The sun is blazing hot like it does every day, trapping you in a scorching invisible bubble you cannot escape. The rays reach everywhere, few areas are happy to steer clear of them. Even if you went to hide under a shade, the heat would eventually drive you crazy. Like always, there are no clouds in the sky to block the sun, which means there will be no rain at least for a few years.
The vast land is eerily still, no sound to be heard. Scarcely anyone wanders into this part of the town unless they are desperate or just plain stupid. Animals stay away from this place as well, but you can sometimes see a vulture circling the skies, searching for prey to feed on. Plants do not thrive here, although if you look hard enough, you will find one stubborn, tiny flower that refused to give up to the harsh environment. Wherever you glance there is sand, sand and more sand.
Goazon Badlands is a cruel place, but somehow Rey managed to survive here.
It is her home, the only home she knows.
Memories of the life she could have had were long gone. The images she held onto so tightly are now blurry along with her parents' faces. She does not remember them at all having been abandoned in this awful town at a young age. She has no idea whether if they loved or hated her. The concept of a loving family is foreign to her.
Rey has been alone ever since she can remember. Every birthday, Christmas, Easter, summer holiday she spends by herself. There are people all around her, of course, but the feeling of loneliness and lack of belonging has never left her. She has seen many off-worlders roaming the deserts and wondered why would they come to such a dreaded place. They must have stumbled upon here by a mistake, or that is how she has always explained it to herself. They do not belong here with their sun-kissed faces, delicate features and extravagant clothes. Those people leave quickly, scared and disgusted, and that is fine by her. They would not live to see another day here.
Ultimately, Rey has no one. Ever since she arrived in the town she has been hoping it was all a misunderstanding, that someone, anyone would come back one day for her and sweep her in their arms in a loving embrace. Some may call it wishful thinking, but that hope, that longing helped her get through the especially grim days.
When she was younger, she had to stay in an orphanage. It was the only one in the town of Jakku, Arizona and the area around it. It had been built decades ago and through all those years nobody has bothered to paint the dirty walls, seal the wooden windows or repair the holes in the roof. It was a dirty, creepy hole not fit for children. She tried to run so many times. No matter how much she scratched, yelled and bit, they would always drag her back in to lock her up like a feral animal.
Although the mere thought of that place still makes her shiver, she did learn a lot there. There was one principal rule the children had to obey - if you have claimed it, it is yours. Smaller and weaker kids were forced to fend for themselves without a cot to lie on, walking hungry and thirsty for days. One day a rotting body of a young boy was found in one of the storage rooms. The administration was furious because a clearing crew had to be hired.
Rey was fairly quick and lithe so she was usually able to avoid confrontations with other children. She was not afraid to use force to defend herself. If a kid had the courage to approach her, he would be left with bloody gashes and bruises. However, because she had arrived at the orphanage unnaturally late, the other kids were not particularly fond of her. The girl spoke, looked and behaved differently. She was an outcast in every sense of the word.
The air is hot, dry, suffocating, making breathing difficult, pushing hundreds of tiny needles down throats that radiate sharp pain deep from within chests. Dust is floating in the air, which creates a yellow veil that irritates eyes. The steady rumble of the truck engine is strangely relaxing and the junk lying in the back rattles whenever the tires bump against bigger rocks on the ground. There are no asphalt highways in Jakku. If there were, they are long gone under a thick layer of coarse sand. Tire tracks act as paths leading everywhere and nowhere. For miles, you see only flat lands with no sight of civilization. If you take the eastern route, you may notice canyons towering over the lowlands in the distance. A few wreckages are spread across the desert, rusted shells of what used to be cars, aeroplanes and motorcycles - remains of the once bright lively town. Not many from the Inner Rim remember that image.
A new song is playing from the cassette player. It is quite quirky with its simple but catchy melody and funky guitar chords. The man singing it has a pleasant voice. It is rich, high-pitched, slightly thin. The image on the picture in the cassette box has faded away, the colours have gone faint, but the face of the singer is still visible. His features look exotic. Rey has never seen a face like his. The man had to be an off-worlder living in the northern cities. She really likes the song and has been listening to it for a couple of days. Generally, she replays the entire cassette many times before moving onto a new one. Music is not a luxury people in Jakku can afford so she enjoys every minute of melodies from the old age.
