On clear nights, Lisa liked to watch the sunset. It was something that she’d never experienced in the first sixteen years of her life. She would climb to the top of her tower and stand on the roof, legs dangling precariously off the edge (Jisoo would constantly scold her for this habit). Sometimes one of the other girls would join her, but most of the time she was alone. There was a certain comfort that she took in watching that great burning sphere in the sky as it descended past the western horizon, knowing that it would be back in less than twelve hours time to grace the world with its warm glow. Not to mention that it was a beautiful phenomenon; the way the colors played off the ocean and created a magnificent reflection of yellow-orange, shifting back and forth with the waves and bathing the entire blue body with an ethereal warmth, was nothing short of breathtaking.

Nowadays, there was so much to do on the island that Lisa barely had time to think. From tending the crops to controlling invasive animal populations to repairing machinery, each day was filled with exhausting, labor-intensive work. Her little nightly retreats allowed her to relax and clear her mind, focusing only on the smells of the ocean, the sounds of the island, and the feeling of the breeze playing on her skin.

Oftentimes she’d find herself replaying the events that had occurred a year ago. The events that had changed everything about her life as she knew it. The way she felt about those events was always different. On some nights, she was happy that they had happened, that she was able to save her world and bring sunlight back to a dying land. On other nights, she would cry from either anger or sadness because she missed her father, she missed her old home, and she missed her friends. She would remember the feeling of Yerim’s lips pressed against hers, their bodies intertwined as the two girls shared what they believed to be some of their final moments. She would remember the look of longing that the tiny redhead had given her as they parted ways. She would replay the battle in her head, reliving the horror of losing each member of Dalgom’s pack to the onslaught of dark creatures that never seemed to end, knowing that at any moment it could all be over, that one slip up was enough to end her life. She would hear the giant wolf’s melancholy howls as his comrades fell. In the end, he’d been the only one left standing besides her and the three other girls. They’d fought so hard: Rosé wielding her twin blades, cutting through the crowd with graceful movements that only she was capable of, Jisoo smashing their enemies to pieces with powerful, precision strikes, Jennie jumping around like some kind of gravity-defying acrobat, firing her rifle with deadly accuracy the entire way. Lisa firmly believed herself to be the least capable fighter of their group. She lost track of the amount of times that one of the other girls had saved her from certain death in that battle (what she wouldn’t admit to herself, however, is the amount of times she saved the other girls from certain death).

And then finally the burst of light that signified the end of the battle. She remembered looking up at the sky and wondering whether this meant that their friends had succeeded or failed. Either way, she was immensely relieved - relieved that it was finally all over, and that she could rest, if even for just a moment. She remembered wondering if there was an afterlife. Then the light had enveloped them, and when she’d seen the dark monsters shrieking in terror at the divine ray, she had smiled and cheered, because she knew that they’d won. That was the last thing she remembered from that day.

They’d woken up together, all four of them and Dalgom, on the shores of Plastic Beach just before sunrise. She recalled how hard they had cried upon seeing the sun cresting the horizon for the first time, and wondered if their friends had been able to see the same thing. The half-artificial, half-natural floating construct they were on was still an anomaly to the girls, along with its robotic inhabitants. However, it was a place to live, and using the skills that their father had taught them all those years ago, they thrived. Throughout the entire time they’d lived here, there was always a nagging tickle in the back of Lisa’s brain, as if something was coming. Something big, not unlike the feeling she’d had when she was scaling the Living Mountain. She had never mentioned these feelings to the other girls. Lisa knew that they weren’t just surviving for themselves anymore. There was a bigger purpose to them, and it was simply their destiny to be caught up in the mad events that constantly seemed to be occurring on this planet.

The sunset ended, leaving the island in a serene state of warm darkness. Lisa stood up from her perch, intending to head out and check on the fishing nets that they had cast out two days ago. As she turned, she was met with the familiar scent of cigarette smoke. Jennie stood at the top of the steps, a scowl set on her misleadingly babyish face as she stowed her lighter into the pocket of her shorts and brushed a lock of her freshly-dyed auburn hair from her face. She took a long pull from her cigarette before speaking.

“Someone just washed up on the southern tip of the island.”

Lisa frowned.

“Pirates again?”

The constant threat of others wanting to claim the island as their own had been looming pretty much since they’d gotten here. The robots that lived on the island would help defend it, but the brunt of the work was left up to the four girls and Dalgom; luckily, battle was pretty much in their DNA, and it took very little risk or effort to fight off their attackers.

“I don’t think so. They don’t usually come alone, and they don’t just swim here.” Jennie stared out at the southern horizon as she spoke, and her voice conveyed an uncharacteristic level of concern, “Jisoo and Rosie went to go check it out. Without telling me first.”

“You know they can handle themselves just fine.” Lisa said, attempting to assuage the older girl’s fears. Anything that had to do with Rosé being in danger usually led to Jennie demanding that she be present to supervise. If that wasn’t possible, the brunette would constantly worry and chain-smoke until her love returned, clinging to the violet-haired girl as soon as she arrived and staying within hugging distance of her for the next few hours. Frankly, Lisa had no idea how Rosé could deal with such clingy dependency from her partner.

“But Rosie was tired this morning,” Jennie said, her tone coming close to whining, “She did a lot of work and she might not be completely on top of her game. I don’t want her to get injured.”

“Jisoo wouldn’t let anything happen to her. And it’s one person. How big of a deal could this even be?”

“I just have a bad feeling, is all.” Jennie said, finishing her cigarette and tossing it unceremoniously over the edge of the roof.

“You really shouldn’t litter here,” Lisa reprimanded, “This whole island is our home.”

Jennie ignored her junior’s attempt at scolding her and departed, heavy footsteps fading as she made her way down the spiraling staircase. The blonde rolled her eyes, making a mental note to talk to Rosé about this. Jennie had a bad habit of leaving her cigarette butts everywhere, and no one else would be able to put a stop to it. A small part of Lisa’s mind was envious of their relationship, no matter how sappy and weird it seemed from the outside. She had tried to talk to Jisoo about the shared loneliness they were both burdened with, but the older girl was quick to shut her out; Jisoo hadn’t talked about Seulgi or what had happened at the mountain in a long time. Indeed, the black-haired girl had spent much of her time alone since they’d started living on the island, and while Lisa wished that she could help her senior in some way, she knew that pushing her too hard would only increase the distance between them.

Lisa found that Jennie’s worry had infected her as well, and a swell of anxiety slithered across the pit of her stomach, mixing with her sadness and creating an unfavorable soup of bad emotion that weighed her down both physically and spiritually. Still, the fishing nets had to be checked, and since Jennie was busy brooding, the responsibility fell completely on the young blonde. Before beginning the long descent to the base of the tower, she gave one last look at the moon, its inviting yellow-white hue radiating peacefully in the distance, giving her a modicum of calm.

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The start of a new adventure (:

I think the first couple of chapters are going to be relatively shorter like this and they'll increase in length as more of the characters are introduced. I wonder if you can guess who washed up on the beach... haha.

Thanks for reading<3