"Chest Number two thousand two hundred and twenty-nine, " a high pitched voice called. Alizeh almost tumbled out of her seat, adjusted her glasses and rushed to the counter where the receptionist who had been yawning for the past half an hour, gave her an irritated glance.

"Name?" she asked in a monotonous voice.

"Alizeh Parekh."

"Profession?"

"My father is a businessman—"

"Your profession please, Miss," the receptionist looked up for the first time in almost an hour and Alizeh could see the haunted eyes behind her rimmed glasses.

She was young, hardly in her late twenties but the toll of the war was visible on her face already. Alizeh wondered if this was what people saw when they looked at her too — an empty shell of a human being.

The receptionist was tapping her nails impatiently on the desk.

"Why do you need to know my profession though?" Alizeh asked.

"We don't ask questions here, Miss. Lots of people queuing behind you for their turn."
As if in tandem, a few grunts and sighs came up from behind her.

"I'm a writer."

The receptionist's head shot up again,
"A writer? What is that supposed to mean?"

Alizeh was a bit taken aback. She knew writing wasn't a cool and respectable profession to adopt, especially in the post-war period. But that was who she was, on the inside.

Swallowing some bitter comments she finally said, "I write books."

"Oh! You mean the artist class, right?" the receptionist typed away furiously on her keyboard.

"Yeah, if you mean in that way then writing is obviously an art but—"

"Cloud Nine," the receptionist cut her off.

"Aahh... What?"

"You're to be accommodated on Cloud Number Nine in the Cloud Kingdom of Audra," she explained, handing over a small slip. "Show this at the landing entrance."

"Okay, but..."

"Your plane is waiting. If you're packed and ready, it's best to escape before the traffic becomes too heavy, " she advised in a matter-of-fact way.

"But..."

The man behind Alizeh had already moved forward. So she quietly pulled away from the counter and went to collect her backpack.

Alizeh had no idea that people were sorted into clouds based on their profession. After World War Three, nuclear weapons had made the soil unfit for living. So, the Cloud Kingdom of Audra, which was once just a tourist destination, was now all expanded and set to house the last remaining pockets of humans.

"How bad can it get?" she mused. "At least I'll be living with a bunch of creative people."

Alizeh now regretted not moving to the moon when she had the time. Her father was a business tycoon and a billionaire. He took her mother and her younger brother, Monish, to their house on the moon.

But Alizeh wanted to stay back on earth because the moon was too drab to stir her imaginations. She couldn't write a single line in her three days' stay and felt suffocated. Thus, she had returned. And just after that, the war broke out and the passage to the moon was stopped. The earth base lost all connections with the moon.

Alizeh was a little worried, but the moon was self-sufficient. Hopefully, it would still manage by itself without supplies from the earth.

Nine-tenth of the earth was now wiped out as a result of the fallout of the nuclear war and the rest were shifting to the Audra. At least it was safer, though not radiation free.

"I'll escape to the moon as soon as possible anyway, " Alizeh thought as she looked around the tarmac for her plane to Cloud Nine. It was especially marked with a big nine on its body.

All this secrecy about Cloud Nine did creep her out, kind of. Something was amiss. When the security at the airport had asked for her boarding pass, he had gawked at her in a weird way on seeing 'Cloud Nine' printed in bold letters. The people going to other boarding queues glanced uneasily at the queue for the artists' cloud. There was a silent hostility in all stares.

"Hi there," her overly enthusiastic co-passenger swooped on her as soon as she had settled herself on the seat.

"Hi," she gave an awkward smile, peering over the top of her spectacles.

The girl beside her smelled of cheap perfume, which was so obnoxious, almost as if someone had bathed her in essence. She had a mop of black hair pasted on her scalp with gel and a contagious smile. But Alizeh wasn't in the mood for socialising.

She had been born and brought up in aristocracy and had known a delicate sense of dressing up. The loud taste of her co-passenger's fashion made Alizeh nauseated. The girl was wearing a large beaded necklace over her tank top and chunky earrings like chocolate.

"So, I'm Nina," she smiled again and Alizeh could see silvery braces on her teeth, like a teenager.

She noticed her closely and realised how young she looked. She was hardly eighteen but her eyes had that same haunted look of those that had faced the war and its aftermath. Alizeh almost felt bad for this girl who was perhaps forced to take responsibilities before her time.

"Hey, " the girl waved a hand in front of her eyes.

"Sorry, I zoned out!" she apologised, pretending to search through her handbag.

"Alizeh! You can call me Alizeh!" she added on second thought.

"Nice knowing you. Are you an artist too?"

"I'm a writer," Alizeh said.

"Oooo! Alizeh Parekh. I've read your book. NEVER SINCE EVER right?"

Alizeh had expected a denial as usual. She was shocked to hear that Nina had read her book.

"I too wanted to publish my own book, " she looked down, fidgeting with her hands.

"So do it."

"There are no publishers like the ones who used to be in my grandma's time. There are no, what were they called?" she paused, looking expectantly at Alizeh who just shrugged. "Yes, libraries and book shops. How many of them publish traditionally these days? Besides, there is no writing freedom. Every word is censored."

"Why would you want to write something you shouldn't? You can always self publish —" Alizeh began to say but stopped short on seeing the look on Nina's face.

Publishing a book was almost equal to spending your entire annual salary on it. Without trees, the paper had become too costly for a common man. So the few books that had made it through the crisis, had been made into e-books. and every single word went through scrutiny before it could be published. It was to prevent inciting rebellion and hate — or so they say.

"Sorry. My daddy had paid for it. I guess, that worked out to my advantage, " Alizeh whispered.

Nina wasn't looking at her anymore and was suddenly interested in the sky outside.

Alizeh sighed. She knew that she was bad at conversation and now had lost the opportunity to make a friend once again, just like every single time in the past.