Noren Island was not one land but two. On one side lay the Commonwealth, a sprawl of low‑value soil and high‑population squalor where noise and heat never truly paused. On the other—across a narrow strait bridged by commerce and hierarchy—rested Elixisied. The second mainland.
It was where the air smelled of polish, where walls gleamed instead of cracked, where each gate guarded a family like a small kingdom. The government elites called it home; the business dynasties built it to prove the difference between existence and privilege.
That day, a modest plane crossed the length of sky separating both worlds. Inside it sat Ashen and his parents—new refugees from wealth toward survival. Though technically upgrades in address, they all knew what they had exchanged: visibility for comparison, dominance for endurance.
Ashen stared through the oval window, watching clouds drift past like skin peeled from another sky. The closer they flew, the more his stomach tightened. Every thought circled the same absence—Sovey. The mansion of marble and garden stone no longer his, the girl no longer nearby, the remnants of what he'd been forced to leave behind still echoing in the spaces between engine hums.
When they landed, the contrast struck instantly.
The airport lounged beneath webs of glass and metal—clean, quiet, efficient. Machines replaced workers; announcements spoke in measured tones so composed they almost mocked emotion itself. Ashen felt out of place before even stepping outside.
They booked a taxi to their new address. The drive wound through Elixisied's layered districts—first the towers of mirrored steel, then the neighborhoods wrapped in manicured hedges and billboards advertising products for which no price tags were shown. Finally came the edge zones, where beauty began to dilute but never decayed—the middle class of the rich, houses plain but dignified in structure.
Their taxi stopped.
The residence was small by this island's standards: one floor, flat roof, walls washed in blank white. A narrow patch of ground fenced by iron rods, a single living room with an old‑model refrigerator buzzing faintly near the kitchen corner. There was a couch too stiff, a television with colors bleeding at the edges—objects that all belonged to another generation of comfort.
Ashen's father turned to them, his smile drawn carefully to keep from looking apologetic. "I know this house is smaller than what we had," he said, his voice steady, deliberate. "But land here bleeds value. People like us can live as kings in the Commonwealth or as average in Elixisied. I chose average. It means we're neighbours to progress, not outsiders to it. We'll adjust."
Ashen only nodded. "Hmm."
That evening they unpacked what little had survived the move. When night came, Ashen tried to sleep on the couch, the cheap fabric biting at his back. He turned repeatedly, each angle worse than the last. Noise from air conditioners outside made the silence unfamiliar. It took hours for exhaustion to overpower the strange discomfort of stability.
Morning arrived gray.
His mother's voice reached him from the kitchen: "Ashen, wake up. First day of school."
He sat up slowly, the couch imprinting patterns onto his arm. The breakfast on the table was unlike anything he remembered—packaged bread, a glass of thick milk tasting faintly of iron, and fruit whose sweetness had flattened into bitterness. Still, hunger was louder than distaste. He ate silently.
For the first time, he boarded a bus instead of a private car. Engine fumes replaced perfume. Seats creaked. The ride felt endless though the school stood only ten kilometers away.
When he arrived, it wasn't the building that shocked him—it was the people. Students moved with a polish not learned but inherited. Their uniforms crisp, their shoes reflective. Even laughter here carried hierarchy.
During class he approached a vacant seat beside a boy glancing idly through his tablet. "Can I sit here?"
The boy looked up, eyes light brown, manner easy. "Sure," he said. His name was Haul.
By lunch, Ashen had become a silent addition to Haul's group—a ring of six boys who shared jokes quicker than Ashen could follow. They didn't ask questions about the newcomer; they simply absorbed him, conditionally, out of politeness that could be revoked without warning.
When the midday bell rang, Haul turned, mischief behind his grin. "We're going to Alzate tomorrow. Coming?"
Ashen blinked. "Alzate?"
Haul nodded. "The theme park. Biggest one on the island—fifty times larger than your Commonwealth's Ant‑Vistop. Same idea, but perfected. Real environments, hyper‑psych designs, neural response systems—everything meant to feel alive."
The words filled Ashen's mind with color. Something sparked—a childlike awe long dormant. "Yes," he said, his voice breaking into bright eagerness. "Yes, absolutely!"
