THE LAST SANCTUARY OF NEON SKY

No one alive remembered the real color of the sky.

Official history, as recorded by the Ministry of Perspective, stated that Earth’s atmosphere had always shimmered in neon hues—pulsing blues, electric greens, and streaks of violent pink that twisted like serpents across the heavens. Anyone who questioned it was, by definition, “Factually Distorted,” and removed for “Cognitive Rehabilitation.”

Lira Kessan, age seventeen, kept her eyes down whenever the sky flickered.

People were watching.

Someone always was.

Ever since the Ascendant Regime took power forty years ago, every citizen has had an EchoBand locked to their wrist—monitoring heart rate, tone of voice, and emotional fluctuation. Lies or “potential rebellious inclinations” triggered a silent alarm.

Nobody dared to dream.

Nobody dared to remember.

But Lira did.

Because, unlike everyone else in Sector 12, Lira had a secret: she remembered a blue sky. A real one.

The memory came in flashes—small, painful shards of something impossibly beautiful. She had been maybe four or five. Her mother was laughing… sunlight was warm on her face… and the sky above her was a soft, endless blue that didn’t shimmer or pulse.

For years, Lira convinced herself the memory was a glitch—something corrupted in her cognition file. But every time she saw the neon sky ripple like a digital screen, she knew something was wrong.

And she was going to find out what it was.

Even if it killed her.

________________________________________

The day everything changed began like any other.

Gray morning. Mechanical voices issuing reminders. Citizens marching in silent lines toward their assigned tasks.

Lira worked in Archive Maintenance—cleaning memory vaults, repairing corruption leaks, and organizing government-approved historical files. It was dull, but safe. She kept her head down, stayed quiet, and avoided the Ministry’s attention.

Around midday, the lights flickered.

Sparks danced along the ceiling like nervous fireflies. The monitors lining the walls—massive screens pulsing with government propaganda—glitched violently.

For 2.7 seconds, the sky on every monitor turned blue.

Not neon.

Not pulsing.

Not fabricated.

Pure, soft, natural blue.

Then the screens snapped back, screaming the Regime anthem in distorted bursts.

Everyone froze.

Everyone except Lira.

Because just before the monitors corrected themselves, a message appeared in the static:

“If you remember the real sky, find me. Warehouse 11. Midnight.”

Her heart hammered against her ribs so hard her EchoBand warmed, registering emotional irregularities.

She forced her breath steady.

Smile.

Calm.

Compliant.

Eventually, the alarm on her wrist cooled down.

But her mind was burning.

Someone else remembered.

Someone knew.

And they wanted her.

________________________________________

Warehouse 11 was on the edge of the district, abandoned for decades after a chemical spill. Or so the Regime claimed.

Lira slipped out past curfew—hood up, face mask on, EchoBand muffled inside a makeshift signal disruptor she had built from discarded Archive parts. Illegal to create. Illegal to possess. Absolutely illegal to use.

She did all three.

Inside the warehouse, shadows clung to corners like terrified animals. Machinery lay rusted and broken. A chill hung in the air, thick with forgotten stories.

“You came,” a voice whispered.

A figure stepped out from behind a stack of crates—a boy around her age, maybe a year older. Dark hair, sharp eyes, posture too tense to be anything but scared.

“My name is Kade.” He raised his hands, palms out. “I’m not a Ministry agent. I swear.”

“How do I know?” Lira asked.

He smiled softly. “Because Ministry agents don’t risk execution to send illegal broadcasts.”

He tapped his own EchoBand—covered, like hers, by a jamming device.

Lira’s voice dropped. “Why did you send that message?”

“Because,” Kade said, stepping closer, “you’re not the only one who remembers.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a shard of glass—thin, shimmering, reflective.

But the reflection in it wasn’t the warehouse.

It was a blue sky.

Lira staggered. “How—?”

“The neon sky is a projection,” Kade said. “A manufactured overlay. They’re hiding the real world from us.”

Her breath caught. “Why?”

“Because the sky tells the truth,” he said. “And the truth destroys them.”

