The café smelled of burnt bread and bitter coffee, a scent so thick it seemed to cling to the walls and the tired souls that wandered through. Time itself felt exhausted here, as if the hours had been drained of color and light, leaving only a pall of grease, soot, and sorrow hovering in the air. Rimora moved slowly, methodically, wiping the last table with the corner of a frayed cloth. Her hands trembled—not from weakness, but from the relentless, numbing rhythm of a life bound to ceaseless work. The bell above the door jingled once more, echoing hollowly through the near-empty space. For a fleeting second, her heart lifted in hope, and she imagined her mother returning, carrying the unborn child she had promised—a sister or brother who would never exist.
Her eyes flicked to the cracked glass window, and the moment shattered. Only emptiness stared back, reflecting a pale, thin girl with eyes stormy enough to challenge the world, eyes that carried grief deeper than words could hold. She saw herself as she truly was: fragile yet defiant, worn yet unbroken. Every day felt like a procession of silent funerals. Her mother, snatched away by Erebis before Rimora could even whisper a goodbye. Her father, trapped between life and death, a half-breathing shadow in a hospital bed, confined to the gray haze of coma. And the child she never had a chance to know, the sibling buried before its first cry—Rimora carried all these losses in her bones, a constant ache that no warmth could soothe.
Yet even in this ruin, she stood upright, a candle flickering stubbornly against the suffocating darkness. Her shoulders, though slight, bore the weight of grief with quiet courage. She moved with purpose, sweeping crumbs into the corners, adjusting chairs, straightening menus—small, insignificant acts, but each one a declaration that she would not be crushed by the world. The café, the city, the endless struggle—none of it could extinguish her. Inside her, a storm roared, a fire of defiance and remembrance that refused to die, even when the body grew weary, even when hope seemed a distant whisper.
The air was thick with memories she could not escape. She remembered her mother's gentle touch, the lullabies that once carried warmth into cold nights, now replaced by silence and bitter regret. The phantom laughter of her lost sibling seemed to echo through the walls whenever she paused to catch her breath. Even as she moved through the motions of her day, Rimora felt the invisible weight of her past pressing down, a constant reminder of everything she had lost. Yet she bore it all with the quiet strength of someone who knew that surrender was never an option, someone who had learned that scars, though painful, could also become armor.
Her reflection in the window remained, staring back like a witness to her own endurance. Thin, pale, and trembling—but unbroken. Her stormy eyes, bright against the dimness of the café, seemed to challenge the world itself. In that moment, Rimora was both fragile and indomitable, a single flame in a place designed to snuff it out. And though the night ahead promised more struggles, more silent battles, she would face them all. She would endure, she would survive, and somehow, she would remain unbowed.
When she returned home from the café that night, Rimora moved quietly through the small, dimly lit room, careful not to disturb the fragile stillness that hung over her father's bed. She opened the rusted tin box and carefully placed the day's meager earnings inside, each coin and note feeling heavier than its weight in metal, each one a tiny promise of a future she could barely imagine. Leaning closer, she whispered to him, her voice trembling, "One day… one day you'll wake, and I'll make sure they give you back what they stole." His chest rose and fell in a mechanical rhythm, the shallow, lifeless motion of a body that no longer remembered how to live. She rested her forehead against the mattress, murmuring the events of her day as though they could seep into him, as if the words themselves might summon him back from the quiet void.
She spoke of the customers who had snapped at her over the smallest mistakes, the laughter she had forced from her throat to keep up appearances, the careful pretense that kept her from breaking under the manager's gaze. And she spoke of the tears she had stolen in the back alley, hidden and silent, a secret rebellion against the world that demanded strength she could not always feel. Each word was a ritual, a delicate chant of survival, repeated nightly in the hope that it might awaken life within the shell of her father's body. She never allowed herself to cry in front of him; even the faintest quiver of despair could never reach his ears. She could not let his spirit—wherever it lingered—see her surrender.
But when darkness fell fully, and the city outside exhaled its weary sighs, Rimora lay on her cot staring at the cracked ceiling above, letting her mind wander into the only places she could call her own. In the quiet, she imagined herself as president of the New Cities, standing on a grand platform before thousands of eyes, her voice strong and unyielding as she decreed equality. She saw the invisible walls of privilege and poverty crumble beneath her words, the rich forced to reckon with their excess, the poor lifted from despair, the middle struggling no more. Her fingers itched as though she could reach into reality and tear down the barriers herself, command storms to cleanse injustice, and build bridges where there were only walls.
These visions were both a balm and a torment. They gave her strength in moments when her body ached and her heart felt hollow, but they reminded her with every sunrise that reality remained unchanged. When she awoke, the ceiling still loomed cracked and gray above her, and her stomach still ached with emptiness, the harsh reminder that no dream could fill what the world had taken. Yet, even in that relentless disappointment, a stubborn ember burned within her—an ember of defiance, of hope, of refusal to yield.
Night after night, she repeated the ritual, each time weaving a fragile bridge between her harsh present and the imagined future. She whispered her plans to her father, her dreams to the silent room, as though speaking aloud could give them weight, could give them life. And though the world continued to grind her down, though hunger and fatigue clawed at her from every angle, Rimora held on to the fire within her chest. It was her armor, her rebellion, and her salvation—all at once.
