CITY LOVE

Chapter 1-Neon Rain(I) The city was always awake. Elyria Nova was a restless beast of glass and chrome, breathing in clouds of data and exhaling rain made of static. Holograms flitted through the drizzle like lost angels, perfume ads with artificial smiles, politicians projected twenty feet high, lovers holding hands in pixelated loops. The rain wasn’t water anymore; it was coded mist, threaded with nanolights that shimmered in shifting hues depending on the air’s emotional temperature. And that morning, the city glowed blue. In a one-room apartment stacked between towers like a book between metal spines, Allen Vogel stared at his reflection. He had a jawline sculpted by compromise but not sharp enough to intimidate, not soft enough to disappear. His brown hair was damp with effort, his brown eyes stubbornly gentle. He’d practiced his "model face” in the mirror so often that it now looked like a mask with a little smirk, a hint of mystery, the tired confidence of someone trying too hard to believe it. His mother’s voice echoed from the kitchenette, syrupy and fierce as always. “Allen, honey, if you don’t eat your eggs, they’ll start auditioning for another stomach!” He smiled despite himself. “Mom, I told you models don’t do full breakfasts before shoots.” “And I told you, boy, that starving ain’t sexy. It’s sad!” Her Texan twang bounced around the metallic walls, clashing hilariously with the German-accented patience of his father, who sat nearby reading digital news off a transparent screen. “He will eat, Liebling,” his father murmured without looking up. “Just let him have his nerves.” “Nerves my foot,” she huffed. “He’s built like an art project, delicate and unfinished.” Allen laughed, rolling his eyes. His family had a way of turning anxiety into warmth. He loved them for it. But as he tugged on his trench coat which had a sleek, silver-gray design that caught the city’s light, a flicker of self-doubt gnawed at him. He wanted to look like someone who belonged in this city of flawless faces. He wanted to feel like it, too. “Wish me luck,” he said, kissing his mother’s cheek and nodding at his father. “Luck is for gamblers,” his father said without looking up. “Do the work.” “And smile like you mean it,” his mom added. “You got that from me.” He gave a small, genuine yet fleeting smile and stepped into the drizzle. Outside, Elyria Nova stretched before him like a living poem in neon. Hovercars zipped by, leaving streaks of light. Vendors shouted from holographic stalls, selling everything from bio-printed fruit to “emotion filters” mood chips that could make you feel calm, brave, or desirable for twelve hours straight. Allen walked briskly, clutching his portfolio. The modeling agency was uptown, forty blocks of rain and nerves away. His boots clicked on the rain-slick metal walkway, and with every step, the color of the streetlight reflections shifted faintly, a curious flicker that followed him, unnoticed. He passed a group of street musicians, real ones, not holograms who were playing an acoustic version of a pop song about synthetic love. One of them winked at him. “You look like heartbreak, pretty boy!” she called. “I feel like it too,” he muttered. There was a faint hum in the air, the city’s low-frequency pulse, a constant reminder of its alive-ness. Elyria Nova had sensors in its veins, reacting to people’s collective emotions. They called it the empathic grid, a side effect of integrating human feedback loops into infrastructure. Most people ignored it. But sometimes, when feelings ran high, the rain shimmered in strange colors. Allen didn’t know it yet, but the city already felt his uncertainty, his longing and his invisible hope. The mist flickered gold for half a second, then faded back to blue. He arrived at Horizon Modeling Agency, a glass cylinder rising from the street like a frozen drop of mercury. Inside, everything smelled of ambition; perfume, sweat and digital polish. Models lounged like mannequins waiting to be animated. Allen checked in, adjusted his collar, and waited. The casting director was a woman with diamond eyes and a mechanical wrist. She didn’t look up from her screen. “Allen Vogel, 23, freelance… you’ve done one small campaign?” “Yes. For… uh…SolaWear.” “The sunscreen that glows in the dark?” “That’s the one.” “Right.” She glanced up, assessing him like a sculpture. “Too kind in the eyes. We need edge. Can you give me edge?” Allen tried. He lifted his chin, narrowed his gaze and tensed his jaw. “Hmm,” she said. “You look like you’re about to apologize for existing. Thank you, we’ll call you.” And that was that, he walked out into the metallic rain again, chest tight, feeling ridiculous, he rain hit his skin somewhat cold and somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled, but it sounded almost digital. He looked at his reflection in a puddle. The puddle looked back and for a heartbeat, it smiled first. The smile in the puddle wasn’t mocking. It was… encouraging and that made it worse. Allen blinked. Once, twice…and the reflection returned to normal, only his own weary face looking back at him, framed by drops of golden rainlight. “Get it together,” he muttered. “You’re not hallucinating, you’re just… disappointed.” Still, he felt something strange in his chest, a kind of hum that wasn’t his heartbeat but something around it, like the air had begun to notice him. The city had its moods, sure, but this felt personal, like Elyria Nova was leaning in to listen. He ducked under a flickering awning to check his reflection in the glass. The holographic signage above it showed an ad for a dating app “Love, updated hourly.” The tagline changed every few seconds, glitching between Find your algorithm and Stay desirable in 3 easy steps. Allen sighed. “Even romance needs software updates.” A passing delivery drone beeped rudely as it skimmed over his head, almost dropping a parcel on him. “Watch it!” he shouted. The drone paused midair and emitted a canned apology …beep…“Apologies, valued citizen! Have a productive day!” before zooming off. Allen wanted to laugh, or scream, or both. He rubbed his temples, shaking off the rejection and the faint dizziness that lingered like static. The modeling world was merciless. You could be beautiful and still invisible. He’d spent years chasing validation through camera lenses, trying to capture that elusive thing ~confidence that doesn’t look practiced…sigh…maybe he just didn’t have it. Back at his apartment, his mother would be making coffee strong enough to threaten gravity, his father would be quietly humming to himself while repairing something like a toaster, a clock, a broken thought. They were simple, grounded people in a city addicted to spectacle. Allen adored them, but sometimes their normalcy felt like another planet. He wanted to be something, not famous, necessarily, but seen. He wanted the world to notice him without him having to perform for it. And that was when he noticed the window, thin film of condensation ran down the glass pane of a closed storefront. It shimmered faintly, like the rain outside was trying to speak in Morse code. Without thinking, Allen wiped the glass with his sleeve and there it was again, his reflection, smiling before he did. Then, softly, the reflection’s lips moved…“Stop pretending to be harder than you are.” The words weren’t heard but felt, like a vibration under his ribs. He stumbled back. “What the?” The reflection blinked at him, perfectly synchronized now then the shimmer faded, leaving nothing but his own startled face. Allen laughed, the kind of shaky laugh that tastes like disbelief. “Great. I’m officially losing it. The rain talks, my reflection gives therapy.”....