Once upon an orbit of planet Fait, a playful young girl and her flustered yet resourceful single father must endure sickness, encounter exotic creatures, escape a predatory government, and outwit a wicked wizard to survive just one more day. Having...
High in the darkness of one of the supertowers of the city of Tetrapolis, a father chased his daughter, hands before him like clutching claws: "Rarrgh! Rarrgh!" She screamed as she giggled and darted back and forth across the small platform. Black pipes and gleaming metal, all crusted with rust, made the humble home of this family of two.
"I'm going to get you!" the father bellowed.
"No, you're not!"
"Get you, I'm going to!"
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In the high right corner of the room, where the shadows should be darkest, there gleamed two lights, like two tiny, tiny stars, side by side--one violet, one blue. The violet light whispered to the blue light, "That is them: Nariah, Rene."
To which the blue light strummed in reply, "We have to protect them."
Nariah stopped in mid-run, perked her ears up.
"Did you hear that, Daddy?" she asked. "Like music? Just a little bit? Super-quick?"
"What?" the father replied, catching his breath, hands on his knees. "The pipes? Same old pipes. Home sweet hovel."
Nariah shrugged. "Game on!" the daughter cried and dived beneath her father's legs, popping up behind him. He roared anew, spun around, and chased after, swiping the smoky air.
Behind their heads, in the high left corner of the room, there pulsed a green light and orange light-- spiky, noxious, smeared together and quivering, flickering. The green light hissed, "That is them."
To which in reply the orange light growled, "We have to destroy them."
That time, the father looked up. But there was only the same old darkness. He narrowed his eyes. He looked around their platform, the boxes-as-furniture, the shadows.
"Did you hear it, too?" Nariah asked.
"Not music," Rene said. " More like... noise." Like an animal, he thought.
"Maybe it was your stomach going 'grrragh, grrragh,'" and as Nariah said this, she slashed at Rene's stomach playfully. He took her hand in his and kissed the back of it, crouching before her.
"You're hungry?" he asked. She nodded shyly.
"Then I guess that makes it dinner-time, doesn't it?"
And so, as night fell and the sky changed from violet to scarlet, the family would sneak their way out from the factory and down, down, down the supertower, to the Food Court. To the Takke Store.
