Day drove for well into the night and into the slight grayness of morning. She passed several towns, their rooftop copter landings inviting her with their blinking violet lights and Day had to force herself to rise higher into the clouds so they would not be spotted and the anti-radio wave tape that had been attached in long strips to the bottom and sides of the copter could do their thing. Several times she glanced back at the boy, his slumbering form slanted sideways on the bed he had strapped himself into. The bed besides him beckoned her and Day had to resist risking the tilting helicopter and collapsing onto the cushions. 

"Isn't there any autopilot on this thing?" Day grumbled. She looked through the reinforced glass to the horizon, east, where if there were no clouds, the sun would have been rising and casting its warm light over the land. It would've been nourishing the plants back to life. It would've been letting the diurnal creatures see again. 

It would have been a sign of hope in such a dark world. Where true light was gone. 

Day grabbed a coat rack, unstrapped it, and let it crash to the ground. The noise instantly snapped Josh awake, who grumbled and rubbed his eyes, glaring at Day. 

"Oops," she told him. He grumbled some more. 

"Do you have no sense of sympathy, girl?" Josh snapped and his cool eyes were hard with exasperation. 

"That was your wake up call," Day told him with fake cheer. "Your turn to steer! Yay!" 

"You're making nightbreak, Day." Josh growled. "You are looking for a little light in this dark world but you are just taking away the little we have left. Have some empathy. I haven't slept for two nights." 

"Day is night and night is day." She muttered, letting a strand of hair that came lose from her cap fall forward. "At least under these horrid clouds." But the boy shook his head. 

"No." He retorted. "Because it is different than the complete lack. Light filters in through the clouds. If it didn't we would have been dead along time ago." A subtle change came over him. "A long time ago." He repeated quietly. 

"We are finding the daybreak." Day snapped, keeping out the note of longing that tried to filter in through her voice. "There is no nightbreak without it." She yanked the controls sharply to the side as the blinking dot next to them started to blink red. Josh had unstrapped himself and as the copter veered, he slid across the rough carpet abruptly, slamming against the aluminum wall at the back of the helicopter. He groaned, laying there for a second and rubbing at his carpet burns. 

"Forgot to warn you to strap in." Day grinned, raising her hands and displaying the ropes and strings dangling from her fingers where they had automatically wove around her body for the veer.

"My own joke back at me." Josh growled, his fists clenching. "You should be grateful I rescued you from that storm and what do you have to show for it huh? Taking away the precious sleep I have, giving me rug burns, backfiring comments with your sharp tongue every second. How are you going to ruin my life next?" He banged his hand on the wall behind him, and his eyes glimmered with moisture. Day paused, stunned. 

"I never thought of it that way," she whispered. "I'm so sorry." 

"That's to be determined." Josh grunted, his eyes still glimmering with something more than anger. "We need to land. There must be some decent patches of shadow around here." 

Day scanned the horizon until she saw a small dip in the ground, shaded by a patch of poisoned trees, just wide enough for the helicopter to land below and be hidden but rise easily enough. The patch of darkness unnerved her but really, there was no choice. "How about there!" She suggested to Josh, gesturing towards the hollow. He got up and looked, then glanced at her appreciatively. 

"Hmm..." was all he said. "You may be more useful than I thought." '

Thankfully, Josh landed the helicopter. 

"You know," Day growled, "You could have landed the copter anywhere and we wouldn't be seen. 

"I know." Josh replied solemnly, "But they use infrared trackers to locate heat sources and the trees protect that. And during the morning, they could see our shadow." 

Day shivered as the helicopter lights blinked off and she was left in absolute darkness. She strained to see something, anything, but her eyes could not pick up the slightest bit of light. It had to come. She needed the light but she was being swallowed in shadows. Anything could creep up on her now, as the dark swallowed even sound. 

"Josh," she whispered, and startled at her own voice. "Why is there no light from the helicopter on?" But she knew. It was done to conserve energy. He didn't answer. 