At the café, Rimora's life moved in a rhythm that had become both familiar and unbearable, like a reel spinning endlessly with no pause or escape. She carried steaming mugs of bitter coffee to men whose voices rang with authority, discussing politics and power as though their words could shape the world, while she remained invisible, a ghost moving among the living. She wiped crumbs from tables where couples whispered, argued, or laughed over scraps of affection, their petty dramas magnified by hunger and longing, and she carried plates heavy with food she was never allowed to taste, each dish a reminder of the privileges denied to her. The clatter of dishes, the hiss of the coffee machine, the low hum of conversations—all became the soundtrack of her survival, a monotonous cadence she had learned to endure without complaint.
Then I entered, my steps careful, measured, trying not to draw unnecessary attention. I could feel her eyes on me almost immediately, though she pretended not to. I ordered a black coffee, my voice soft, almost too quiet for the bustling café. Yet it carried a weight I couldn't hide—the weight of someone who had walked through hunger, loss, and the constant shadow of rejection. I could see her study me, her glance flickering with curiosity, maybe even a hint of something she didn't want to name. I didn't look at her as someone to serve me; I looked at her as someone real, someone enduring, someone who had her own battles written across her posture, her hands, her tired eyes.
Across from me, Lbow lounged, relaxed, radiating the comfort and arrogance that came naturally to someone born into privilege. His presence made me stiffen slightly, a reminder of everything I'd been denied, of the walls I had tried—and failed—to climb. He smiled casually, tossing a coin onto the table with the careless ease of wealth that didn't understand struggle. I felt a flicker of irritation, but my eyes never left Rimora, who moved through the café with a quiet dignity, doing her work with the grace of someone carrying burdens invisible to the world.
Rimora's gaze was sharp, almost cutting, when it flicked toward me, and I realized she hated Lbow instinctively, the way one hates a flame burning too brightly in the darkness, exposing every shadow we try to hide. I understood that hatred, that fire. I had felt it myself, though in my own battles it had been directed at the world that refused to recognize merit, that judged me for being from City 1. I wanted to ease that tension, show her that not all men were blind to suffering, that some of us carried our scars like shields, not shame.
As I waited for my coffee, I studied her movements carefully, noting the subtle tremble in her hands as she wiped the last table, the way she moved with a balance of fatigue and resilience. I wanted her to see that I understood—because I did. I had known loss, had known poverty, had known what it was like to stand and serve while your stomach ached and your mind screamed for more. And somehow, silently, in that crowded café filled with noise and greed, a fragile recognition passed between us: two people carrying invisible scars, acknowledging each other without words, understanding the battles the world had forced upon us.
Over the following days, I returned to the café, sometimes alone, sometimes with Lbow trailing behind me, his easy laughter filling the space in a way that always made me tense. I noticed the way Rimora's eyes flickered toward me when I entered, the subtle tightening of her jaw, the almost imperceptible pause in her movements. Slowly, I realized that my presence had an effect—walls she had built around herself, walls forged from years of struggle and pain, were beginning to tremble. I could feel it too, a strange pull whenever she moved close, whenever our hands brushed briefly while I helped clear a table, or when she poured coffee with the care of someone aware of every drop.
She seemed drawn to me, not just because I helped, but because I listened. She spoke in fragments at first—snippets of her day, a passing complaint about a rude customer, a small sigh about the back-breaking work she endured. I never flinched, never dismissed her words, even when they carried bitterness or frustration. I understood those fragments. I had lived with loss myself—a father gone too soon, a mother whose absence left a scar on my heart, a brother trapped in confusion and pain that I could neither fix nor escape. In our quiet conversations, a fragile thread of trust began to weave itself between us, stretching across the ruins of our respective lives.
After closing, I often lingered. I helped wipe counters, carried boxes too heavy for her arms, and we worked side by side in silence more often than words. I noticed her posture relax in these moments, her shoulders easing just slightly, her hands moving more fluidly. Though she never admitted it, I could sense that she began to feel something rare—companionship, a quiet understanding that someone saw her, truly saw her, and didn't turn away.
Lbow's presence, however, always complicated things. I could see the tension it created in her—the way her eyes hardened, her lips pressing into a thin line whenever he entered the café. She despised him not for who he was personally, but for what he represented: wealth, privilege, the unearned ease of a life she had never known. Every smile he gave, every careless gesture, seemed to mock her struggle. I tried to bridge the space, to show that not all men carried that weightless arrogance, but I could not erase the bitterness his existence stirred in her.
To her, Lbow was more than just a man; he was a symbol, a wall between what she dreamed of and what reality forced upon her. He was not Lbow the friend of mine, the boy I had known, the companion of childhood; he was the son of the wealthy, the embodiment of the societal walls she had sworn in her daydreams to tear down. And I understood, quietly, that for Rimora, these walls were not just metaphors—they were barriers she had been living behind her entire life, and every day I spent with her chipped away at them just slightly, enough to make her heart both ache and hope.
