Buried Stars

CHAPTER ONE: PET SOUNDS

I rolled out of bed, the noise of the previous night's party still blaring in my ear. The party ended, as usual, with the celebratory national anthem before we were all sent off. "God only knows how much I love you...", I murmured, to no one in particular. Not that there was anyone to murmur to.

I sat on the edge of my bed, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and nursing my growing headache. I really shouldn't have taken all those spirits, I think to myself. Hindsight is 40/40, as they say. Looking across my varied and messy room one would almost believe that the party was held here last night. Old books, unread papers and long-shrunken clothes littered every conceivable nook and cranny left. Only my bed and a narrow strip of the mahogany office table I used to study were left uncovered, a ray of the blue-tinted Martian sunrise falling on the empty space.

It seemed like yesterday I moved into this apartment, cheerfully sprucing up my then room-to-be with my parents. "It's gonna be a great experience for ya, kid," my dad had said, ruffling my hair affectionately. "Although I can't say that sending a seventeen-year-old away is something I'm thrilled about." I was now nineteen, and that was now more than two years and a lifetime ago. A wholly different life, and though I remembered it fondly, I wouldn't have said that it was a better life.

The alarm clock suddenly entered my mind, as I realized that it wasn't the ringing of my ears that I was hearing. As per usual, the clock was tuned to the national radio show. Some uninteresting noise about battles that were being fought along the frontier and catchball statistics were, as always, the headlines that dominated the airwaves. I had never had an interest in catchball, or any other sport for that matter. Always with my nose into books, or knee-deep in some analyticals. Nonetheless, I slowly turned my attention to the familiar-yet-off-putting sound of Kris Hemos' voice in an effort to direct my focus on something other than falling back to sleep.

"Welcome to the eight o' clock news, and you are listening to Aresia News Radio. Today is the third of February, 2076. Our top headline: Aeneas Olympus, son of retiring Titanos Hercules Olympus, remains favorite to win the election for Titanos, leading rival Ionis Smitos by roughly 25 points in the latest ANR poll, sixty-one percent to thirty-five percent. Later in the show, we have the guest..."

Unfortunate, but not surprising. Ever since my friends had introduced me to politics, I had had an inexplicable yet unshakeable aversion to the ruling Olympus family. For as long as either I or my parents could remember there had been an Olympian sitting on the Titan's Throne, and every election they crushed whatever meager opposition they encountered. Ionis Smitos, though, was someone that resonated with me far more than any previous candidate, and it seemed that Aresia was inclined to agree. The margin in the poll was the closest in recent memory, with the previous election of Hercules Olympus in 2033 being a typical 43-point romp for the Olympians.

I pushed myself off of my bed and quickly pulled on my clothes. Wading my way through the mess of my room, I opened the blinds covering my window to look at the blue sunrise dominating the horizon, albeit a bit hazily due to the dust that had accumulated on the glass bubble encapsulating the city. From where I was staying, in one of the tallest buildings in Serendipity, if it were not for the massive city of Aresiopolis in the way, I would have almost been able to see across the basin towards the settlements where Edie and I lived. A familiar pang went through my heart, so I turned away to focus on other things.

As always, the noise of pneumatics pushing things around the city formed a low-level white noise blanketing everything. It's like you're finally somebody, doing something, she'd always said. Funnily enough, I was never one to be super excited about living in a bubble. To be sure, I loved living in my apartment. Centrally located, with direct access to important places, not to mention being filled with people are all reasons enough to love living here. But there was something about being so close to the true nature of Aresian society; of seeing the Hellens sneering at you and the government not doing shit, holding up a veneer they called "civilization".