The door banged open with a thud that rumbled the cheap frame.

"Honey, I'm home!" Keira's voice rang out in a mock-theatrical pitch, followed by the heavy clomp of her steel-toed boots on the apartment floor.

From the couch, Void didn't even look up from her laptop. Her magenta fringe glowed under the bluish light of the screen, mouth twisting into a crooked half-smile.

"Jesus, babe. That's so 2014," she deadpanned. "Next you'll be telling me I won't believe what happens when she opens the door."...

The glassware rattled like bones every time the fume hood fan kicked on. She leaned closer to the flask, watching the thin coil of vapor snake its way up through the condenser tube. The liquid inside shimmered an oily purple under the lab lights, promise and disaster swirling together in a slow, mocking dance. She pulled her goggles tight against her face, heart thudding in rhythm with the stir bar. This was supposed to be the run. This was supposed to finally hold together...

Keira had brought soup again. Half of it had ended up on her shirt when she tried carrying it one-handed through the door. She didn't comment on it, didn't even notice the stain blooming down her shirt like a badge of honor: she was too focused on the way Void had finally sat herself upright on the bed, a blanket half-draped across her legs, looking like a half-alive ghost girl trying to pretend she wasn't falling apart.

Void's skin had lost that frightening chalky tone from a few days ago. She had some color now and her hair was messy in a way that finally stopped screaming "hospital bed."...

The first few minutes after Void spoke were a blur. Not relief - something far more disorienting, like being told the building didn't collapse yet, but it's still groaning, unstable. The threat has merely paused. Long enough to catch its breath and - with enough bad luck - come back for more.

Keira didn't have it in her to cry anymore. Her eyes burned, her throat scraped with something unshed, her body locked. Frozen in a crooked, back-wrecking hunch, half-slumped against the wall. A twisted half-prayer of a posture that spoke of desperation, disbelief, and a furious refusal to let go...

"Nah bitch, you don't get to save my ass and then disappear like I was just another one of your stupid chores. It's time someone taught you a fucking lesson."

Her tram was late. Welcome to the wonderful city of Szczecin, 2038 - where "infrastructure" was a euphemism and "always on time" meant "sometime this week." The schedule flickered overhead like a broken promise, glitching between seizure-bright ads and yet another "service will resume shortly." Might as well have been the city's tagline, really. That, and "We Care." Which was funny, coming from a place that could barely keep its heating on or its citizens off the edge. "Floating Garden 2050," she thought, rolling her eyes so hard she almost saw her brain, "a cheap-ass marketing slogan for a fucking dumpster fire."...