That evening, after the last customer had shuffled out and the café settled into a hushed quiet, Rimora spoke in a low, trembling voice—words she had never let leave her lips before. She told me about the sibling who had never lived, the child her mother had lost, and how she had imagined laughter echoing through their small home, a warmth that was never there. She spoke of closing her eyes and holding the phantom baby in her arms, of listening for giggles that existed only in the corners of her mind, and I watched her hands tighten and release as if cradling the unseen.
I didn't interrupt, didn't offer empty reassurances or hollow comforts. My chest ached in recognition of her pain; I understood it because I had known loss too intimately—the collapse of my family under the weight of debts, the sickness that stole the men and women I loved, the helplessness as the world I had known fell apart piece by piece. I shared fragments of my story, the nights spent counting what little food we had, the moments of bitter envy I felt toward those born into comfort, the silent prayers I whispered to keep my mother alive a day longer.
The room felt suspended in that exchange, a fragile bubble where neither judgment nor pretense existed. In our shared stories, in the quiet acknowledgment of our wounds, something delicate began to grow: trust, fragile but undeniable. It was a trust born not of words alone but of recognition, of understanding each other's scars without needing to explain them fully.
I could see the tension in her shoulders ease slightly, the shadow behind her eyes soften, as if simply being heard allowed a small part of her to breathe. And though we did not name it, I felt the bond forming between us—a connection forged not in luxury or privilege, but in shared suffering, a silent pact to face the despair together, even if the world outside remained cold and unyielding.
For the first time in a long while, in that dimly lit café, the weight of our lives felt a little less isolating. We had found in each other a mirror of grief, a companion for our pain, and a rare, unspoken courage to endure, to survive, and perhaps, to hope.
As the days slipped into weeks, I noticed Rimora's hallucinations growing more vivid, more insistent. In her eyes, I could see flashes of a world that did not exist, a vision of herself not merely as a leader but as a savior, standing above the smoldering ruins of a dying city, commanding storms to wash away injustice, raising bridges where walls once divided us. She would sometimes laugh softly at the sheer audacity of her imaginings, yet in that laughter was desperation and hope intertwined, clinging to it like a lifeline thrown to a drowning soul.
Our conversations, our shared silences, seemed to feed these visions. I could see how the trust between us, fragile though it was, gave her courage to imagine a future beyond the suffocating boundaries of our reality. There were moments when she would speak to me about her dreams, eyes alight with a fire that both terrified and inspired me. I wanted to believe with her, to see the possibility of carving something new from the ashes of everything broken around us.
But then Lbow would appear, striding into the café with that careless grace, his presence a stark reminder of the walls that still existed. Each time he laughed, I could feel Rimora's hope faltering, her shoulders tightening, her eyes hardening. He was a living emblem of the privilege and injustice that had shaped our world, a reminder that wealth could still shield the guilty and crush the deserving. I saw the way her hands clenched briefly, the sharp edge of contempt in her gaze, the unspoken words she swallowed to keep from erupting.
She wanted to scream, to tell him what she thought of people like his father, to unveil the suffering that had been extracted from her city to fund his comfort. Yet she remained silent, her fury folding inward, compressed into glances that could cut like knives. I understood her restraint, even as my own anger simmered quietly—there was a ferocity in her silence, a power in the way she contained her contempt, that reminded me why she was unlike anyone I had ever known.
In those moments, I felt both awe and sorrow. Awe at her strength, the way she held herself despite the weight of dreams and grief pressing upon her, and sorrow for the cruelty of a world that forced her to contain so much fury. I knew then that our alliance, our fragile companionship, was all the more vital—it was a tether against despair, a shared pulse of defiance in a city that would have preferred us broken.
Still, something about the three of us—the poor boy, the middle girl, the rich friend—created a tension that was almost tangible, a fragile triangle balanced on threads of desire, resentment, and unspoken longing. I could see it in Rimora's eyes, the way they lingered on me a fraction too long, the subtle tremor in her hands when she spoke, the quiet pauses that held more meaning than words ever could. She tried to deny it, even to herself, afraid that hope was a luxury she could no longer afford, that allowing herself to feel might shatter her resolve entirely.
And yet, no matter how fiercely she fought it, I could see the fire that ignited in her chest when I spoke, the small exhale of relief when our hands brushed while moving tables, the way her gaze softened when our eyes met across the café. She hated herself for it, for daring to let love sneak in where survival was supposed to reign supreme, for allowing warmth to bloom amid the cold war of poverty and privilege. But the heart, I knew, did not heed reason; it seized on moments, clutching them like a lifeline even when danger lurked close behind.
Lbow's presence was a constant shadow over that fragile thread connecting us. I could see her stiffen whenever he laughed, the way her jaw tightened when he smiled at something I did not see, the silent warning that she was aware of the threat he posed—not to me, but to the connection we were painstakingly nurturing. For the first time since her mother's death, I sensed her vulnerability, the tremor of possibility stirring something dangerous inside her, something that promised both hope and heartbreak. And I knew, just as she did, that the cost of possibilities—of daring to dream of love in a world designed to crush it—was often the heaviest price of all.