The Price of Light

The sun costs six credits a minute. Most people can afford an hour or two each day, rationed in golden slices—just enough to keep their bones from aching, just enough to pretend. The wealthiest can bask for as long as they like, sprawled under its glow in the glass towers of the city centre. The poorest live in the permanent cold shadows of the lower levels, where frost bites at their skin, and the streetlights flicker like dying embers.

I can afford twenty minutes a week. But I steal more.

The rooftops are high and dangerous, but if you climb fast enough, you can reach the edges of the paid-light zones, where the sensor fields falter. It’s only a few minutes before the enforcement drones sweep by, but in that time, the sun feels real, mine. I let it paint my skin, let its warmth seep into my bones, let my body remember what the world used to be.

That’s where I find the girl. She’s crouched at the edge of a rooftop, staring at the city with wide, unblinking eyes. She’s maybe twelve, rail-thin, wrapped in layers of threadbare fabric. I nearly leave her alone—there’s an unspoken rule among roof thieves—but something about her makes me pause. She isn’t just basking. She looks… terrified.

“You okay?” I ask.

She turns, eyes catching the light like a stray cat’s. “It’s real.”

I frown. “What?”

“The sun.” She lifts a trembling hand towards the sky. “I thought it was a lie.”

I look at her properly now, at the pallor of her skin, the way she flinches at the breeze, how her lips tremble in the warmth. And I understand.

She has never felt sunlight before.

There are rumours, of course—about the ones born underground. The ones so poor, so discarded, that they live their whole lives in the dark. But I’d never met one. Not until now.

I step closer. She doesn’t move, still staring at the sky with something like fear. “How did you get up here?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I woke up here.”

A crime. An accident. And now she’s seen the truth.

The enforcement drones will come soon. The rooftop is a paid-light zone, and we don’t belong here. I should leave. But she’s still staring upwards, as if she’s afraid the sun will vanish if she looks away.

“How long do we have?” she asks, voice shaking.

I check my stolen device. “Forty seconds.”

She nods. She doesn’t ask to run. She doesn’t ask to hide. She just kneels there, bathed in gold, as if memorising the feeling of sunlight on her face.

When the sirens wail, I grab her hand.