Aya wakes to the disruptive bring of her arm clock going off at its usual time, she hurries out of bed nearly tripping over the covers as she scrambles to hop into the shorepare for her day.

  "It's a miracle I didn't oversleep." she says yawning tiredly, today was about to be another long day and she had no doubt she would be tired from how te she'd slept the night before.

  "Oddly enough I don't regret it, the game felt so real. I only wonder what it'll be like when I finally fix up the Icarus gear." she says, pulling the sleeves of her uniform on. She meets the eyes of her refle, taking iired eyes and sloug figure.

  'I really need more sleep.' she thinks, pg on her hat arieving her backpack from the entrance hook.

  Running out the door, she locks her apartment just in time to bump into the nddy her aunt. The woman sneers, walking up the old stairs to her own floor.

  Aya shakes her head, exhaling through her nostrils at the woman's behavior. Aya's family life had always been plicated, from her missing parents to her ailing grandmother.

  The only persoruly had left was her aunty who'd given her a pce to stay in this crumbling apartment, but from the start, it was clear the woman hated her guts.

  She remembers her arrival like it was yesterday.

  ----------

  An 18 year old Aya watches helplessly as the rge apartment building she was now to call home, grows closer and closer with every sed that passes. She looks beside her to Mr. Fido, a friend of her grandmother's that had taken time out of his day to drive her to the pce that was hours away from the old woman's cottage.

  "Mr. Fido, will my grandma be alright?" Aya asks softly. She notices the man's grip oeering wheel bee tighter, he frowns at first before quickly turning it to a smile.

  "I'm sure she'll be fine Aya, but for now you'll be staying here. Yrandmother and I have taken the liberty of paying for a 6 month's lease for you."

  "6 months! Will I really be gohat long?" she asks, tearing up at the thought of leaving her grandma alone in her house while she was sick.

  The man sighs, trying to keep his patieh her.

  "Aya, you're an adult. You have to look after yourself now. Yrandmother only do so mud her stant w about you will only put her in a bad dition." he says patiently.

  Aya thinks over his words, an anxious weight settles in her chest and a thought grows that somehow she was responsible for her grandmother's dition.

  "Was looking after me really that stressful for her?" she asks Mr. Fido. He shrugs, making a turn that brings them closer to the apartment plex.

  "Ah who knows, but you have to look after yourself now, the only reason the lease is so cheap is because it belongs to your aunt Lydia. She didn't charge much as a favor to her mother but that doesn't mean you live there for free." the man tells her.

  "So I'll have to get a job and live here all alone?" Aya says nearly sobbing. How could this have happened? First, her parents and now her grandmother would be lost to her. She wipes her tears with the back of her hand, tinuing to cry all the way to the driveway of the apartment plex.

  "Now stop that!" Mr. Fido snaps at her, Aya flinches w where the ge in attitude had e from. She nods hesitantly, opening the car door to find a tall, thin woman staring coldly at her.

  "It's o meet you, ma'am." Aya says reag out to hug the woman. Lydia, her aunt, raises a single bony fio stop her.

  "There will be none of that, I may be your blood but you are not my niece, simply aenant in the building. I may have charged you lower as a favor to my mother but rest assured that will ge very soon." the gaunt woman says. Aya's hands fall limply to her side. All thoughts of bonding with the womaroyed.

  "I see." she mao say, turning back to the car Mr. Fido's plump body was already moving her meager luggage from his vehicle. He lifts the two suitcases, ing to y them down at Aya's feet with a nod of satisfa.

  "Good luck Aya." He says tn the young girl's heartbroken face. "And don't worry, I'll take good care of yrandmother."

  He hugs her o time, returning to his car. His engine rumbles to life, driving away without another word.

  Now it was just Aya and Lydia.

  "Follow me." the woman says, already making her way into the apartment plex. Aya has no choice but to lift the two suitcases by herself and rush into the building with the older woman.

