Under the Shadow of the Moon

Chapter 1

The moon glowed silver above Luna Vis' head, bathing everything around her in a faint colorless glow. The wind was cool as it whipped across her face from the half open car window. For her it was early Monday morning, and she was on her way to school.

As much as she wanted to see the morning sunlight streaming in through the car windows, she hadn't seen the golden rays for almost six years. Even now, she still felt the pain of being ripped from her old life and seeing everything she knew torn away from her as she watched it all slip through her fingers. It was strange, looking back on a life she hardly associated with herself anymore. She still blamed the government for what had happened to her and many others.

She caught sight of her reflection in the bottom half of the window. She looked different than she had back then; living without the sun had washed any color from her skin, and her sun-kissed complexion and obvious freckles had slowly faded away. Her golden, honey blonde hair had grown dark from the absence of the harsh rays and lay in light pin-straight strands down to her mid-back, half of it pressed behind her against the seat. It would have been easier, she supposed, if she had never been exposed to sunlight at all. At least that way she wouldn't remember hot summer days and the way yellow-orange light glinted off of snow. Just thinking of the way she had felt when her family received the cursed letter in the mail made her shudder with indignation. Remembering the way her and many others' genetics had been altered to keep them subdued, to keep them away from the sun, made her stomach lurch.

Luna was lucky in a way, she still lived in a middle-class two-story house in a nice neighborhood, while others, she knew, lived in tiny, one-room apartments in the Rostle Slums on the outskirts of town, where crime raged and people were dying. Luna shuddered, feeling guilty for her previous wave of anger. It could always be worse. She had it good. She reminded herself, ignoring the sadness and anger bubbling up inside of her, blinking away a few prickling hot tears from her bright brown eyes. There are worse things...

She turned away from the window, choosing instead to stare at her hands, touching her sunflower locket absent-mindedly. She never really liked school, all the rules imposed on them by the state and the government itself and whatnot, yet the level and quality of education hadn't gotten any better since even before The Great War, occurring at least a century before the start of her existence.

In the passenger seat of the car sat her twin brother. Lloyd wasn't very muscular, but he was relatively tall. His brown eyes and fading freckles were the same as hers, but his hair was lemon blonde and fell across his pale face in thick sheets. She always envied the way her brother's bright hair didn't need sunlight to shine golden.

Trae Miller caught her gaze from the driver's seat through the rear-view mirror, a lopsided grin plastered to his face. "What are you thinking about?" Although his smile was playful, his tone was serious—at least as serious as Trae could be.

She smiled, lifting her head and sitting up straighter. "How awful Mondays are," she responded, crossing her arms. "And we have finals coming up too," she whined, getting a groan from Lloyd.

Trae chuckled, switching on the radio. "Anything else?" His playful tone returned. "A certain handsome—"

"Oh, shut up," Lloyd whined with a laugh, gesturing towards the road. "Please just focus on driving, if you crash before we've even left the neighborhood, I'm going to kill you."

Trae scoffed, a tone of mocking entwining itself into the playful atmosphere. "Fine."

The morning wasn't very different from their typical morning, three best friends driving to school on a mundane Monday morning; right up until they came across a barrage of police cars swarmed around the empty house at the end of the block. Trae slowed the car as they drove past, dozens of officers and even a few government officials standing around as two people were forced out of the house. They were tan, and had a halo around them that Luna's eyes quickly picked up on. That was one of the side effects of the genetic modification, the Day Population had a golden glow around them, and those of the Night Population had an anti-glow, shadows folded around themselves in a corona of darkness. The house had been abandoned and falling apart for as long as Luna could remember; watching in wonder as the Day squatters were placed in a car.