Chapter Text
Everything in Sephyke is designed around “social equilibrium,” a doctrine created after decades of climate collapse, economic wars, and mass unrest. The government discovered something terrifying, People are easier to control when nothing hurts too much.
So Sephyke removed extremes.
Colors are muted by law because bright palettes were found to increase emotional impulsivity. Public music uses approved frequencies designed to maintain calm. Perfumes are regulated. Certain flowers are banned for “nostalgic destabilization.” Even laughter in public spaces earns uncomfortable stares.
Citizens wear streamlined uniforms based on occupation tiers; grey for transit workers, ivory for medical personnel, charcoal for administrative citizens, and pale blue for students. Accessories are nearly nonexistent. Makeup is corrective, not expressive. Beauty exists only when approved by systems.
Everything is controlled and monitored, indefinite and autonomous.
The city itself is divided vertically, but not by race or wealth. No, by mentality.
The upper districts:
clean air, artificial sunlight, rooftop gardens, silent magnetic transit systems. The monotone live there among mirrored architecture. These people do not own any creativity, they only see numbers, they only seek the next quota and find no tolerance for change, believing in the idea of “eternal bliss”. If something works why change it? Is what they all usually think.
The lower districts:
dense apartment blocks, shopping corridors of the same type of product, sleep clinics, endless advertisements for emotional wellness subscriptions. These are inhabited by ones who still find themselves in hobbies whenever the time allows, they are still judged if they do it too frequently or make it a larger part of their identity because the authorities do not appreciate unproductive individuals that do not bring profit.
Sephyke is known for its fast innovations and monitored ‘stability’.
Cars transform into aerial jets. Buildings shift shape depending on weather.
Windows tint themselves according to citizen stress levels. Dream-monitoring devices sit beside every bed under the excuse of mental health prevention.
Yet despite all this advancement, the city feels spiritually ancient; People avoid eye contact.
Children are discouraged from imaginative play.
Most citizens cannot remember the last time they touched soil. A hundred Animals are extinct each year. Natural ecosystems collapsed long ago and synthetic replacements became cheaper and more accepted.
And yet, despite the city’s endless systems, its regulations, its suffocating perfection…
there were still glitches.Tiny, stubborn glitches.
A surveillance drone burst through the rainclouded skyline, its mechanical eye glowing red as it scanned the rooftops below.
“UNAUTHORIZED PERSONAL MODIFICATION DETECTED.”
The announcement crackled through the midnight air.
Across the rooftops, a girl laughed. Not loudly But freely.
Her boots slammed against wet concrete as she vaulted over an air vent, nearly slipping before catching herself on a rusted pipe. Pink ribbons fluttered from beneath her standard-issue pale blue jacket with Hello kitty patterns on the inside, hidden carefully beneath layers of compliant fabric.
Well..Usually hidden carefully.
“Dafa ho Ajeeb clanker!” Khadijah hissed, clutching a tiny creature against her chest as another searchlight swept across the rooftops.
The parrot, pista in her palm clicked irritably, Its beak shines red beneath the city lights.
Highly illegal.
Khadijah ducked beneath a maintenance bridge just as the drone fired another scanner beam overhead. “Citizen,” the machine droned, “remain stationary for emotional correction assessment.”
“Oh, Dafa bhi hojao!”
She kicked off the wall, leaping onto the next rooftop with the kind of reckless confidence only doomed revolutionaries possessed.
Below her stretched Sephyke:
silent towers
silver windows
thousands of people sleeping beneath dream monitors.
Most dreams in Sephyke were dull things. Organized, Muted, work based. The city preferred it that way.
But Maria’s were never her own. She woke with seawater in her lungs. For one violent second, she could still feel tiny trembling hands clutching a red plastic bucket. Hear distant laughter. Smell salt and sunscreen, Then the memory shattered.
Maria sat upright in bed, breathing hard as rain battered the windows.
Not her memory, Again. A child this time, Six years old, maybe seven. A girl who had once cried because a wave stole her shoe.
Maria rubbed her eyes slowly. Somewhere in Sephyke, that little girl was an adult now. Probably emotionless, Probably working beneath fluorescent lights, having long forgotten the ocean entirely.
