Avaria's eyes flicked open like a switch. Her sleep was dreamless, which was perfectly normal for her race, who shunned nonsensical thoughts even while they were sleeping. 

She found herself looking at ceiling tiles that might have been white many years ago, but had since yellowed and cracked like the pages of an ancient text. These same tiles had mocked her with their dilapidated hopelessness every morning for the last ten years. She swung her feet onto the floor, the rough material that masqueraded as a sheet scratching across her bare legs and abdomen. A dull light hesitantly whirred to life, prompted by the movement. 

Grungy walls. Cold floor. Two hooks. One mirror, slightly cracked. Flimsy table. Disappointingly, her grim world had failed to make any attempt at a transformation since the night before. With the same sigh that seemed to start each of her days, she rose to her feet and made her bed. Her morning routine began as she parted her long white hair and expertly arranged both sections into precise but slightly frizzy braids starting from her hairline.

A hundred pushups. A hundred sit-ups. A hundred squats.

Only slightly out of breath due to years of conditioning her body, she trudged over to the mirror to get dressed. She paused there for a moment, her bright silver eyes drawn to the three small red rings that hung from her left ear, signifying that she was the lowest class of society possible, so far below the others that she wasn't a part of society at all. 

Instead, she was banished to live in a place that many thought of as the edge of the world. Even if she could remove the condemning rings, the brand on her wrist would always reveal the truth of where she stood in the Chorlak hierarchy: a member of the Marred. 

She took her black torso wrap from its peg and wrapped the long strip of material around her abdomen a couple of times, then over her chest and upper back in an 'x' pattern. Upon reaching the end, she laced it into place at her side with white twine. 

When she was younger, she was optimistic enough to daydream while undergoing the tedious task of dressing herself. She would imagine what life might be like if her ear held two silver rings, displaying for all to see that she was a Chorlak Warrior. 

Supposedly, when the facility was set up hundreds of years ago, the decision was made to provide the Marred with a training facility. They were told that if they trained hard enough, if they became so strong that they could prove they were valuable to their people, they would be integrated into society. 

When Avaria was young, she believed it, pushing herself every day to surpass the skill of her peers. Now, she wondered if it was anything but a myth, passed from generation to generation in a vain attempt to spare themselves from a hopeless existence.

She pulled black pants up to her waist and laced the two-inch slits down each side together with more white twine. 

Closing her eyes for a moment, she took a deep, cleansing breath. The small room felt stifling as if she might suddenly run out of breathable air. The notion was ridiculous, but the space seemed so dead that it was somehow fathomable. More eager than usual to leave her allotted portion of the prison, she hurried to pull on her boots and tie them, not wasting another second before leaving the space and closing the door behind her. 

The hallway she now stood in wasn't much better, but it was long enough to trick the mind, just for a second, into thinking something interesting might be farther ahead. Her morning run took her up and down each corridor at least once and finished at the foot of the stairs that led to the tower. 

She was winded from her run, but she didn't mind, she never did. This was the only part of her day that she came close to enjoying, and she wouldn't be late because she stopped to catch her breath.

She took the stairs two at a time, dodging every loose step and untrustworthy crack with practiced ease.

Stepping into the glass observatory felt something like emerging from a thick smog. Unlike anywhere else in the windowless facility, from here, she could look out at her home planet. It wasn't a remarkable view; to the west she could just barely see the outline of endless hexagonal buildings, to the east lay the barren Ruins, and in between was a sea of white grass obscuring the light tan dirt beneath it. Fortunately, she didn't come here each day at dawn with any delusions about admiring the landscape. 

The first sun peeked over the horizon, casting a glow out into the world that just began to dim the stars and lend a slight glimmer to the blades of grass below them. This was the only moment out of every day she allowed herself to reflect on the life that she had lost. She didn't want to forget who she had been, but dwelling on it too often would distract her.

The second sun began to show itself beside the first, and she closed her eyes, allowing herself to remember in vivid detail the countless times she sat on a metal roof with her mother, watching these same suns climb into the sky. These moments of reprieve helped her maintain just enough peace to keep going and cling to some shred of faith that life would be good again someday, even knowing deep in her soul that it was likely such hopes were condemned to end in disappointment. 

She could never think of her mother without the woman's final words snapping to attention at the front of her brain like a pesky magnet. 'Choose to see the beauty in life,' she'd said, a final attempt to instill her daughter with a sense of hope and wonder that could somehow survive the harshness of the life she'd face. 

Avaria could never forget these words, but she couldn't honestly claim that she lived by them, or that she had even attempted to in a very long time. Even the breathtaking sunrises before her felt as empty as the vacuum of space, only a comfort to her because they brought with them the memory of her mother's arm around her shoulders. 

When she was young, she truly lived in awe of the world, her nature so bright and colorful that she could delight in every detail of even the most mundane aspects of life. The years she had lived since then had drained her, turned her world black and white in a way. She knew now how much pain and despair swirled about without mercy, like a never-ending tornado. 

Maybe there was still beauty out there somewhere, but there was certainly none in the concrete structure that enclosed her and nearly two hundred and fifty others in the same situation as she was. It was like a black hole, consuming everything that dared cross its path. Sooner or later, every Chorlak that resided within the Marred facility deteriorated into lifeless shells. 

Entertaining such thoughts about the life she had been confined to sparked an all too familiar strand of resentment deep in her heart. After all, it was her parents' doings that brought her here. It was their fault she was trapped in this mind-numbing abyss. 

She had only lasted a few weeks before anger towards them began to spark at the corners of her subconscious. Nonetheless, she couldn't bring herself to stop coming to watch the suns rise. It was her final connection to the only two Chorlak she had ever known who valued sentimental things like hope or love, and deep down, she couldn't bear to sever it. 

She opened her eyes, finding that the second sun now stood proudly above the horizon, filling the world with a soft light as far as the eye could see. The suns' rises were over.

She took a moment to banish the emotions bouncing through her brain before she headed to the food room, almost on autopilot. Already, Chorlak nearly filled the room, yet despite so many being gathered together, it was virtually silent. It always was, there was nothing worth saying or worth hearing. No one had done anything exciting yesterday, or the day before, or even the day before that. 

After grabbing a wooden bowl from the nearly empty stack, she got in line. The daily meal was the somewhat suspenseful part of each day when they would learn how much of society's leftovers had made it into their food machine. 

With her bowl held expectantly under the spout of the contraption, she pulled the crank. It rattled and sputtered in protest, but surrendered a dollop of thick, blended-up substance to her bowl. It was barely enough to call a meal today. She took her meager portions with a suppressed sigh, grabbed an eating stick, and claimed the nearest chair. The colorful mush in her bowl looked repulsive and smelled funny, but she was so hungry that the thought to reject it never occurred.

She jammed her stick into it with a sloppy sounding 'plunk,' shoveled a bit into her mouth and swallowed without chewing, effectively minimizing her contact with the concoction. It didn't need to be chewed anyway; the machine did that all on its own. It felt like sticky gel creeping down her throat, but she didn't react, she was well accustomed to the sensation.

A figure emerged at the edge of her vision as he situated himself into the neighboring chair. Still, his arrival wasn't nearly intriguing enough to draw her attention from consuming the muck before her. 

She already knew what he was going to say anyway.

“Dusk.” His voice sounded unreasonably loud, even though it was an average speaking volume. The silence seemed to amplify it. 

She quirked an eyebrow in agreement as if his statement had been much more in-depth than the lone word he had offered. She glanced at him just long enough to catch him nod, concluding their unspoken exchange.

It was time to make a little bit of trouble.