  The stairs squeak as Aya ys her foot down, on the aged structure. Soon they reach the fourth floor. Still following her aunt, Aya finds herself in front of a nearly rotted wooden door with a faded pque reading '443.'

  She wonders how the door was still standing sidering its age and its obvious terrible dition

  Lydia digs out a key ring from her pocket. She takes one key and slots it into the keyhole, she twists until the door unlocks with a shrill creak. Lydia shoves Aya inside, making the girl lose her footing and nearly hit the ground.

  "This is your apartment." Lydia says, she plucks the key off the ring and tosses it at Aya. "There's your key, guard it with your life there are no spares." without another word the cold woman is gone, leaving Aya alone in the room.

  Aya follows the woman into the hallway.

  "Please Aunt Lydia, this is all happening too fast, what's going on? And why do I have to live here?" Aya asks desperately trying to uand her new situation. The woman turns around, pinning Aya with a cold look. She huffs.

  "Life es at you fast kid, grow up a used to it." she says spitting the words as though they were poison.

  Aya cries, uo hide the hurt feelings swelling within her.

  "Please you're the only one I have now, I 't do this alone." Aya begs, in a fit of desperation she grabs unto the woman's arm, tinuing to plead. Aunt Lydia stares down at the young woman, smirking at the girl's distress.

  "As I said, grow up a used to it." she wrenches her arm away from the girl's needy grip, ign Aya's crushed expression.

  With a loud cackle, Lydia walks up the stairs to her oartment plex above Aya's.

  Aya stands in the hallway, dazed at the situation she'd found herself in. Without her sent, she had been packed up and moved to a city Mr. Fido told her, her mother used to live in. But now she was here, in a poorly kept, cheap apartment in what she assumed was the worst side of the city.

  "Grow up a used to it." Lydia had said. But this couldn't be what growing up meant. This couldn't be the world her mother and father loved so much.

  Aya gathers the strength to walk back to her apartment.

  "hat a dump!" Aya says balling her fists at the dition the building was left in. Upon ying her eyes on the cracked walls and rotten floorboards, Aya is overe with the urge to scream. Bugs scuttle around her feet, making her jump ba fear from the size of the creatures.

  "I'm going to be living here?" she says to no one in particur. Dejectedly, she clears a spot on the floor and sits on her suitcase.

  "Hey at least I'm not living in a box under a bridge." she says with a smile. "I just have to hang in there, isn't that what grandma always said."

  ----------

  Aya shakes her head out of the fshback, hard to believe that was only two years ago and just as Aunt Lydia had said, her rent got higher and higher. The only pces hiring back then were fast-food restaurants and low-level corporate positions.

  W at Nue Corp's mail room wasn't a dream but it paid the bills.

  Aya dismounts the bus, taking her usual route towards the batrance of the office where she would enter directly into the mail room.

  "You look awful." Her boss says the moment she walks through the door. Aya winces.

  "Geez, good m to you too, sir." she replies dryly, ready to collect her batail and start the usual delivery process. While retrievirolley she happens to g the neer her boss peruses while he annoys the hell out of her. Smoking while reading the paper?

  'Talk about a fire hazard.' Aya thinks, though the neer catches her i.

  'New MM firmed a huge success by CEO.' The headline reads.

  'They must be talking about Moon Valley.' Aya thinks as she loads her trolley into the elevator, making her rounds from the ground floor to the top floor.

  ----------

  On her way to the top a figure approaches her, getting into the elevator with her, Aya reizes him as the man from before who had defended her from Viviana.

  The President of Nue Corp.

  "Good m!" she greets cheerfully, the tall, handsome figure looks up from his phooward the voice addressing him.

  "Well you're certainly chipper this m," He grins at her. "Good m."

  "Thank you for defending me back there, Viviana's always on my case." Aya says with a ugh. The man narrows his eyes.

  "Is that so?" he asks with an edge to his voice. "So she's usually that rude to other staff?"

