She ran. Her bag bounced with every step, jostling the books and papers inside. It banged against her brace, sending bolts of pain shooting through the unhealing arm. She held a stapler – she can’t remember when she picked it up. Her mind was a panicked mess. She refused to think about the last hour. She couldn’t. She wanted to pretend it didn’t happen.

She wanted to pretend there wasn’t no way she could go back.

Her feet continued running on the path they’ve always run. She didn’t know where else to go. There were no safe places in this city, not in Singe. This place definitely wasn’t safe, but it was the only place she could think of.

She collapsed against the door in an exhausted heap. She tugged at the string around her neck and fished out a little gold key. It looked like a child’s toy, but the metallic sheen gave it away. With shaking fingers (more so on the left hand), she stuffed the key in the lock and gave it a sharp twist.

The door swung open and hit with a bang, cracking the already cracked frame. She fell in.

It was just as she remembered it. As if turning back the clock, soft light drifted through the dusty window. The window ledge was empty, and the curtains sat lifeless. The couch slumped against the wall. The little circle of chairs had stayed right where they were, the table pushed just off to the side.

She dragged a finger across a lampshade. It came away dusty.

The dust covered everything like snow after a snowstorm. It muffled sounds and softened light, and though it was dust, it looked like glittering diamonds to her eyes.

An animal had been ambling around, leaving a small trail of disturbed dust. Otherwise, the room was pristine. Everything in its place.

Wait.

Someone had taken the cookie jar.

She couldn’t remember who took it, even though she remembers everything. It wasn’t a power; she just prided herself on never forgetting a face or a conversation. But she couldn’t remember who took the cookie jar. It was maddening.

She sat against the wall and started fidgeting with the chain around her neck. She ran her fingers over the little golden key, tracing its familiar shape with her thumb.

She dimly wondered who’s still paying rent for this place. Space was precious down here, and yet there were no squatters, no signs of gang wars or territory grabs. Someone still owned this warehouse. Maybe it was her. She wondered whose name was on the lease.

She’d dropped the stapler somewhere. Her bag spilled papers and notebooks all over the ground. They were wrinkled. She almost didn’t care. Still, for now, she put everything down, and sat there numbly, unable to cry.

After Brandy stormed out, there were no further declarations of war, no heated arguments. Airin had sat still for just a moment, then went to the door, put on her paint-splattered coat, tipped her hat, and left without another word.

She and Roux had looked at each other, slack-jawed. “Did that really happen?” Roux whispered, afraid to break the spell. She wasn’t sure what to say, so she just shook her head.

She remembered snippets of the following week.

She remembered the smell of coffee – not its presence, but its absence. Airin didn’t take the coffeemaker with her, and neither Roux nor she knew how to work it.

She remembered trying in vain to get her sketcher or notepad to work underground, but the diligent glass clocktower kept knocking her offline.

She remembered chatting with Roux about the weather, even though from down here, no one can see the sky..

“Is it raining?” she asked.

“Mmhmm.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“Mmhmm.”

There was a moth who’d gotten trapped inside, lured in by the constant light. She had ignored Roux’s shrieks and gently cupped it with her hands. It was cute. She set it free.

Roux bought groceries once.

The next week, there was a note on the table, and the window ledge was empty.

They’d simply stopped coming. They’d simply stopped being friends.

She was the last to leave. Unlike what Brandy had said, she didn’t want to throw all that she’d worked for away. She loved it here, with its challenges and its rules that shouldn’t make sense at all but did. She had thought she might not, but she never did believe that, not after she skipped more and more of high school to spend time underground and had simply woken up one day with her voice sore and limbs aching and realized she was home.

She didn’t want to leave. But she knew she had to. But it still hurt when she put that little gold key in the lock for what might’ve been the last time.

She had reached for the confidence she felt at the peak of her power, when the name “Announcer Underground” had been whispered behind closed doors and told to children as a cautionary tale, but it didn’t come. She reached for it now. Nothing. It had been driven to ground by expectations clashing with reality.

Airin and Brandy walked into the hideout and saw Jayden Mach sitting on Brandy’s swivel chair. She faced the door with murder in her reddened eyes.

“You’d better have a f***ing explanation,” she said, swearing like a surface kid for the first and last time in her life.