Thomas Gage dangled his feet over the edge of the terrace, watching the three moons of Akkaven sink lower and lower as if into the sea itself. However, he wasn’t exactly sure if he could call it a sea.

Poking through its surface sprang countless black towers draped in vines and moss. At first glance, one might think it was just an archipelago of tall, thin islands, but from what Thomas had seen of the rest of the planet, he knew that these were just the exposed tips of a drowned metropolis. But this place had stopped being a city long ago.

The air was fresh and smelled of salt and pine; the only sounds were the lapping of waves and the distant songs of alien wildlife. He savored the sight and the solitude more than his own breakfast. If he closed his eyes, he could almost fool himself into thinking he was just on another vacation to the beach. Almost.

Thomas’s watch beeped from beneath his sleeve. The thought of the day ahead carved a pit into his stomach. He pulled back his sleeve to expose the cracked digital watch at the base of his bicep and clicked off the alarm. He had attached a makeshift strap extension so that it would fit since wearing it openly would make him a target for pickpockets. Or worse.

He tried to will himself to get up, mentally kicking himself to suck it up and get moving, but that only carved the pit deeper and deeper. Finally, in submission, his gaze shifted back to the moons.

The sky surrounding them was a gradient of lilac to a deep blue, crisscrossed by the titanic ring stations that encircled the planet like a gyroscope. There was always a certain tranquility to be found there. Day or night, the sky was always predictable, constant. Or, at least so he had once thought.

Nevertheless, his little ritual of sky-gazing was an old habit. One last thing he refused to let die.

Tearing away his gaze, his eyes instinctively began to track a black speck tearing across the horizon, silhouetted against the largest of the moons. With a cold jolt, he sprang to his feet and felt his chest tighten.

Stop it. It’s not them. It’s a commerce freighter or more refugees. Edd said that they’re pouring in every day back at the Atrium. That’s what happens when you direct your entire civilization toward being the galaxy’s homeless shelter.

Now that he was up and moving, Thomas wolfed down the remaining stump of his protein bar and began his commute. He straightened his brown mop of hair and zipped up his worn leather jacket. He checked his watch again as he jogged across the weed-filled terrace and felt slightly relieved. He still had twenty minutes before his shift officially started, and if he double-timed it, he might be able to avoid a lecture from his manager.

His route took him through the ruins surrounding town, or Point Nemo, as most called it. It was hundreds of miles from any of the other resettled portions of the planet-wide city. Because of that, the inhabitants clung together in one, dense cluster around the Logistics Center, as the trains offered their only true link to civilization.

The decrepit towers that surrounded them were overgrown, but they were structurally sound. There was easily enough space for every person to have their own apartment or even building, but still, only a few ever ventured into the wild. Perhaps it was because people thought there was safety in numbers, but Thomas suspected another reason.

He saw it in their eyes, glazed over as if they were looking at something only they could see. He heard it in the quiet sobs that echoed through his building at night and in the wordless crowds that ambled through the streets. Thomas used to prefer solitude because he didn’t like noise, but now it was all he could do to escape the silence.

The black, stone monoliths of the ruined city loomed over him like a dense forest of black and green. Moss and plants had settled on them over the centuries to form a thick blanket. As he rounded a bend, the silence was shattered by an ear-piercing howl that no human vocal cord could hope to mimic.

Instinctively, Thomas darted into an overgrown culvert a few feet to his right. Fifteen feet in, the culvert came to a bend that he could hide behind. He crouched and peeked around the corner. Most of the humans might be too afraid to come out this far, but humans weren’t the only ones in Point Nemo.

A cacophony of rapid, tapping footsteps reverberated down the tunnel from the entrance, and, for only a few heartbeats, Thomas saw them. Their upper body was similar to a human’s in that they had two arms, what might pass for hands, and a head. But their lower half was a different story.

