Chapter Text
Prologue
Fifteen years ago, the aliens came. For five long years there was a war between humans and aliens. The war destroyed the world, killing all plants and animals. The aliens were victorious but the losses on both sides were too great. The aliens only stayed because they couldn’t leave.
Society was restructured into a violent, lawless system. There is no more government and the big corporations control all the resources. Only credits matter.
Survivors from both sides inhabit the ruined cities, and relations between humans and aliens are tense. It’s a fragile coexistence, since they’re all too busy trying to survive.
***
Rey braces herself as she’s walking down the street. In her backpack, there’s all that she owns and she worries the remaining credits in her hand inside the pocket of her jacket.
She stomps her feet on the ground to fight the angry, stubborn tears from coming out.
Stupid, stupid.
A childhood in the orphanage and an early youth of scavenging to survive should have taught her to keep one eye open. A scrawny young woman alone is already an easy target on the best of days, but sleeping in the streets is almost suicide.
Those disgusting men were able to sneak up on her. She shivers violently with the thought of what could have happened to her if she hadn’t been so good at fighting.
Now, she has to change her scenery, they’ll be on the lookout for her.
Her search for another job has been as fruitless as looking for a place in the shelters; they’re all full.
Rey wanders through the city aimlessly until it gets dark. The dust stirred up by the passing speeders makes her cough.
She considers briefly going back to Plutt and beg him to let her have her bed back, but she knows he’s already rented it to someone who can pay him every week. Someone sober, maybe. Although Rey doesn’t know anyone who doesn’t use. Anyone who’s not human, anyway.
She passes by one of the aliens. The alien woman is tall and lithe, with bluish grey skin. Rey’s gaze lingers until the alien woman’s yellow, feline eyes dart to her, and Rey bows her head and walks away before she gets into trouble.
Rey doesn’t hate the aliens like she should. She had been only a child during the war. If anything, she hates her own kind, especially the men who are always the ones who do the hurting.
But she knows better than to get close. The truce is fragile and tenuous. And neither species lets the other step out of line.
She keeps walking.
There’s a Spice dealer at the corner of one intersection. She can tell by the kind of gun he has and the way he’s confidently just standing there, waiting for his next customer. They’re all the same.
A familiar shiver runs up her spine. She’ll need to use soon, but she’s got more urgent problems to deal with at the moment, like a place to spend the night.
On the walls there's graffiti of a symbol of an orange bird cutout from a round shape; its wings taper to the top joined by three feathers. The text below reads ‘Join The Resistance’.
Rey scoffs. Bunch of lunatics. The world is dead, there are no places left to go but the cities which are the only way to get water and synthetic food. How would they survive out there? It’s wishful thinking, and dangerous. And how is this delusion any different from the Spice she takes?
She’s in a part of town where a few of the old houses still stand, having miraculously survived the bombings. The neighbourhood is not the poorest but they’re still just simple houses and not the rich high rise buildings in downtown.
She looks between the wooden fence of one of them. The backyard looks empty.
She spots a shed and her pulse quickens.
Perfect .
Nimbly climbing the fence, Rey lands on her feet and quickly makes her way to the door of the shed, shrouded by the twilight that has already set in the city.
The door is unlocked and she inwardly celebrates, getting in swiftly and closing the door behind her. She lets her eyes get used to the darkness and she can see a few tools and cleaning products, all covered in dust. Even better, it means no one uses this shed. At least she hopes they don’t, but she can count on luck to give her one night, right?
She sighs, very happy with herself. She puts her backpack down and opens it. She quickly changes clothes and tucks her money in the outside pocket, fluffing the bag into a shape that’s more or less like a pillow.
She lies down on the floor with her head on her makeshift pillow and falls asleep almost immediately.
***
She’s jolted out of her dreamless sleep by the sound of the door flying open. Disoriented, she gasps and covers her eyes from the blinding light.
A dark figure looms over her, its huge frame casts a shadow that’s big enough to swallow her completely.
Panic attacks her senses as her eyes get used to the light.
It’s one of the aliens.
Terrified, she scrambles to her feet and backs away until her body hits the wall.
He has bluish grey skin and golden eyes like all aliens, but this one is bigger than the others. He is huge and muscular. She knows he’ll kill her.
A low growl rumbles through the air and it makes all the hair on her skin stand up.
He takes a few steps into the shed and she screams in terror. Rushing past him, she bolts out the door, running across the backyard, and climbing the fence as fast as she can.
Her knees complain as she lands on the other side. She runs and runs until her lungs are heaving and has to slow down.
It isn’t until she has to stop for air that she realizes she left her backpack with all her credits back in the shed.