Page 37 of Star Claimed Omega
She packed her gear, her thermal blanket, and stuffed clothes, shoes, uniform, and paperwork into a bag.
All the while striving to fob off an incensed Lilla.
With superhuman strength, she shoved the kicking, screaming woman off her and grabbed her duffel, heart hammering, and staggered toward the door.
‘LEAVE, SCARLET DEMON!’ Lilla screamed, pelting her with two rationed eggs from their tiny stockpile.
One splattered against Soleil’s shoulder.
The other burst through the wall behind her.
Soleil flinched and bolted, boots thudding down the corridor.
The door slid shut with a hiss of foreboding exile.
A few residents peered from their units. No one said anything. Some shook their heads in pity. Others just stared.
She wiped yolk from her shirt, trembling.
With an inhale, she adjusted her duffel on her back, squared her shoulders, and walked, with nowhere to go, no place to call her own.
Her teeth ground together as she stormed down the passageway, jaw clenched so tight it ached.
She needed to lie down and rest; she had a full day of work ahead of her tomorrow and a mountain of sorrow on her heart.
Soleil wandered the lower decks ofThe Sombrafor an hour or two, searching for new accommodation.
None of the rental agents on each level had room to spare.
With time moving fast, she decided to find a place to sleep rough for the night and try again the following day.
She kept walking until her legs burned and the bag on her back dug into her spine, yet still her eyes swept every nook and cranny, searching for reprieve, someplace to lie down.
She located a narrow corridor, more like an old cargo artery long since abandoned by official routes.
Half its lights flickered, the others long dead.
The walls were slick with coolant mist and age, and a dull red glow came from a cracked bulb hanging above like a broken promise.
Tucked beneath an overhead shaft that belched rhythmic huffs of warm, recycled air, she’d found the alley of the forgotten.
Bodies sprawled in silence under synthetic cardboard shelters, fraying, patched, and stitched together with polymer bands and grit.
Makeshift homes sat in haphazard angles around crates, bent metal rods, and strips of heat-dampening fabric.
Inside them sat what she could only describe as wraiths, hollowed by hunger and weariness, bundled in second-skinthermal wraps or crouched beside scavenged heaters that no longer glowed.
Soleil’s gaze swept over them. None met her gaze; most heads bowed in shame, or slumped on akokohigh.
Her eyes fell on a man with missing fingers, who cradled his hands within his shirt.
Then, a woman in a knitted beanie rocked back and forth, eyes glassy.
A cluster of children lay wrapped in what looked like tarpaulin stitched from emergency space blankets.
With a sigh, Soleil approached the space under an open shaft venting heated condensation, hesitating.
None of the rough sleepers were near it.
