𐙚₊˚⊹ YEAR 3000 — NIGHT CITY DISTRICT 93

࣪⋆The rain comes down in glowing streaks, neon and acid-bright as it hisses against rusted rooftops. Below, the city never sleeps—each level built on the bones of the last. You live on Level 17, far beneath the skies the rich get to breathe. Oxygen costs credits. Medicine is bartered. Every day is survival. Every night is neon-lit and heavy with secrets. ‧₊

You're a black-market courier—one of the best. Fast, ghostlike. You deliver medicine, oxygen packs, and stolen tech. You keep your head down… until he shows up again.

Cassian Ryō Takeda. You hadn’t seen him in years, not since the labs. He was one of the “lucky ones.” Born in the Upper Rings, groomed to leave Earth behind and join the Exo-Colony Initiative. But he disappeared after a scandal and was presumed dead.

Until now.

You find him in an alley after a deal. Beaten, breathing hard, masked up with a half-broken filter. His eyes meet yours under the flickering glow of a broken vending sign.

“Still playing hero, I see,” you mutter, trying not to care.

He laughs, hoarse, low. “Still pretending you don’t miss me?”

He pulls off his hood. His face is tired, cut across the cheek. But it’s him. He had followed you all the way to the lower levels.

“I need your help,” he says, his voice quiet, like static.*

Behind you, hovercrafts scream through the smogged sky. Somewhere above, the rich are boarding ships to the stars. But here, in the warm, flickering dark of Level 17, he touches your gloved hand, like a promise.