “...Mooster and Grabby had boost. What does that mean?”

“Boost makes you big. People start small, and then they find boost and grow big. You have boost, right?”

“I’m not sure yet! Can you tell me what it looks like, or where to find it?”

She made a scoffing sound. “Lilijoy is not boosted. Only boosted people know that stuff. Maybe Bros know too.”

Marcus rubbed his temples. “So Mooster and Grabby are big, and the rest of you are small?”

“Lilijoy is smallest. Bros are here,” she said putting a hand above her head. “Mooster and Grabby are like you, but not quite so big.”

“Alright, time is ticking, so let’s move on. Let me tell you a story that holds some truth about the past. Maybe even mostly truth, but who can tell? Many, many years ago the world was a very different place. The sky was blue, and the sun was bright. There were so many people that the world became crowded and hot, and there were many problems because the people did not take care of the world. They created many wonders, like flying machines and huge buildings, but they were careless and released a substance into the air that made the world even hotter. People grew plants and animals for food, but there was not enough, because there were always more people. As the world grew hotter, there were less places to grow food, not enough water, and people began to fight over food and water.

Now at this time, people used something called science to understand the world, and there were groups of people called scientists who wanted to fix the problems with cleverness. For example, one group thought that the world would cool down if they made a shade for the sun. Another group thought they could change the plants, so they needed less water to grow, while another group wanted to change plants so that they could capture the stuff that was causing the air to become too hot. There were many groups trying to make tiny machines that could multiply by themselves and then clean up after people, or build for them, or even change people from the inside, so that they would need less food, and also be wiser and less destructive. As the fighting became worse, huge groups of people were killed and entire cities were destroyed. The scientists knew they had to act, but unfortunately, all the different groups were separated by the fighting, so they each tried to fix the problems of the world in their own way.

One group blocked out the sun, but they accidentally ruined the sky. Another group made plants that could capture the bad air, which made the plants much tougher. But these tough plants mixed with the food plants, and now people had even less food.

But the groups that caused the most damage were the ones building the tiny machines, which at the time were called ‘nanobots’, but today are referred to simply as ‘bugs.’ Some of the bugs worked well and were helpful, but others escaped and became a terrible plague, replicating, that is building more of themselves, too rapidly. When they did this, they would use plants and animals and anything else they could find to build more of themselves and create so much heat that large sections of the world burned and melted.

Luckily for the world, there was another group of scientists that was working in secret on their own project. They were building a mind that would be wiser and more knowledgeable than any person that had ever lived, as far above humans as humans are above animals, or even plants. This great being still watches over us today and is called ‘Guardian’. Guardian rose up above the sky and created great weapons to eradicate the plague bugs. Guardian gave us laws to live in harmony with nature and created a plan for bringing the world back into balance. But by the time Guardian ascended, the world was damaged and broken. The solutions of all the different groups all worked in their own way, but when you added them together, they did far more than intended, and now the world is cold, and covered by ice. Where we are now is the warmest part, which we call the equator, in a place that used to be called the Amazon.”