But Maria remembered for her. Always for others.
The dream-monitor beside her bed flickered orange.
“UNREGISTERED EMOTIONAL ACTIVITY DETECTED.”
“Na karo, sachi?” Maria muttered annoyingly, swinging her legs off the mattress. “Bakwas Kara lo bas issay” as The machine continued blinking silently.
Her room was sparse, like everyone else’s in Sephyke…Except for one thing. Near the balcony doors stood a saddle, Real leather, Worn with age.
Illegal enough.
Maria grabbed her coat and stepped outside into the cold dawn air. Below the apartment complex, hidden between abandoned transit arches and overgrown concrete pathways, waited her mechanical horse Heisenberg.
Massive.
Orange-eyed.
Breathing steam into the morning fog.
Cars screamed overhead in streams of silver light as Maria rested a hand against the animal’s neck. In a city that favors wheels and flying, she loved feeling the horses hooves meet the ground as she rides off to her workplace as a dream archivist where Maria spent her days archiving dreams people no longer cared to remember.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Sephyke, another girl dedicated herself to preserving something equally endangered, softness. In District 19, beneath flickering holo-signs and humming transit cables, Seemal leaned dangerously close to a client’s face with a makeup brush balanced between elegant fingers.
“Oh Sabr bibi. Hilna mat warna Sara kuch barbaad hojayega” she warned gently. The woman froze, Not because she was afraid.
Because nobody in Sephyke touched people delicately anymore.
Seemal worked in silence for a moment, carefully brushing shimmering pigment beneath the client’s eyes. Barely noticeable silver. Technically regulation compliant..Technically.
“There,” Seemal said brightly, stepping back with a grin. “Now you look like you sleep eight hours instead of crying in public bathrooms.” The client blinked in surprise before laughing despite herself.
A real laugh. Which was Quickly muffled. But Seemal smiled wider anyway.
Her tiny studio smelled faintly of jasmine cleanser and strawberry toner, hidden beneath the mandatory sterile scent diffusers installed by the city. Shelves overflowed with skincare bottles, powders, creams, and tiny illegal color palettes she kept hidden beneath false compartments and multilayered drawers.
Most people came pretending they only wanted “dermal maintenance.” Really, they wanted to feel beautiful again. Outside the studio window, silver traffic streaked through the sky in endless orderly lines. Inside, Seemal painted stars onto somebody’s eyelids.
The shop terminal suddenly chimed.
WARNING:
UNAUTHORIZED COSMETIC PIGMENT DETECTED.
Seemal stared at the notification, Then calmly reached over and unplugged the machine.
“Khuda ka naam lo,” she sighed. “Every day with this nonsense.”
Minutes later, the roar of her motorcycle split through the lower district streets. Unlike the city’s silent electric vehicles, Seemal’s bike growled alive beneath her like a wolf refusing domestication, And Seemal loved loud things.
As she zoomed past a street, dark navy feathers are seen slowly fluttering downwards. It’s true that most citizens in Sephyke had never seen a real raven before.
Only archived versions,Low-resolution educational clips, Extinct ecosystem documentaries, Corporate mascots simplified into friendly animations for children.
So when black wings appeared against the silver skyline, people stared. The bird landed soundlessly atop a transit rail, sharp-eyed and impossibly real.
The drone that had been moving after Khadijah immediately redirected toward it.
“UNREGISTERED ORGANIC ENTITY DETECTED.”
The raven Dust clicked its beak once, Then vanished into the fog. Deep beneath the city, hidden below abandoned transit tunnels and flooded maintenance sectors, Warda adjusted the bandages wrapped around a fox’s injured leg.
“Aik toh meray hathon main paseena nahi ruk raha aur Dusra tum insaan Kay bachay nahi ban rahay” she murmured frustratedly as the animal huffed at her and turned to sniff tiny lantern insects glowed inside glass jars . A few ways afar there’s a three-legged cat sleeping atop old machinery while Birdsong echoed faintly through underground pipes.
The Things Sephyke had forgotten how to love.
The raven swooped down onto her shoulder with mechanical scraps clenched in its claws.
“You stole again?” Warda turns her head as her earrings dangle with movement while dust croaked proudly.
