The days blurred together — a gray haze of smoke-filled skies and empty headlines. The government feeds ran louder now, shouting promises no one believed:
"SUPPLY LINES RESTORED."
"AIR QUALITY NORMALIZED."
"STABILITY ACHIEVED."
But the air burned the throat, shelves were bare, and soldiers patrolled the streets at dusk.
Still, people smiled. They talked about weekend plans, new shows, new products — anything to fill the silence growing under their skin. The truth was too heavy to carry.
Mara and Eli walked through the ruins of the market district, where the lights still blinked, even though half the shops were empty. Plastic mannequins stood in shattered windows, frozen in fake joy. It felt like walking through a museum of denial.
"Do you ever get tired of it?" Mara asked quietly. "Watching everyone pretend?"
Eli glanced at her. "Every day."
"Then how do you keep going? How do you still…" She hesitated, searching for the right word. "Hope?"
He smiled, faint but steady. "Because I see what's real. And what's real is worth saving."
Mara scoffed, kicking at a crushed bottle. "What's left to save? The sky's poisoned, the cities are falling apart, and people care more about the next update than the truth."
"That's the lie," Eli said. "That it's too late. That nothing matters. They want you to believe that — because hopeless people don't resist."
They passed a wall covered in government posters: WORK IS PURPOSE. UNITY IS STRENGTH. BELIEVE AND OBEY.
Someone had spray-painted over them in red: WE REMEMBER.
The paint was already peeling.
Mara stopped, staring. "Maybe it doesn't matter if we remember. No one listens."
Eli turned to face her, eyes burning with quiet conviction. "You're wrong. Every time you refuse the lie, you make it weaker. Every truth you hold on to — every act of seeing — it's a spark. That's how the dark loses."
She shook her head. "It doesn't feel like it's losing."
"That's because it's loud," he said. "Lies always are. But truth doesn't shout. It endures."
They walked in silence for a while, their footsteps echoing through the hollow streets. Somewhere, a screen played a smiling anchor reporting "record growth." Across the street, a child rummaged through garbage. Nobody stopped to look.
Mara clenched her fists. "How can you stand it? Seeing all this and still believing?"
Eli's gaze drifted toward the horizon — a smear of red and smoke where the sun tried to break through. "Because I have to. If the world's falling apart, then someone has to hold the light. Not because it fixes everything… but because it reminds us that something better existed. That it still could."
She stared at him — this strange boy who refused to break, who carried hope like a weapon. Part of her wanted to believe him. The other part whispered that he was foolish, naïve, doomed.
But when he spoke again, his voice was steady, certain.
"They've built a world of walls — lies stacked on lies. But every wall has cracks. And light… always finds a way through."
The words lingered in her chest long after they stopped walking.
As night fell, the city glowed with false light — screens, billboards, neon promises of a life that didn't exist. Yet beside her, Eli's presence felt different. Real. Alive.
Mara looked up at the stars — faint through the haze, but still there — and for the first time, she wondered if maybe he was right.
Maybe the light hadn't died.
Maybe it was just waiting for someone to see it.