A vast pure sky of an indescribable colour, for as far as an eye could see,

Beating the landscape with its colour, lighting the ground as if it was ablaze.

Bright green grass, with the slight reflection of the mysterious colour, streamed out in all directions.

Every-so-often, blossoming from the patches of green, a small, but grand flower made its roots,

Unlike the grass, the flowers seemed to absorb the strange light, glowing ruby at the edges of its petals.

Beautiful

Even that seemed to do the sight injustice.

Disturbing the sight, barely noticeable on the rim of the petals, was tiny arcs of ruby throwing themselves off onto the ground, flowing deep out of sight.

What started from only a few flowers nearby, grew, spreading as if a plague, until it seemed that every single flower sparked with ruby.

Arcs, realising that there was nowhere else to spread, began to overflow with ruby.

Flowers, that once contained barely a single arc of ruby bouncing from their petals, now released larger, longer and brighter arcs, growing each time, as to try to put the one before to shame.

In a matter of moments, the once lovely sight of green and ruby, transformed into a display of raw energy, with flowers releasing arcs that dwarfed mountains, and delved deeper than the deepest ravines.

Arcs that would reach past the sky, only to bend to strike back into the ground.

Once green grass, turned to ash, soft soil, hardened and cracked.

Yet in the destruction, the flowers remained, crackling with blindingly bright arcs that danced in the sizzling air.

Arcs would meet, intertwine and wrap around each other before disappearing deep within the cracks of the ground.

Such was the force within each arc, ash would bellow up in great clouds, filling the sky, cutting the ground off from the sky’s light.

Even as the sky darkened into blackness, the ground was kept alight as arcs fought to reach the ground.

Then, as quickly as it happened, quietness fell, and the world grew dark.

Ash, that no longer feared the force of the arcs, began to return to the soil whence it came, covering the broken .

The sky, once filled with extraordinary colours, seemly washed away as the ash settled

Below its empty gaze, a stretch of lifeless rocky ground covered the land in every direction. The only difference in its seemingly unchanging surface was a rock, rising high into the sky.

The rock, taller than hills, yet small enough that it was not a mountain, was rugged with countless jagged edges lining its surface.

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Upon its peak, stood a person, small, thin, pale skin freed from the dirt that surround them. Pitch darkness hair reached below her waist, still in the stale air that had yet to experience a breeze.

Something bright beyond the sky, like a blaze from the endless forge, lit up the rocks peak, revealing the bare body of the person.

The body, features unveiled, barely told enough to discern the sex, but it was all that was needed.

The person, now young girl, at the top of the rock stood perfectly still, which gave the illusion that if a breeze was to flow past, she would come tumbling down.

The girl despite the small space at the peak of the rock, turned around without a care, as if she knew that nothing of harm would befall her. She stood, balancing almost unnaturally, stared out into the empty space. She opened her mouth to speak.

"Sto...

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Darkness is the world she wakes up to. After fumbling around for the lever, the sound rusted gear screeching to life, push by the superheated gas flowing through the multitude to pipes that ran through her room.

Suddenly, as meant to banish the darkness, her lone crystal suspended in the middle of the run roared to life as countless gears and mechanisms in the roof and floor moved to generate the flashes of ruby arcing from the mechanisms to the crystal, granting the crystal the power needed to generate the life of the forge, bringing day to night. 

However, it was always like this. She thought this to herself as she climbed out of her bed, or what could have been barely called a bed. It was slab of Ceclium, the most abundant metal available. It was in fact, the only metal used in her room. The walls, ceiling, floor. All of it was made from Ceclium, the entire building was made of it, as was the next, and the next. Unless you were rich enough, this was all you could afford. Its colour was a mix between deep dirt and flame. 

As she walked around her crystal, the sound of gas, and of moving pistons sounded behind her, indicating that her bed was now folding into the wall. She quickly reached out and stole the blanket she used to stave of the cold before it would be ruined. She had done it before, too lazy to clear of her bed before the pistons reeled her bed in, she sleeps cold and shivering until she could afford to buy another one. Anything that could keep you warm was highly sort after in her high densely populated area, such that merchants brought the prices cruelly high, all for a quicker profit. 

She gritted her teeth in disgusted when she remembered a small girl freezing on the side of the road, the merchant merely picked her up and threw her off to the side, muttering about the lost business that a homeless girl drove off. She wanted to help, but with nothing to give, she, like everyone else, had ignored her. She thought the girl fortuitous, as she stopped moving minutes later, another girl lost, but freed, much more than the ones picked up and hauled off to the much more dangerous zones. 

She dismissed the thought, she couldn't be late, if she was, it would mean another day without a meal, and in her world, that could spell death. 

She finished her breakfast of stale bread and dirty water, collected her gear, picked up and shoved her arms through her fading dark dirt jacket, but it was enough to keep in her heat. She opened the door into the world, the city that she resided in. Dark fumes of smoke and gas rose up and filled the already dark sky with more darkness, a price of the energy that they had been blessed with, or so the mayor had told the city through the speaker towers dotted across the city. Multitudes of buildings, like the one she resides in, filled her view. Across in between the buildings where people lived and died in, were the factories. Buildings that dwarfed those of the residential buildings, pipes ran in and out, steam and smoke bellowed out of holes in the pipes to keep the pressure constant. 

She took one last look into the sky, remembering the dream she had woken up from, a sky so vastly different from the one she woke up to each day. She wondered if such a thing was real, but it didn't matter, she discarded the thought, pulled a pair of thick goggles over her eyes, and pulled up a piece of cloth over her mouth, and walked out of her door. The sound of gears and pistons was everywhere, it was loud, but after nearly 16 revolutions of it, it was just a background noise. 

She, Storm, walked through the hallway, opened to the elements, high up in the sky, a level she couldn't help comparing it to how far up that girl in her dream was, approached the heaver that would take her to the ground.

And so started the another day, a day that would signal the beginning of change in her life, for the best or worst, was something that she herself must decide.