The day felt like any other. Though it was Sunday—a day when most offices stood quiet—the streets of Miradom still pulsed with chaotic energy. Shops, cafés, and service kiosks buzzed with activity, trying to squeeze out a few more credits from the office workers who refused to let go of their weekday routines.

  Miradom didn’t rest, not truly. It only shifted form. Where once the tides of people followed rigid lines of duty and deadlines, now they swirled freely, still chasing something—purpose, distraction, or simply momentum. The hum of electric transports, the flickering of holo-ads overhead, and the rhythmic hiss of sanitation drones moving through the gutters composed the city's heartbeat.

  A masterful symphony of ingredients, freshly delivered from the sprawling plastic farms beyond the dome, wove together a seductive palette of scents and colors. Each dish and drink was engineered to evoke longing—salvation for the weary, a spark of joy for those clinging to their one free day. There was a gastro-masterpiece to satisfy every human craving: strength, vitality, happiness, stimulation. And the more miraculous the promise, the steeper the price in credits.

  Luna had skipped breakfast again. It wasn’t that she was stingy with her credits—far from it. But the idea of trading them for shared, sterile servings of so-called fresh and essential 'vitality bombs' grated against her instincts. She wasn’t picky. Quite the opposite—she relished whatever was raw, unpolished, and defiantly imperfect. The more uneven the cut, the more real it felt.

  As she stood on the walkway in front of her apartment, letting the scent and rhythm of the morning settle into her senses before rushing off to the archery range, Zak rolled out of the building and came to a halt beside her—more alert than usual. Normally a creature of simple needs and slower rhythms, Zak spent most of his time sleeping or munching through snacks, gazing into the distance like a philosopher caught between dreams.

  But today, something was different. He lifted his head and sniffed the air with pointed curiosity, ears perked, nose twitching, as if trying to trace an invisible trail. There was focus in him. Intention.

  “I know, Zak. They haven’t changed those air filters in weeks. The city’s starting to smell like a wet dog.”

  The moment she said it, Luna winced inwardly. She knew better. From the corner of her eye, she caught his reaction. He had stopped sniffing. Now, he was just staring at her, head slightly tilted, his expression unreadable but unmistakably wounded. She let a small, apologetic smile slip onto her face without meeting his gaze. “Ready?” she asked softly, as if the gentleness of her tone could erase the sting of her words.

  With a roll of her shoulder, Luna shrugged off her backpack and, in one fluid motion, pulled out a sleek board roughly the size of a larger tablet. The moment she set it down beside her, the board responded—its edges unfolding, four compact wheels snapping into place with a soft mechanical hiss. In seconds, it transformed into a classic longboard, smooth and ready for the glide ahead.

  It was a rare sight in Miradom—a board that still rolled on wheels instead of hovering like the sleek, silent crafts everyone else used. But Luna had always been different. With a mix of hacking finesse and mechanical obsession, she’d retrofitted her board to ride the old way. She claimed it let her feel the ground beneath her feet, syncing with its rhythm rather than gliding above it. "Like dance partners," she’d say. "You have to feel the floor if you want to move as one."

  There was also the practical detail: no hoverboard could support Zak’s weight. Not without costly upgrades Luna refused to make on principle. But her wheeled board handled them both just fine.

  Zak settled into position on the back with his usual patience—but Luna lingered. One foot on the board, the other still grounded, she hesitated.

  A tingling sensation bloomed under her skin—subtle but undeniable. She couldn’t place it, couldn’t explain it. Instinctively, she reached to her chest and brushed her fingers against the cog-shaped artifact hanging from her choker. It felt warm—pulsing for a heartbeat—or so she thought. But the moment her fingers closed around it, the artifact lay still, as inert and silent as ever.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  She held it in her palm, waiting, but felt no vibration, no hum. Nothing out of the ordinary. She glanced at Zak. Whatever it was, the feeling had passed. Just nerves, maybe. A glitch in her senses.

  She exhaled. In a breath, she was back in motion—her ritual reengaged.

  She pushed off. The board rolled forward with a smooth hum, and the city whizzed by like a vivid motion picture—colors too bright, sounds too crisp, every detail rendered with hyperreal clarity. For a fleeting moment, Miradom felt almost real. Like a memory trying to convince itself it had never been free to begin with.

