A spot light flashed over the window of the attic, catching his eye as it splashed across the pages of his book. He peered towards the foggy glass, watching as the blurred object in the distant sky floated by almost aimlessly. Spot lights swung from the bottom of the blimp, catching the attention of anyone under it. It was just one large moving advertisement for the show that night; Blind Mag was going to be singing her last opera before retiring. He put a hand on the top of his book, holding his breath as he tried to see if he could hear the flying screens loudspeaker, just barley hearing the muffled noise but it was too far away for him to make out what it was saying.
Their house was far away from the main city, sitting on a hill by itself with nothing else around it. He had lived there his entire life, never wondering very far before going back home. He had never actually gone into the city before, his father making it very clear that it was too dangerous to ever venture into the tall skyscrapers. He had spent hours watching the bright lights of the city from their hill, wondering what the people inside were doing, what wonders they would be seeing. How did they go about their day? What did they do for work? Were they all like his father; a doctor that served the most powerful people in the city. Were they all good people like him and helped people like him?
A bell rang through the air, pulling the boy from his thoughts. He closed his book, setting it on the velvet cushions of the window seat before he stood, stretching. He was small for his age, both short and thin. He walked towards the stairs of the attic, slowly making his way down to the second floor of the house. He hummed to himself, his hands behind his back, going to one of the bedrooms with the door open. He knocked gently on the doorframe as he smiled at the fragile girl inside.
A small, frail looking child sat on a bed that was far too large for her in the dimly light room. The room itself was decorated with stuffed animals, posters of beautiful fantastic landscapes, and delicate procaine dolls. The dolls were dressed in beautiful lacy gowns with draping curls and bows in their hair. The girl held one in her arms of a doll that looked a lot like she did. A pale, delicate creature with fragile features. Her pale blonde hair looked almost like white wisps around her thin shoulders. She was much paler then he was, much sicker then he was, but they had matching bright electric blue eyes that made their features beyond striking. The blonde looked to him with those bright eyes and smiled gently at him, reaching out towards him with a small, slender hand.
He didn't hesitate as he went to the girl, moving to the bed and gently took her hand in his own, slipping on the soft blankets next to the girl. She smiled up at him as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close to him, allowing her to rest against his own slender body. She was so small, so frail, weighting as much as a feather. She closed her eyes, resting her head against his shoulder.
"I want to watch Blind Mag." She whispered, her voice just as delicate and sweet as she was, floating through the air like a soft tinkling bell. He nodded a little before he pulled away and leaned over the side of the enormous bed, reaching towards the remote on the antique side table. He had to lay on his stomach to reach it, stretching as far as he could. His finger tips brushed against the thing, just barley able to pull it into his grasp before he managed to sit up, groaning. Pointing it towards the large screen that hung on the wall across from the siblings, turning it on. It flickered for a moment before a prerecorded opera started to play, the beautiful woman on the screen dressed in an elaborate gown as she slowly crossed the stage. Her eyes were even more mesmerizing than their own with white irises, she could project images before her through the cybernetically enhanced eyeballs. It was part of the appeal of the opera singer, part of her wonder and one of the reasons that the siblings both loved her. She was their only source of knowing what was in the outside world, what was in the mysteriously dangerous city. Their father always told them that she was the most beautiful thing in the world, other then their mother.
The brother and sister watched the show that they had seen a thousand times, cuddled in the bed in silence, just enjoying their peace. Their father was at work and it would be a few hours more before he came home. He had told them that he had to attend to his most important patient that day and he might be home later than usual, that they should eat dinner without him.
But he never came home again.
That night was the night of the fall of Genco, the death of Blind Mag… the death of their father. The siblings watched in horror as their show was interrupted with a live feed of what was happening outside of Genco, watching as a body was pulled carelessly out of the building and tossed into a garbage truck with the rest of the bodies. A body that they knew right away who it was and the cold horror that came with it. They watched in a numb shock as the events of that night unfolded before them. It haunted them the rest of their lives and changed everything.
