Back in 2015, I was in charge of worldbuilding for a school fair. Two years later, I decided to re-visit the world I (and two others) had created, and this is what happened.
Background: The country of Fyzai is divided into four Divisions: Mars, Visioneer, Beacon, and Czar. The Divisions are overseen by Command, which is opposed by the rebel faction, Entity. The two agencies fight over possession of Phlogiston, a machine capable of reversing entropy.
Word count: 297
COMMAND TOWER
MARS DIVISION
0545 HOURS
The pre-dawn silence is broken, suddenly, by the rev of the first cars that race through the dimly lit streets of Mars. The sound reaches Walter Major in his apartment, storeys above the asphalt roads, and the Head of Command shifts in his sleep, sheets coming to tangle around his bare chest.
His bedroom is lit by the weak sunlight that filters through the curtains. Bioluminescent moss sit in jars, all placed in strategic locations inside the room, their blue glow dim in the grey morning light.
An alarm rings, trembling atop its perch on a bedside table. Walter reaches out to turn it off, and he sits up in bed, ice-blue eyes taking in the darkness of his bedroom. His feet swing over the edge of the bed, coming to rest on chilly, grey tiles. He stretches and stands up, almost reluctantly, and walks over to the thick curtains hiding the world from him.
The fabric is rough in his hands as he parts it. The Mars skyline greets him, a jagged line of skyscrapers and towers, and above them, the pearlescent skies of the east, tinted with the soft orange of the rising sun.
Walter scratches at the stubble on his chin, a tired groan growling in his throat. Already he feels the weariness in his body, the dead weight of fatigue in his bones. He thinks of the Silencers prowling the Division battlements, of Entity spies planning his demise in the Wastelands. Images of that ungodly machine, all pipes and gauges and bright, bright lights, resting deep in the mountains of Visioneer plague his thoughts, and he presses his forehead against the cool glass.
A sigh escapes him as he turns away from the window, and he steels himself for the new day.