  Aya takes a moment to think of all the times Viviana had s other less important staff. Whether it was delivering messages or speaking to the other mahe woman was always rude.

  "Very rude." Aya says. The man lifts his brow already thinking up a way to reprimand his secretary.

  "Thank you for tellihis Ms. ?"

  "Aya, Aya Brown." Aya replies, shaking the hand he holds for her to take.

  "Ats, Ats Nue." he replies with a dashing smile, Aya's face reddens, blushing from the sight of the man's handsome smile and pierg gaze.

  "You've got a strong grip, must be from moving this trolley around." he says, grabbing the trolley handle and only barely managing to move it an inch. "A pencil pusher like me would probably keel over if I had your job for a day."

  "I'm sure that's not true sir." Aya says ughing.

  "Please, call me Ats, sir makes me feel old!" he whines.

  The top floor elevator opens to the sight of the pany president and the mail room girl ughing. Viviana ot believe her eyes.

  Her beloved president and that oner scum. She immediately approaches them, the sound of designer heels g oiled floor alerts them to Viviana's approach.

  "Mr. President," she begins in a sweet tone, recalling her outward dispy toward Aya had earned her a stern talking to. "You have an 11:00 am meeting scheduled with the CEO of Lumos Incorporated." she shows him his schedule to which he nods.

  "It leasure meeting you again, Aya Brown. Gd it was during a less stressful...situation." Ats says walking towards his office. Aya packs up the mail meant for his floor and hands it to Vivian who snatches it out of her hand with fury.

  "You!" she growls, jabbing a manicured finger into Aya's shoulder. "You think you just cozy up to the president? No amount of mingling will ever help you crawl out of the bottom where you belong."

  Aya folds her arms gring. It could have been the exhaustion from staying up te to py games but Aya was short on patie full of snark.

  "And you think you're someohat belongs at the top? You wear nice clothes and pretty shoes but that 't hide an attitude that es from the dump." Aya spits back. Viviana pauses, processing Aya's words. She stammers, trying to find a eback with as much acid as Aya's but she 't.

  "Have a nice day." Aya says, pullirolley bato the elevator and pushing the button for the ground floor. Viviana watches her, speechless and for a brief moment, Aya could swear the older woman was almost apologetic.

  Almost.

  "Geez I sy a couple monsters in a game and suddenly I've got Yvlena's charisma." Aya giggles to herself. She leaves the elevator with her head held high, putting the trolley ba its appropriate pce.

  Taking a seat she notices her boss was not in the mail room with her, moving over to his desk she picks the neer up to read the article she'd seen earlier. Her eyes s the pages, reading through the article as fast as she .

  The neer details the current revenue Moon Valley had attained within a few weeks of its unch hitting more than a huhousand pyers within its first month and surpassing all initial predis. The game had not been slow to cat at all.

  Aya nods, impressed by the numbers as well, but that also meant that there were tons of people ahead of her.

  "I'm only pying for fun and maybe a little profit." she says to herself.

  She tinues reading, finding a minor headline about a man who had already made up to 10,000 Lue pying the game.

  "Ten thousand!!! I could buy a one bedroom in this city with that amount of cash! How did he do it?" she tio read but unfortunately, the article provides ails. After all who would let the secret slip?

  "It must be online somewhere, maybe if I iigate I could at least find a start."

  "What are you doing at my desk?" the gruff voice of her boss asks.

  "Nothing!" Aya squeaks, frantically stuffing the neer bato the desk and then whipping around to face her boss. The man's accusatory expression does nothing to quell her aies.

  The man sighs returning to his table and lighting anarette. He takes a long puff, blowing smoke up in the air. He stares at her, saying nothing.

  Nervous beads of sweat form on Aya's forehead, on sensing her unease he waves her off. Aya exhales a breath of relief, she excuses herself, returning to her er to check her phone and pn her course of a, within the game and outside of it.

  All in All, she needed a pn.