Twenty-one years later; Asloria, Erisua

The memory of rain still lingered on her lips as she handed a steaming cup of coffee to a suited man across the counter. Fei Hong offered him a timid smile, though it was not one he reciprocated before he turned away, a look of utter boredom on his features. He walked out the door, leaving her alone with silence as her only companion inside the quaint cafe.

Absentmindedly, Fei Hong's thoughts slid yet again to the new technology that seemed to occupy every niche of her new world.  The augmentation glasses sat perched on her nose, their red, tacky colour clashing with her blue barista uniform. With a small sigh, she slid off her glasses, watching the fragmented lights dance across the lenses. The augmentation lenses cost her three month's pay, but almost everyone in Erisua walked around with a pair of them. With a blink of an eye, users could send money to pay for coffee, view each other's social media profiles and even access directions to the nearest movie cineplex.

Fei Hong shuddered before sliding the glasses onto her face again. She blinked once, closing the visuals from the lenses. With a soft, almost inaudible click, the small lines of information, news and updates vanished from her vision.

She gave a sigh of relief, letting the silence fill her mind.

A lot had changed in twenty years.

Her mind wandered as she thought of the sound of the spaceship's gentle humming engines and the feeling of falling as it had hurtled through the sky. She caught her reflection in the glass of a coffee cup and flinched at the girl who stared back. Sharp cheekbones. Stark, upturned brown eyes on a plain, pale face.

She'd been unconscious for over twenty years, yet she didn't look a day past seventeen, the age she was when she left Earth's surface.

And yet...

Fei Hong fingered her blonde hair; it was the colour of white flame—the colour that had come straight out of a cheap bottle of dye. She'd bought it two hours after setting foot on Erisua, as an effort to fit in with the exotic colour hairstyles and vividness of her new world. But now, a full year after landing on Erisua, she still hadn't grown used to the girl she had become.

Shivering, she stared at the shadow of a stranger looking back. Her heart clenched with the ache she'd become accustomed to over the last few months. Regret. The bitter feeling was no stranger to her, but she'd become skilled in pushing it aside and leaving it in the corners of her mind.

Which was what she did now. She tore her eyes away from her warped reflection.

Her eyes lingered on the pouring rain outside the cafe's windows. There was an intense anxiety to the rain, almost as if between the tumbling cloud and the earth it was fearful of never reaching its destination. She smiled ruefully, her eyes tracing the cascading raindrops that trickle, washing the dust from the windows.

If he was here...

Perhaps his lips would curl in his lopsided smile, eyes twinkling with mischief as he tugged her into the rain, underneath the monochrome sky. Perhaps, if he hadn't caught the spiderweb virus, she wouldn't have had to leave Earth... Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Fei Hong clenched her jaw, hating the fickle, tiny word.

There's no use in remembering, Fei Hong told herself firmly, pushing the torn memories aside. But her thoughts couldn't help wandering.

Was he alive? By some miracle, had he somehow escaped the grip of the virus? The impossible thoughts swirled inside her head. There was no way. She had combed through countless reports of the virus after arriving on Erisua. All victims died within three months. There were no survivors.

She tried to even out her breaths, focusing on the intricate splashes and patterns engraved on the marble countertop. It was no use; the memories pummelled her and it swept her off her feet like a current.

His eyes, empty and sullen. Their blue vividness long gone, leaving only a haunted, faded blue that was a whisper of the glorious colour.

Their hushed conversations of a deadly virus that swept the surface of the Earth. Him, pleading with her, telling her to leave him behind.

Thin white lines, prominent against his dark skin. Tracing their way around his arms. Up to his neck. On his back. Like a spiderweb.

His hands raised, palms facing out as he took trembling steps back. Stop. Stay away, his eyes seemed to scream.

Him under the rain, his tears mingling-

The sound of soft chimes at the door broke her thoughts, and she lifted her head, grateful for the distraction.

"Fei Hong!"

A girl skidded into the shop, breathless as she smiled at Fei Hong. Her cafe uniform was splattered with heavy raindrops but she grinned mischievously, tying her violet hair into a sleek ponytail. She peered at Fei Hong through thin, platinum brushed lenses, giving her a crooked smile.

Fei Hong couldn't help smiling back, dispelling the thoughts of him. Marice was the first, and only, friend she had. Two months after she had landed in Erisua, she'd woken up at one morning to someone pounding on her apartment door. She'd opened it to find Marice standing there, with a grin plastered on her face and a crumpled box of chocolates in her hand.

It had turned out that Marice was her new neighbour; she'd moved from the fringes of Asloria to the central city, hoping to make a name for herself. Since then, they had been almost inseparable.

