Violet City and the Village

It's been 120 years since The Event changed everything. In the darkness a new industry has risen and it's CEO reigns supreme. Under him they burn through fossil fuels, and strip mine the land so they can power the UV factories. Massive buildings produce these ultra violet lights, and ship them out to the territories who they have made trade arrangements with. The factories are tall enough to block out the stars and thick black smoke roll out of their chimneys all day everyday. No one ever sees the smoke but it can be smelled for miles away.

In the center of this industry is Violet City. It is a city so large it lights up the darkness from the middle of Kansas it's purple glow can be seen as far as the old arch in Missouri. It's glow even can be seen in the middle of rural Arkansas. The U.S. no longer exists though. Violet City is a nation of its own now. Everyone else are the city's allies, or they are considered rogue communities.

Violet City glows purple due to the UV lights shining in all of their street lamps. UV glows outside of the shops. The purple light glows over the city's outer farm lands. The crops grow slow but the artificial sunlight helps the plants photosynthesize. There are small machines on every street corner that suck in the air pollution and let out a burst of fresh scent. Large vehicles are used to clean the streets of the city, but they just relocate the garbage elsewhere. The city spends millions of dollars each year just to mask how damaging their factories really are. If not for these machines the residents would no doubt all have lung disease or cancer. The air is artificial. The light is artificial. Even their meat is grown in labs and not fresh from livestock. They all live in their fake world consuming every natural resource available while their CEO King profits off of their consumerism.

Huge skyscrapers glow in the night. UV and florescent lights shine through the windows of luxury offices and apartment buildings. These towers belong to the elite citizens of the city. Inside of these buildings are parks filled with grass, trees, and ponds. The ceilings are painted to mirror a sunny day. Fans hidden in the walls create the illusion of wind. Lights are used to simulate the suns natural golden glow. Even little critters like squirrels and birds live in these spaces. Play equipment is available for the offspring of the spoiled wealthy. Their children have not a care in the world meanwhile other children from poor families are being forced to work in the factories.

Tanning salons were once for cosmetic pleasure but are now vital commodity for each person wealthy enough to afford it. There are wellness shops on almost every block of the city with rows upon rows of tanning beds. Having luminous tanned skin is a symbol of status in Violet City. Pale skin shows the world that you're lower class. The lack of the sun light has caused many poorer people to lack vitamin D. Supplements are hard to find and usually cost more than a weeks salary for one pill. Those who cannot buy these luxuries are often weak and brittle boned with pale thin skin. They look sickly as if the darkness was a disease eating away at their bodies.

Surrounding Violet City is a vast wooded area that some how has yet to be stripped down for its resources. A small village is nestled in these woods where the glow of Violet City can be seen from hundreds of miles away, but the full moon gives them all the light they need. The air here is crisp and cleaner and somehow they are thriving. The city shares this same full moon but the industry has blotted out the moons glow with thick smog. Here in the village the moon and fire lit torches brighten the skinny roads between each tiny home. It's almost as if the suns glow reflecting off of the moon has been enough to sustain and help life grow here.

The village was once the original shifter's home. More people took interest in the area and built small homes off the grid and away from the industrious cities. Some people preferred a quieter life of living off of the land naturally versus burning through Earth's limited resources. They became a close knit community. Instead of concrete roads they had paths created from busy feet from home to home.

No one in Violet City ever received the gift of spirit shifting. Even their homeless and lower class residents never got the gift. Their hearts grew cold with greed. The rich wanting to stay rich and the poor wanting to be rich. They didn't care not one bit about our world. The only love they know is the money in their pocket books. In the Village spirit links are quite common.

The great grandchildren of the first shifter were born and raised in the village she helped build. They were taught all of the lessons she had left behind.

Kalysta would often ask her great grandmother stories about what it was like when the Earth still danced around the sun. "Nan, oh Nan please please tell me about Summer. What's was it like Nanna? What was Spring like?"

Known as the first spirit shifter her great grandmother, Adelaide, was known for her wisdom and her stories. Little did her teenaged granddaughter know that Nan Adelaide was also the one who sabotaged the nuclear plant that was spewing out poison into the local water ways.

Adelaide tilted her head and scrunched up her face in a silly way to make Kalysta laugh while she pretended to think really really hard. Kalysta watched her eagerly. Adelaide stopped being silly and said, " I remember that on a hot Summer day you could feel the Sun warming your skin. It's light would bathe you in heat. Sometimes it was too hot and sweat would bead up on your forehead and run down your face. Sometimes though, it was just right and I would lay outside in a swimsuit and soak up it's warmth until my skin was bronzed. People used to enjoy the sun and played sports or went swimming during the Summer."

" Spring came before Summer right after Winter. It was a time when trees would come alive and bloom into blossoms and the leaves would be freshly green. Flowers would bloom and of course Nan's allergies would pick up because of the pollen. Before the time of the wars it was much more beautiful. War and pollution killed a lot of our habitat. It reduced wildlife's population as well. Fortunately since The Event the wars have stopped, but pollution still exists. We still have a long way to go in restoring our world. Kalysta, I bet you will do great things when you grow up."

With that Adelaide patted her granddaughter's head and went about busying herself with the housework. Kalysta's twin brother Kyrhen had listened to his sister and grandmother talking. He didn't not care much about how things were before, or about healing anything. Kyrhen wanted to grow up and live in one of those tall skyscrapers in Violet City. He had put his faith in man made items and machines.

"It will never be pretty again sis. Stop dreaming." Kyrhen never viewed the world as a living thing or saw it's beauty. He was selfish and only cared about things like his allowance or material objects.

Kylasta rolled her eyes at her twin. They constantly butted heads and he often let his friends bully her. Sometimes he would stand by while his friend David pushed her down. She really hated David. He had been relentless in his bullying of her. Once they reached the age 14 only then did she realize that he was being a jerk because he had a crush on his best friend's twin sister. Fat chance of that ever happening. She thought he looked like he had been his by a train; then the train backed up and went over him again. He had a weird smell and his face was perfectly punchable.

To escape the world Kalysta would practice archery in the woods. Her step-father had taught her all he knew about hunting. He traveled around the dark lands for years before settling down with the twins mother.

Up near the Canadian border he once encountered a wolf. There he sat eating jerky and reading a book when a shadow passed along the outside of his tent. When he went outside to I spect his campsite he saw the biggest black wolf he had ever seen in his life. It's eyes were golden. He was both stunned and petrified, but the wolf approached him and nuzzled it's giant head up into Miller's hand. That when he felt the spirit link. Since then his wolf's instinct guided him to search for his pack, or in human terms a family. The big black wolf lives with their family. He is Kalysta's favorite furry brother.

Her parents have now been married for 11 years resulting in 5 more children. Miller and Kalysta had a very close relationship. To her it was his blood that ran through her veins. Kyrhen even resembled Miller in a way, but he was never interested in hiking or hunting like his twin.

Kalysta lived to be in the woods and grew to become one of the village's best hunters. Her time in the woods often fed many families. Or at least she did until her 19th year. Then something unexpected happened.