  Luna weaved through the dense currents of Miradom’s foot traffic and hovering vehicles with millimeter-perfect precision, her movements fluid, intuitive, and almost defiant.

  Each turn, each lean into the pavement, spoke like a word in a language the city had forgotten. She didn’t just ride; she moved through Miradom like someone who hadn’t given up on gravity. Someone who wanted to remember what real meant.

  The hem of someone’s coat, the edge of a scarf, a loose sleeve—each fluttered in the slipstream she left behind, rising for a moment like they, too, longed to follow, before settling back onto their owners with a whisper of displaced air.

  The field was a perfectly symmetrical green rectangle, evenly lit by today's predefined bright sun. The air was filled with the scent of freshly cut grass—a presence like a ghost from a lost world, where wild, green blades grew with every drop of rain, spilling over driveways and brushing against wooden swings that swayed gently in the morning breeze.

  Here, the grass was millimeter-perfect across the entire archery range and never needed to be cut. At its far end, seventy meters away, a dozen targets stood at attention like soldiers awaiting silent orders.

  As soon as they arrived, Zak took his place at the edge of shooting spot thirteen—the last one on the line. His snout was already level with the grass, his eyes lifted just enough to ensure Luna followed his choice.

  "Thirteen it is, then," Luna said, unpacking her recurve bow. Once assembled, it stood unusually tall, but she preferred it that way—for its smooth draw and non-aggressive arrow flight. The target defaulted to fifty meters—the standard barebow distance—but Luna entered the manual override and set it to seventy. It wasn't about challenge; she simply enjoyed the walk through open space to retrieve her arrows after each set. The range offered automatic retrieval, but that defeated the entire purpose of archery, at least for her.

  Her draw was smooth and steady, each motion flowing in perfect harmony from start to anchor. As the bowstring crept closer to her cheek, her mind decelerated, her thoughts faded, her senses calmed, and by the end—there was only her.

  No rushing thoughts. No sensations, good or bad. No awareness of time passing. Just absolute harmony and fulfillment. From that stillness, the target began to emerge—just enough to disturb the moment.

  And that was all it took.

  The arrow took flight.

  Aside from a small nudge of her elbow backward, you'd never guess what had happened. The arrow seemed to vanish into thin air—only moments later could it be seen, cleanly embedded in the target. Only Luna’s hands began to lower and settle; her body had been calm the entire time.

  Archery and Aikido weren’t just practices for Luna—they were reflections of how she moved through the world. Both grounded her body, calmed her thoughts, and aligned with her way of thinking: precise, fluid, and quietly intentional.

  Two of Luna’s apartment walls might as well not have existed—entirely replaced by smart glass panels now tuned to zero-percent tint.

  Sunlight spilled in, bathing her quiet sanctuary in warm yellow tones—the kind programmed to remind Miradome’s citizens to slow down, recharge, and gather energy for the day ahead. The light touched everything: the worn corner of the couch, the edges of tools she hadn't returned to their drawer, the brass artifact resting on the table, catching a faint golden gleam.

  A low, growling sound filled the room, causing Zak’s ears to perk up. Luna regretted skipping breakfast. She craved something real—shaped by hand, perfected not by code, but by years of repetition and taste born from a human heart rather than system logic. There was only one place under the Dome where that kind of food still existed: the Outer Ring.

  Delivery from the Outer Ring didn’t exist. The rest of the city had no demand for imperfect things. By now, the area’s lights had already shut down, leaving the streets barely unfolding from the darkness, outlined only by the soft yellow glow of scattered windows.

  A fast-moving cone of bright light glided smoothly down the curved street of the ring, accompanied by the buzzing whine of an electric engine—and the ancient, rumbling growl of knobby tires clawing at the pavement like they didn’t belong there. There was no surface in the Miradome that called for a motocross bike, but that was precisely the point. The raw grip, the tactile feedback, the way machine and terrain spoke through vibration and lean—this was the kind of rhythm Luna trusted. The kind that let her enjoy dialogue with the world beneath her.

  And tonight, that world felt quiet enough to begin unraveling the faith of worlds.