"What?!...That can't be right!"

The shopkeeper burrows his mustache as his heavy sigh fills the dreadful upcoming response.
"Sorry, but there was never a package sent here, but maybe it's running late," the shopkeeper affirms. "I'm sorry"

Sean runs his fingers through his hair frantically, trying to pick out a solution to his imminent problem in his strands but to no luck. The package that was suppose to arrive for him consisted of his allowance for the week.
"Alright...are you su-"

"Yes, I am. I'll go looking for you if I ever get anythin'. But for now, there's nothing I can do." the shopkeeper interrupts.

Sean trailed out of the off license dejectedly. Its neon sign flickered gently behind him “StarMart: OPEN 24/7”. He scarcely had the money to buy liquor and his hands were beginning to shake. He scrounged around in his pocket for a cigarette—no luck.

Then, he spotted a butt in the gutter. Bingo. He brushed the gunk off: it was almost entirely unsmoked. He lit the thing and brought it to his lips as sweet relief flowed through him.

He needed that money. It was his strike pay, though it was beginning to look more like severance pay. As meagre as it was, the Eclipse Corp pilots’ strike had been ongoing for months now, and Sean Haverlily had relied on the bundle of 30 Carbons a week to keep himself fed and clothed.

The Union had splintered weeks ago. Some members accepted buyouts. Others disappeared. A few found work off‑world, chasing rumours of better pay on distant moons.

Sean stayed.

Aerilune was home. Its silver‑blue skies, its humming skylanes, its crowded markets and flickering holo‑ads were as much part of him as they were of the city. Leaving felt like cutting out a piece of himself.

He exhaled slowly, watching the breath fog in front of him.“Alright,” he muttered to himself. “Think. There’s got to be another way.”

Sean glanced up at the sky. A shuttle streaked overhead, its engines leaving a faint violet trail. For a moment, he imagined himself in the cockpit again, hands steady, mind sharp, guiding passengers through the stratosphere.

That life felt impossibly far away now.

He crushed the cigarette beneath his boot and continued on home.

The walk home seemed to drag. He could smell the smoke from the cigarette he smoked from his lips, and its smell seemed to mix like oil and water with the smell of the smog in the cold, damp air around him. He'd turned nose-blind to it. When you had lived here, stayed here as long as he did, there was plenty of things you had turned blind to-- Begging lepers on the side-walk, the 35% mortality rate for under 12s, and the bizarre, dystopian state of Aerilune. Aerilune was black and white in the way it either made you or broke you, but to Shawn, it all seemed to be grey. He couldn't remember the last time he had a win or a great show of toughness amidst hardship, or faced a total catastrophe that left him devastated. He couldn't feel anything but indifference for that fact.

He found himself alienating with each other step he took back to home. Maybe the prior Union members were right. This place was limbo. They were right to leave, he thinks. Yet, like a problematic family, he couldn't seem to disregard his loyalty to it, to Aerilune. How could he be so sure those who left were living any better than he was here? What if Aerilune was the best it got? He got conflicted. He wished he could say Aerilune was great. But, at the back of his mind, there was always a nagging voice saying that Aerilune was the worst it got.