Haul laughed. "Good. Bring some spending cash. You'll need it."
That evening Ashen returned home lighter than he'd felt in weeks. The door clicked and he ran to his father. "Father, guess what! There's a place called Alzate, and my friends—"
His father turned from the kitchen sink, water dripping from his hands. The smile he offered was gentle but tired. "Slow down. What about it?"
"I want to visit tomorrow," Ashen said. "It's—everyone's going."
For a moment, hope waited.
Then his father's shoulders stiffened slightly. His eyes lingered on the worn floor tiles. "Son," he said carefully, almost whispering, "you can't. Not yet. Places like that cost more than we can spend this month. Maybe someday, but not now."
The pause between words hit harder than the words themselves.
Ashen stood still, the smile on his face folding away like paper burned at the edges. He nodded once, muttered something soft—nothing coherent—and walked to his room. The door closed quietly.
Inside, no cry escaped. The silence that followed hardened into shape, thin and cold.
The next day arrived heavy with embarrassment.
At school, Ashen walked toward Haul's desk, same as usual, placing his bag beside him.
Haul looked up and said plainly, "Don't sit here anymore."
Ashen blinked. "What?"
"Find another place," Haul continued, tone flat but lacking cruelty; this was routine administration of social order. "We're kind of in a group, and we like keeping things balanced."
Ashen's hands froze against the desk edge, then dropped back to his side. He quietly stepped away without reply. The rest of the day stretched into dull echoes—chalk against board, faint murmurs behind him, eyes that never met his.
During recess, he tried once more. "Haul," he called, "did something happen?"
This time Haul didn't even pretend indifference. "Stop following me," he said. "You're poor. You broke your promise. You can't come with us, so don't hang around pretending to. Our group doesn't need sympathy cases. Avoid us, we'll avoid you. Simple request. All due respect."
The final phrase—all due respect—made it sound like an official dismissal.
Ashen's throat tightened. He gave a nod too slow to hide its tremor. "Oh," he whispered. "Okay."
When the class resumed, the teacher's question moved around the room, student to student, asking dreams.
"Haul," she said, "what would you like to be when you grow up?"
He rose calmly. "A General, ma'am."
Applause rippled through the rows. She smiled. "Ambitious. Fitting for someone of your capabilities. I believe you can do it."
"Thank you," he replied, sitting down.
Ashen watched him. Something inside him twisted—not hatred, not envy, just an ache sharp enough to feel close to either.
He looked down at his hands. There's nothing common between us, he thought. His house better, his food richer, his path paved. He has everything—except monopoly on dreams. That part's still open. Fine then.
By the end of the day, his resolution had cooled into a strange calm.
"If he can become a general," he murmured under his breath, "then so can I. If Elixisied made him what he is, maybe it can do that for me too."
He tightened his grip on his pen as if sealing a vow. "Sovey was mid compared to the girls here anyway. I'll grow bigger than her world, build my own, join these ranks, and they'll respect me."
That night, he stayed awake long after his parents slept.
No lights on, only the faint reflection from the city outside slipping through window slats, shadowing the wall with lines of pale silver.
He searched the net for hours about military ranks, training routes, education standards, recruitment limits. Articles scrolled past full of numbers and statistics—yet somewhere amid the bureaucracy he found what he needed: evidence that soldiers here were honored, valued, feared.
He whispered the title that had once belonged to someone else's dream. "General."
The word tasted cold and metallic. It felt both impossible and inevitable.
By dawn, fatigue blurred his eyes but not his resolve. He started routines—exercise first, then practice tests, minor reading. Step by step, without guide or witness, he began the quiet work of building the self that would one day step past humiliation and stand among those who once turned away.
In Elixisied, morning light was softer than in the Commonwealth. The sky glimmered rose instead of brown, the air held faint sweetness of synthesized dew, streets hummed not with noise but with order.
Ashen looked outside through the thin curtains as the world began to move again. He felt the same contrast stretch between him and his surroundings: a life unfamiliar, a promise unwanted yet forming on its own.
He whispered once more—not to hope but to inevitability.
"I'll see Alzate someday."
The whisper vanished into sunlit dust, soundless but certain.
And in that fragile certainty, something inside him started to grow—a hunger shaped not by desire but by the memory of its denial.