"I'll cover the rest of your shift for tonight. Tell your grandmother I said hello," Marice said, gently nudging Fei Hong towards the cafe doors.

Fei Hong allowed a small grin of relief and gratitude.

"Thanks, Marice," she whispered, ducking her head as she slipped out of the cafe and outside.

"Anytime."

Fei Hong blinked, turning visuals on in her augmentation lenses as she stepped outside. Immediately, a string of text winked into existence, providing her directions to the nearest transportation system that would take her home.

She glanced up to see a ship sailing overhead, its smooth white contours gleaming in the sunset. It was a miracle that scientists could get something so huge flying in the sky. Fei Hong shuddered, imagining hurtling through the sky in the belly of such a huge vessel.

Turning her gaze away, she scanned the pedestrians on the streets. Beside her, a girl with a pair of fox ears poking out of her curls giggled to a blue-haired boy beside her. As they walked past her, Fei Hong could make out her modded eyes. They were large and round, with huge irises in a startling orange shade.

Fei Hong glanced away, though she really couldn't blame her. Modding was as common and effortless as breathing, allowing users to warp almost anything; there were a million possibilities and physical features that you could change. Just last week, Marice had bought a mod that changed her eyes the colour of molten gold.

With a small sigh, Fei Hong wrapped her arms around herself, keeping her head lowered.

She closed her eyes, feeling a rush of loneliness as she felt her eyes brim with unshed tears. Try as she might, it was like she could never fit in with her new home.

⟡

Fei Hong was first by the smell of wontons wafting through the small kitchen of their apartment long before she spotted the frail form of her grandmother, bent over the kitchen stove.

"Wàipó?" [Grandmother?]

Her grandmother's face broke into a grin, the wrinkles disappearing as the age seemed to drain out of her features. Her deep brown eyes sparkled, so different from the vacant, empty expression Fei Hong had grown used to in the past years. The doctors on Erisua had said that she would still have good days; days where remnants of her memories would linger, though they would one day become outnumbered by the bad ones.

One day, Fei Hong reminded herself. But not today.

"Rin Hong! You've come home at last. What did I tell you about working late?" Her grandmother scolded. She set down a bowl of steaming broth on the table. "I've made wontons again, for you. Su Hong will come home soon, he's...he's..."

At this, a hint of confusion seemed to wash over her features, but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

"He's probably outside, tending to the garden. You know how he is about his flowers," she said finally.

Fei Hong flinched at the sound of her parents' names, though she quickly masked it with a small smile. "I'm Fei Hong," she reminded patiently.

Gently, almost delicately, she took her grandmother's weathered hand in her own, guiding her to a tattered chair at the table.

Her grandmother's face clouded with confusion; her features seemed to grow older and wilt before Fei Hong's eyes. When she spoke again, her voice drooped like wilted petals of a sunflower.

"Oh. I'm sorry, Xīngān [my heart]. I must have forgotten again." At this, her hands became steel-like; almost desperate as they held onto her granddaughter's.

"Wàipó?"

But she only shook her head slowly, and Fei Hong felt her heart clench in response. Wordlessly, she stroked her grandmother's trembling hand, watching helplessly as a small tear traced down her paper-thin skin and shallow cheeks.

"You're my only family," she whispered finally in reply. "I came to take care of you; I'm getting paid more now. I'll be able to afford medication—better medication! Don't worry..."

At this, she began to hum a familiar childhood lullaby, and she smiled as her grandmother's features finally relaxed under the soothing tune. It had stopped raining. Her grey hair gleamed underneath the sun overhead, painting her frail figure in a soft, dappled orange glow.

And just for that split second, watching the fire dance in her grandmother's eyes, Fei Hong could pretend that everything was okay-if only for a minute.

Fei Hong exhaled slowly, giving her grandmother a smile before delicately taking her hand away. She poured a bowl of steaming wonton and was turning back into the kitchen for a fork when her grandmother spoke.

"Fei Hong? Where is the boy? That one with the beautiful blue eyes. I liked him; he had kind eyes. You should invite him to dinner sometime."

Fei Hong froze, and the ice in her chest seemed to crack as she swallowed, fighting the tears that welled up in her eyes. A starving kind of pain gnawed at her stomach, and she felt the emptiness pull at her.

"Oh. He's...He's... not coming anymore. He told me to go ahead without him. Things wouldn't have worked out between us anyways, wài pó."

Fei Hong's nails dug into her palm, and she felt a pang of guilt for the half-truths she told her grandmother. But she took a deep breath, swiping the back of her hand across her cheek to wipe away the tears.

Her grandmother seemed to have forgotten her question, for she just patted the chair beside her, her smile bright on her tear-stained cheeks.

"Come watch the rain with me, Rin Hong. You used to love the rain."