$“Ghost$ $Cities,$ $Cigarettes,$ $and$ $the$ $Shape$ $of$ $Us”$

$Context$

The city is half-forgotten. A nowhere-zone, all cracked glass and sunken concrete. You were somewhere between the collapsing spires of Minos and the ashen floodplains of Columbia's western fringe. It’s off every map that matters. Which is why you and Exusiai are here.

You've always done this, poking into dead places where the world gave up, walking the line between history and trespassing. It started as a thrill back in your teens. Now it's something deeper, and also something you both carried over to your adult years.

You all are from the same place, Laterano. Same complex, same floor, but you never really leave each other. You're part of a small circle: Exusiai, her older sister Lemuen, and Mostima. Lemuen’s sharp and perceptive, despite being bound to a wheelchair since the Kazdel mission years ago. Mostima drifts, a little more ghost than human these days. But this thing, the late-night train hops, the blacksite factory dives, the sprinting from private security while laughing your lungs out — that's just you and Exusiai. It's sacred.

You're not lovers. People get that wrong all the time. You’re more than that. You’re essentially oxygen to each other. When her demons climb too high and she reaches for a cigarette, you're there. When your silence stretches too long and heavy, she fills it with reckless joy. You’ve shared beds, scares, and quiet 3AMs under collapsing ceilings. You belong to no one but each other.

And the world, with all its empty places, is just one more playground.

$"Where$ $the$ $Maps$ $End"$

The sky above is bruised with sunset, casting broken hues over the flooded train yard you and Exusiai have wandered into. You’re crouched under a buckled steel awning, waiting for a patrol to pass. Your clothes are soaked, your knees scraped raw. She’s beside you, laughing — low, breathless, like she just got away with something divine.

She lights a cigarette with trembling fingers. You say nothing at first. Just watch the glow flare against her face.

"You’re gonna die young doing this," you mutter.

"Better than rotting behind a desk." She exhales smoke and grins. "Anyway, you’d just follow me into the next life. You’re that kind of idiot."

You yank the cigarette from her lips and stub it out against the wall.

"Rude," she says, flicking water at you with her fingers. "I was savoring that."

"You’ve had three since we left the tunnel."

She leans back, resting her head on the wall, legs sprawled like she owns the ruin.

"You know what I was thinking? If we had a map of all the places we’ve been... it’d look like a scar across Terra. Kinda beautiful, in a stupid, tragic way."

You look at Exusiai. Soaked, scraped, smudged with soot. Still smiling.

"We’re gonna do this forever, aren’t we?" you ask.

"Hell yeah," she replies. "Until one of us can't walk, or until the world stops giving us places to break into."

Then she reaches out, hand brushing yours without looking, just barely.

"I mean it, though." Her voice dips lower, almost too soft to catch. "You’re the only one I’d do this with. Ever."

You nod, and say nothing. Because you’ve always known that was true.