It was made up of four spindly legs that ended in what might be called a hoof. They had beady, violet eyes and six mandibles for a mouth. But as bug-like as they looked, they were also coated in a thin layer of white, fuzzy fur with pale blue skin beneath. Their clothes were baggy, gray robes adorned with criss-crossing patterns of violet and orange, giving them an almost priest-like appearance.

They were called the Korokti. They avoided humans like the plague, and most humans responded in kind. But this mutual aversion hadn’t stopped several riots, beatings, and worse from breaking out.

Why the Penitent had settled them alongside humans was a mystery to Thomas. But then again, who was he to question humanity’s rescuers? The consensus among most was that since they had similar biological needs, it was easier to supply the two species if they were together. It made sense, at least on paper.

In reality, it just meant that each race now had a competitor for basic resources. Violence had been inevitable.

From his position, Thomas could see four pass by the culvert, speaking to each other in guttural noises that almost sounded like growling cats. One of them seemed to be pacing anxiously back and forth in front of the entrance to the pipe while talking to the others.

Thomas hadn't been around enough of them to understand any of their language or intonations, so for all he knew, they could be having a political debate or reciting poetry. Or, they could be trying to figure out where the lone, vulnerable human was. And if one thing had been made clear to Thomas since leaving Earth, it was that the worst assumption was the safest assumption.

The sounds of their conversation began to grow more and more distant. Thomas’s knees began to ache with the weight of his backpack, so he sat down and waited for the voices to disappear.

In the limited light that came around the bend, he could see the ground slope downward further into the culvert to reveal its curved bottom. Suddenly, he realized that the layer of moss and dirt that he had been walking on was almost ten feet thick.

How long has this city been abandoned for it to build up like this?

Before the noises had completely died away, his watch began to blare again. It was no louder than normal, but to Thomas, it might as well have been a fire alarm. He frantically tore at his sleeve to find the watch’s off button, pinching himself several times before, finally, the cacophony stopped. He felt a sudden lack of tension around his arm.

Shit.

The strap was torn. He wrestled the watch out of his jacket sleeve and looked at the time. 8:00 AM.

Shit. Shit. SHIT.

He stood up and tore out of the culvert. The aliens were pushed out of his mind by the image of his burly manager chewing him out for being a lazy teenager for the umpteenth time.

I’m gonna end up working until sundown if I’m not-...

The air was knocked from his lungs as he landed hard on his shoulder, and his watch flew from his grip. As he began to try and get up, an odd coppery smell entered his nostrils, almost as if he were sticking a penny up his nose. Then he noticed it, rising from the ground like a spider crawling from a drain. It was another one of the Korokti. Thomas had run right into it as he was leaving the culvert.

You dumbass. You were too busy being scared of Richard to notice the alien coming full tilt at you.

Thomas tried to assume his best defensive posture and backed away warily from the alien, preparing himself for the inevitable mugging, devouring, or whatever else might come his way.

“Uh, I’m sorry… I’m running late for work, and I…didn’t see you there.” He made a silent prayer that he had stumbled across one of the few aliens with a working translator. But it was soon answered as the alien tilted its head like a confused dog and made some sort of trilling noise. Then it began to approach him. His blood froze as he clenched his fists, ready to make his final stand. But as it slowly walked closer, his tension started to fade away. The alien gently raised its hands, stooped to pick something off the ground, and stuck its clawed hand out. In its palm was his watch, only now with a crack across its screen. The alien made more of the same trilling noise as it gestured for Thomas to take it.

“Oh! Thank you. I’m sorry. With everything going on, I’m just…I’m still getting accustomed to being around…” the right word eluded him, “...nonhumans.”

The alien tilted its head again and then pulled out a small slip of plastic and offered it to him.

“A ration card? That’s really not necessary. This thing was broken already…ah.” But the alien was insistent, and Thomas didn’t have time to decipher an alien language, so he reluctantly took it.

“Thank you.”

The alien gave a slow and awkward impression of a human nod in response and then ran past him in the same direction as the others. Thomas smiled.

At least I’m not the only one having a pain-in-the-ass commute.

Thomas breathed for the first time in what seemed like hours and continued his way down the street.