The city floated above a sea of clouds, its towers glowing with the light of dreams. Every night, its citizens closed their eyes, and the city fed — siphoning imagination, longing, and hope to power its shimmering engines. The richer you were, the sweeter your dreams; the poorer, the deeper your nightmares.

Lira dreamed in fire.

Every time she slept, she woke to the smell of smoke in her workshop...

Rain slicked the pavement, turning the city’s neon signs into trembling puddles of color.

Mara pulled her jacket tight and checked her phone again — 12:47 a.m. No new messages. The bar had emptied an hour ago, and her friends were already in cabs, their goodbyes quick and hazy. She told them she’d walk. It was only ten blocks.

Halfway home, the streetlights started flickering — first one, then an...

Inhale—

the room shrinks,

walls lean in,

thoughts crowd like shadows

under flickering light.

Hold—

a second too long,

heartbeat tapping panic

against the ribs.

Exhale—

let go

of the weight

you were never meant

to carry alone.

Repeat.

Until the breath

feels like yours again.

Inhale—

the room shrinks,

walls lean in,

thoughts crowd like shadows

under flickering light.

Hold—

a second too long,

hea...

The city floated, humming with the soft thrum of harvested dreams.

Rei knelt beneath the turbine’s spine, grease on her hands, fury in her chest. The wires pulsed with nightmares—hers. Every sleepless hour, every memory she’d locked away, now siphoned and weaponized to keep the elites above the clouds and everyone else beneath their boots.

“You’re running out of time,” croaked Vex, the crow perc...

A broken vow beneath the moon,

Left me breathless far too soon.

My lungs now sing in silent pain,

A whispered curse in acid rain.

You were the poison in my breath,

A gentle hand that wrote my death.

Still I inhale the fading light,

And dream of healing through the night....