Rey often comes across objects left in the wreckages that once belonged to the ones dwelling in this area. It is usually something small and rather insignificant, something you would not even glance at. One chilly evening the girl picked up a dirty ragdoll from a hut in the middle of nowhere. It smelled foul, she had to scrunch up her nose. Unsurprisingly, it was just a bundle of filthy rags tied with a string to resemble a humanoid figure. The doll still sits next to the girl's cot.
Rey has also found books. Lots of novels, manuals and those strange children's books with drawings. Most of them look more like random paper scraps put together than actual volumes. Some pages are either torn or stained with an unknown substance, making deciphering the texts difficult. Discovering brand new words or phrases is fun. She has picked a few fancy sounding expressions, she likes how they roll off her tongue like silk. The manuals have given her all the information about the vehicles she has been discovering in the desert, everything about engines, fuel, oils and other machinery. Prints have been very helpful, providing her with detailed drawings and descriptions.
The girl has stumbled upon some books today as well. They are lying on the passenger seat. Their covers are dirty with dust and the edges are tattered. It appears all of them are novels. Rey hopes they are not romances as she has been slowly getting sick of them. She will look through them later in the evening once she is done with work.
As Niima Outpost is nearing closer and closer, the girl steps on the brakes and they make an irritating squicky sound. She shuts off the engine. There is ringing in her ears because the song has stopped playing, too. Without engine noise, it gets unnaturally quiet.
Rey steps out the truck with the key in her sweaty palm and walks on burning sand toward the back of the car. She begins to unload the junk she put in woollen bags. She swings them across her back before finally approaching the shabby settlement.
The whole area is closed. A metal chain link fence was placed around it to prevent the working scavengers from wandering off too far. To the right, there are stations where the parts are being cleaned. A thin piece of fabric serves as a poor excuse for protection from the sun rays. There are no chairs, people sit on the bare ground.
In the middle, there is the main shack. It has been built with rusty metal sheets. It looks so miserable the girl thinks it may have been swept off the face of the earth during a sandstorm in the past. That is where the trading happens. Unkar Plutt, the junk boss, controls the whole process. He is a tall man with a bulky body that intimidates some people. He has a large nose and his mouth is frozen in a constant grimace. Much to Rey's amusement, Unkar is commonly called 'the blobfish' behind his back.
To the left, there is the space for Unkar's vehicles. He placed them there for everyone to see. His ego could not possibly grow any bigger, but his vanity is not the sole reason for doing so. Perhaps he wanted to taunt the hopeless, to see if any of them would dare to steal.
Rey has come across many nice engine parts, they look pretty and shiny, and they can be reused. This kind of junk is the most valuable. If you bring rubbish splattered with sticky oil, you will get a tiny part of a ration or leave hungry and angry. Some of the newbies would argue and beg relentlessly before being hauled away by the thugs just waiting for a brawl to take part in. Those fools never turn up and if they do, their faces are painted purple and green. Unfortunately, no amount of tears can get rid of those stains. Rey pities those people as they simply do not know better. They expect kindness or mercy, she is not sure, but it is a path leading to death.
The girl marches proudly with her chin jutted out. Scrap metal in her bags clanging with her every step, making the others around snap their head and glare. She plops down at her station with a sigh of relief while she flexes her toes inside the shoes. The cleaning does not take much time because she is scrubbing so vigorously. The skin on the girl's bony hands becomes red and soon her fingers get sore, but the discomfort is worth it if she gets to eat this evening.
It is not as stifling on the way back home. The sun has begun to set down, the air is blowing in her face causing a few hairs that have escaped the bun on the girl's head to tickle her cheeks. Rey is singing along to her new favourite song, the same one she played hours ago. Sweat is sticking uncomfortably to her thin white shirt, but the sight of the pile of rations lying next to her is enough to make her chapped lips to twitch into a tiny smile.