GlitchBorn Heart (DreamLess #1)

Prologue SyntheticSunset

Playlist: The Day The World Went Away - Nine Inch Nails

Lyra

It takes exactly one hundred and sixty-four seconds for the sun to slide beneath the waves in the equinox of September.

I know this. Because I count. Every time.

One...two...three...

Red...orange...magenta...

The golden hour wind is warm on my skin.

It whips a few loose strands of my hair across my cheeks, teasing them like feathers.

I taste the salted air on my dry lips and curl my bare toes deeper, burying them in the cool sand.

My sketchpad rests in its usual place on my knees, and I look over from my drawing to my little brother, his laughter skipping over the waves like small stones.

It’s a sound I commit to memory. One I want to play on repeat.

His usual position on the fuzzy blanket reflects his happiness in being immersed in the warm light and a humorous ebook.

Flat on his stomach, he gives me a side glance through those dark curls and pushes his cute little glasses further up the bridge of his nose.

“I bet I was right. It’s under one-fifty tonight, right?” he says smugly.

“Never is.” I side-grin. He knows better since we normally count together, our voices swallowed by the hush of waves.

He flips to his back and breathes a massive sigh, a sigh too heavy for a twelve-year-old, the weight of all the knowledge swirling like fireflies in his mind.

“At one hundred and sixty-one, the last sliver of light usually vanishes.” His arms move to prop up his head, and another sigh escapes as he examines the sky deepening into a velvet blue.

For a heartbeat, we both glance up taking in the long rope of stars...swirling white, sparkling gray, and for just another beat, the world is perfect and still. We drink it in.

In our data-driven world, these summer evenings at the beach, with my family, are perfect moments in time, and the only place I truly feel whole. I can dream and draw, Eli can devour his ebooks, and Mom and Dad can just be themselves—no lab coats, no DataLINKs, no Corporation, no stress.

So still. So perfect.

Eli’s dreamy eyes are a hint that we need to get back to the cottage before Mom sends messages over our own DataLINKs to come home and get ready for bed.

“Lyra...” He speaks so quietly, a mere whisper over the tide. “Look at all the shooting stars tonight.” He points skyward, excitement and awe in his voice. He swirls his finger around, trying to count them all.

I steal a glance as I wipe the last few eraser shavings off my sketch. My warm glow turns ice cold in my stomach, like I have my own waves churning in my very center.

The streaks are too many. Too fast. Too straight.

Eyes squinting, head cocked, heart racing, my voice trembles. “Those aren’t stars.” My voice is low as panic begins to flood my nerves.

The dark horizon flickers, like a pixel fracture in the corner of my vision. I quickly stand, alarm bells ringing in my head and fight a fierce drive to lunge at Eli to protect him.

One...two...three...

Neon glitches in the dark night sky; clouds shift and split into fragments of light and shadow.

The air vibrates, hot and electric, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.

A bomb? Are we under some sort of attack?

My brother’s hand tightens around mine, and I can sense the fearful curiosity in him.

One bright drowning light follows, and the world breaks open.

The light pours down in bright, white columns, searing the sand. My skin burns, not from heat, but from something stirring beneath it, alive. I hear screaming—mine, his, everyone’s—as the navy sky collapses into the sea.

I’ve never seen, much less felt, searing light like this. The rays break open my body, tiny wires of electricity flowing through every nerve ending, every vein.

I drop Eli’s hand to touch the heat building in my head, as sweat pours down my temples to my reddened cheeks. It’s too much. Too hot. I fall to my knees and lose all colors in my sight, all sound sucked into a vacuum. Nothing, no maybe everything. It’s disorienting, and then black is all I see.

“Ah!” I gasp and sit up sharply, sucking in as much oxygen as my lungs will allow.

My sheets are stuck to my wet, clammy skin.

The neon light from the constant digital images racing on the screens outside spotlights the end of my bed, and reality hits me like a deer in headlights.

The hum in my ears, the vibrations. I look down at my DreamNet band as it powers down with a pulsing purple glow.

Drip...drip...I’m keenly aware of the sweat flowing down the ink trail of stars and swirls marking my spine.

“Shit,” I whine to myself. This can’t be good.

More memories returning. Not dreams. It can’t be.

This is just too dangerous, too risky. My thoughts scatter, and miraculously, I remember all of it: Eli, Mom, Dad, but mostly the warmth and comfort of our little cottage on the beach.

The feeling of being loved, of having a family, was all overwritten by the blinding light, the searing heat and the catastrophic event of that evening.

Now they call that night “StarFell,” but I know better.

The history logs, and the corporations who write them, like to pretend it was a celestial occurrence.

Our scientists declare it a “rare meteor event” or “a glitch in the atmosphere.” Even science has been tainted by the greed of wealthy men, spinning StarFell as something cosmic and poetic, a distraction for the masses from the truth.

But those of us who lived it and survived it, those of us who were under the age of twenty-one, we remember it differently.

StarFell wasn’t the night the sky broke. It was the night we did.