Warda sighs. Behind her, enormous metal doors concealed the largest secret of all.
Her horse Despair, Not mechanical like Maria’s.
Living.
His pale ears flicked toward her as the horse approached, pressing its nose gently against her shoulder.
While Khadijah narrowly misses the drone because of dust, she drops one of her charms on her cross body bag as she makes her way to the metro station to the market.
On her way home Maria notices and picks up the fallen charm that sticks out like a sore thumb. That night she had dreams of Khadijah’s past. Intrigued, Maria traces the emotional residue to an underground market. Where she find multiple stalls of a slew of items that range from all kinds of things. Seemal is already there buying bright pigments while Warda makes her way into the market with Dust hidden in her clothes.
That is when the raid starts happening. The market froze for exactly one second, Then panic detonated.
Emergency sirens screamed through the underground corridors as red warning lights flooded the market in pulses. Stalls overturned, Glass shattered. Somebody extinguished half the lanterns at once, plunging sections of the market into darkness.
“CITIZENS REMAIN STILL FOR THOROUGH SCREENING.”
Nobody listened. Drones descended from ceiling hatches like metal insects, scanner beams slicing through crowds. Khadijah cursed under her breath “Bas yehi reh gaya tha.”
She shoved glosses, charms, and tiny pastel accessories into her bag before a vendor grabbed her wrist “Run” The old woman’s voice trembled, Khadijah didn’t hesitate.
Across the market, Seemal stood frozen beside a display of illegal pigments and scents as an officer overturned an entire cosmetics stall onto the ground. Tiny explosions of color burst across the concrete floor.
Pink.
Gold.
Blue.
For one beautiful second, the grey market looked alive, Then boots crushed through it.
“Unauthorized cosmetic materials detected” drawled a drone overhead before flying debris clanked on its head.
“Uper dekh apka bhi shit clock hua hai” Seemal snapped, clutching her purchases to her chest before darting into the crowd. Meanwhile Maria stood motionless in the center of the chaos.
Because she recognized this feeling.
Not from her own memories, From Khadijah’s.
The same fear.
The same adrenaline.
The same desperate instinct to keep moving.
And then Maria saw her, The girl from the dream.
Pink ribbon hanging from her bag.
Wild eyes.
Breathless and furious.
Khadijah nearly collided into her before stumbling back “You!”
Maria pointed accusingly, Khadijah blinked “What?”
“You cried over a dead goldfish when you were eight.”
“…WHAT?”
“Kuch nahi. Let’s go there’s No time” Maria decided immediately, averting her eyes.
Above them, another drone locked on “EMOTIONAL AGITATION DETECTED.”
“Bakwas machine, Teri pooch hogi” Khadijah hissed at it when Suddenly the surveillance drone sparked violently midair.
A black raven slammed beak first into its camera lens
Dust
The machine spiraled sideways into a fabric stall as people screamed. From the fog emerged Warda, hood pulled low and eyes squinted as she pushed through the crowd toward the swaying bird. “Dust!” she shouted.
And right behind her came Seemal on instinct alone, grabbing Warda’s arm as security officers rounded the corner.
“Dust Doost baad main dekhna we gotta go this way!”
None of them stopped to question why, as they made their escape. They escaped untouched by scanners, untouched by processing rooms, untouched by the cold machinery waiting to flatten them back into acceptable shapes.
Later they all are seen moving in a two story house, a house so vibrant among the gunmetal grey neighborhood. Yet no one reported them, everyone seemed to agree that such hues must be sheltered from the ever reaching tendrils of societies control.
Later, the four girls were seen moving into a narrow two-story house, a house so vibrant among the gunmetal grey neighborhood. And Unlike the rest of Sephyke, this house breathed color.
Vines curled along rusted balcony rails, Wind chimes sang softly beneath the rain, A pink ribbon fluttered from the rooftop antenna.
Nobody reported them.
Not the exhausted transit workers.
Not the old women watching from their balconies.
Not even the sleepless neighbors passing by at dawn.
Because somewhere deep beneath decades of conditioning, the people of Sephyke still remembered what beauty felt like. And perhaps that was why the city let the colors stay.
For now.