Inxo and Onda

In Inxo's world, the skeletal city rose to the sky like a carcass of concrete. Each block was identical, each street mirroring the next. The air smelled faintly of machinery and order, of ozone and old metal. People said the city was efficient.

Every morning he left his apartment, adjusted the strap of his watch, and traced the same path across the gray pavement. He jogged along streets with no trees, watched the tram pass its endless route, walked past buildings with glassless windows, walls scrawled with official stamps, and returned home as if nothing had moved but himself.

One day he opened the dating app Mune. Faces appeared, faces he did not recognize. One face lingered. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. A faint smile that reached beyond the picture, into something he did not yet understand. Onda.

He clicked, and the machinery of his life began to shift.