Mother Earth.

Chapter 22: Maybe, Lover Girl.

Lydia Armageddon, Lisa Huo.

Russian Bastion: A Home for Two,

The year 2173.

Little incandescent light bulbs were strung up across the walls of the factory, over the tarps and wooden borders covering the holes in the walls and shattered windows. Across the rustic beams, more tarps were hung to separate the expansive hollow factory into rooms, one for Lisa and one for Lydia. It took an excruciating amount of effort and time, but they had cleaned this derelict place. The foul stench of garbage was gone, leaving fresh air wafting in. However, to Lydia's minor annoyance, Lisa's cigarette smoke hung in the air, especially on her side. Although, Lydia began to appreciate it; it was her smell now. At least Lisa was hoping she thought of it that way.

Lisa sat hunched over on her mattress, now having a clean sheet over it with a single pillow with a coiled notebook on her lap. Her pen danced across the page in quick elegance, little lines across the bridge of someone's nose, a scar on her lips, the eyelashes she had begun to notice, and that flowing wavy hair she admired. Her lips were pale but just what she wanted, with eyes that looked at her with admiration. She was always looking toward the artist when she drew her. Lisa pressed her fingertips against the smooth page as she made her last etch of ink, and she stared for a moment. Throughout these pages, she had drawn this person dozens upon dozens of times, admiring each one all the same.

"You're pretty." She thought to herself, standing up with the notebook still open, and walking toward the wall of what she calls her room. She looked up at the hanging, swaying flowing pages hung up on the wooden board nailed up. Some were scrawls of a vague shadow of thoughts barely formed, images without form, desperation in ink. The ones that were fully realized were ones of that radiant girl she had just drawn for what seemed to be the hundredth time, shining like a thousand stars glimmering across the waves of the flooding oceans. Their factory was becoming a comfortable place to lay one's head down, cultivated from nothing on a foundation built upon only themselves.

Their factory, yes, that's what she wanted to call it.

She looked up at the gaps of sunlight, head tilted, sighing. Rolling up the sleeves of her straight black sweatshirt, standing there with her jean shorts, staring aimlessly. Lisa's hair had grown long enough to fall over her eyes, down past her shoulders now.

"What am I doing?" Her mind raced, second guessing even thinking any thought of 'theirs' with anything like it was taboo, incorrect, impossible. That's what made it more appealing, to want what you think you can't get.

Click!

"Lydia's home!" Lisa smiled instantaneously upon hearing that door click open. She turned on her heels, running to a gap in the tarp and out into the open space of the factory still barefoot.

"Hi, Lisa!" She greeted as she shut the door behind her, her face lighting up seeing Lisa's smile as she sped walked towards her notebook in hand.

"Hi!"

Lydia walked to her as well, and Lisa fell into her embrace.

"I thought you were here, did you get today off?" Lydia asked, squeezing Lisa tightly.

"Yeah I did, the kitchen was full up today so it was okay."

"Good to hear."

Letting go, she went to her tarp, opened the flap and entered her side. Lisa followed, sitting down on the floor as she began to change out her work clothes. Lydia didn't mind. She looked up at Lydia, up at her hair, and something was different. Way too alien to her, and her jaw dropped with her arms, letting her notebook fall to the ground.