________________________________________

Kade led her through a secret tunnel beneath the warehouse—a forgotten system used before the Regime erased half of old Earth’s infrastructure.

Lira tried to speak, but every word felt like it pressed against her ribs.

“You’re sure this isn’t a trap?” she asked.

“Pretty sure,” he whispered.

“Comforting.”

They reached a circular chamber with old-world servers humming faintly. Machines are long banned by the Regime. Screens flickering with unfiltered data.

“This is the Sanctuary,” Kade said. “The last place where the Regime’s signal can’t rewrite reality.”

Lira’s eyes widened. “Rewrite reality?”

He nodded grimly. “They control perception. They rewrite memories. They decide what’s real. Anyone who resists loses their identity.”

“And the sky?”

“It’s the first lie they told,” he said. “No one questions the sky. So no one questions anything.”

He led her to a console.

“Look.”

With trembling fingers, Kade activated a projection.

A hologram of Earth appeared.

Lira gasped.

Outside the neon overlay, the sky was red. Not from pollution—something worse.

“The world is dying,” Kade whispered. “The Regime keeps us calm with illusions so we won’t revolt. They claim the planet is stable, safe, endless. It’s not.”

“But why hide it?”

He looked at her, expression hollow.

“Because panic leads to rebellion. Rebellion leads to collapse. Collapse leads to the one thing they fear most.”

“Freedom,” Lira whispered.

Kade nodded.

________________________________________

Before Lira could ask more, alarms erupted.

A metallic voice boomed through the Sanctuary:

“UNAUTHORIZED INDIVIDUALS. IDENTITY MATCH DETECTED. PREPARE FOR EXTRACTION.”

Kade grabbed her hand.

“We have to run!”

They sprinted through the tunnels as drones descended—red lights slicing through darkness. Lira’s EchoBand heated violently, trying to override her emotional spikes.

Her vision blurred.

Her breath hitched.

“Don’t let it control you!” Kade shouted.

They burst into the open—onto the rooftop of an abandoned skyscraper overlooking Sector 12.

The neon sky pulsed above them.

Kade squeezed her hand. “Look closely. Past the projection.”

She tried.

For a moment, she saw nothing.

And then—

A flicker.

A glitch.

A tear in the sky.

Lira’s heart froze.

Through the neon haze, she saw the real world.

The broken world.

The world they were meant to fear.

Dark clouds.

Ravaged atmosphere.

A sun struggling to shine.

The truth.

Drones swarmed behind them.

Kade turned to her, breathless. “Lira, listen—there’s a way to break the illusion. To show everyone what’s real. But only someone with an uncorrupted childhood memory can do it.”

“You mean me.”

“You’re the key. The last unedited witness.” He swallowed. “If you broadcast your memory to the entire grid, you can collapse the projection.”

Lira stared at him. “And if I fail?”

“They’ll erase you.”

Her chest tightened.

Her mother’s laugh.

Warm sunlight.

The blue sky.

All of it is real.

All of it is fading.

She took Kade’s hand.

“Show me what to do.”

________________________________________

They reached the tower’s central transmitter—a massive spire of metal and screens.

Kade smashed open the access panel.

“Place your EchoBand here. Let it pull your memory. Let the world see.”

Lira hesitated.

Not out of fear—out of hope.

She pressed her wrist down.

Pain exploded up her arm.

The machine roared to life.

Her memory—the blue sky—flashed across every screen in the city.

Citizens froze mid-step.

Ministry officers stumbled.

Drones malfunctioned.

The sky above flickered—once, twice, violently.

Then it shattered like glass.

The neon illusion collapsed.

For the first time in forty years, the world saw the truth.

The air trembled with collective shock.

Kade smiled weakly. “You did it.”

Then the alarms screamed.

Armored agents rushed onto the rooftop.

“Run,” he whispered.

“No,” Lira said, gripping his hand. “We face them together.”

And for the first time, the world felt real.

Not beautiful.

Not safe.

But real.

And worth saving.