A flame. The beginning of fire. 

"You have matches?" Day asked as the boy's face was illuminated in the tiny light. That point of fire dipped down and settled on a white streak in the room Day had missed before. 
A candle. The flame caught on the wax and widened, dancing, flickering, laughing, as it cast the light across the room. Not much, but Day could see. She sighed in relief. "It's only twelve 'o clock." Day stared at the candle. "Once, before there was too much pollution, this was the brightest time of the day." Somewhere not too far away, Day could almost feel Josh stiffen, then relax. 

"You desire the sun more than I thought, ya?" Josh asked. Day strained to see beyond the prick of light that illuminated the objects shrouded in darkness with thin streaks of white and orange, that created a single line down Josh's face where Day could only see his pale cheeks and glittering eyes, whereas if there had been a sun, she could have seen everything shining in all it's brilliance with ease, the colors expanding into a blurred picture before her eyes, bright and joyful. In response to Josh's question, she simply nodded. 

The flame disappeared. Gone, just like that. 

"What... why?" Day started to panic again at the darkness that pressed against her eyes. She would trip, she would fall, she would never get up - 

"Don't. Move." The boy whispered. "Not a word. Not a sound." His breaths blew against her cheek, the silence alarming her in ways she hadn't felt since her father died. 

A bright beam of light fell upon the earth, waving among the hills that it showered with light. The familiar roar of an AirDrone2000 started to sound, the four propellers sticking from the bottom like claws making the air churn with the sound of their blades. Of course they were searching for her, and probably Josh too. She could only make out the slightest glint from his eyes reflecting back the light from the drone. She felt her terrified eyes as they sought the unlit candle. 

Josh threw a black blanket over the two of them. "This is so they can't see our body heat with their infrared goggles," he whispered to her. 

"I didn't even know they had infrared goggles." Day whispered back. 

"Shh..." Josh hissed. Day blinked, surprised. Of course they had infrared goggles, she realized. The poor sector just had never learned about the amazing technological advancements because they were... poor, and the government did not want any uprisings where the poor felt they deserved better quality equipment. They also probably had a sound-sensor. Of course. Day shook her head in muffled anger, their heat quickly making them sweat under the warm blanket. 

The sound from the drone moved away. Josh threw the blanket off of them quickly. Too quickly, Day reflected. 

"That was close," Josh was shivering in fear. "If they had caught me... us..." 

"Why are they so keen on two people?" Day demanded. "AirDrone2000s are very heavily armed and technical drones. Why waste the technology on us?" 

"Erm..." Josh shifted uncomfortably. "Let's just say I'm a very, influential, part of society." He turned his face up to the completely black, afternoon sky, which Day could see because he had lit the candle again. "When- if, they find me, they will drag me back in chains." He shrugged his shoulders. But Day had realized. She didn't know why she hadn't known before. Her whole body started reverberating with alarm. She stepped back in a sudden fear, sweat quickly soaking her brow. 

"Your Josh? The Josh?" she yelped, her back now pressing against the wall where she had crashed earlier, because of him. "The criminal mastermind? Said to have injured at least two hundred innocent people for your sake?" She started trembling. What was he going to do to her?

"I guess I should have warned you." Josh muttered. "But that's me. Though I will say the rumors are slightly exaggerated by the government. I wouldn't call those people innocent. I only hurt those people because they were rich brats come to kill me and turn me in for money for the government. I could have killed them, mind you. I let them live." 

"I should hope you did!" Day nearly shouted, sweating profusely now. "I think forgetting to warn people seems to always be your problem. What are you going to do to me now?" 

"What we were doing before you realized who I was." Josh muttered. 

Suddenly, by candlelight, Day spotted the glints of many, many, eyes surrounding the outside of the helicopter. The people infected by the lack of light, gone crazy. The Sunless; what Day was dangerously close to becoming. How she knew was because she could see their eyes were completely black because their irises were bleeding. 

"Josh," Day whispered, ignoring the fear that came with that name. "We've been found."