The sun. The life-giving, ubiquitous sun, nearly impossible to avoid. The deadly rays snuck in through the cracks of blinds, the edges of curtains, to infiltrate every inch of a building. People laid low, sticking to the darkest corners of their lowest floors. Existing, for the first time, in a world with no natural light.

As long as their food lasted.

People snuck outside then, but only at night. They wore as many layers as they could pile on: visors, hats, sunglasses, helmets, gloves, stockings, snow pants, long sleeves. Still, they became infected.

Still, they died.

That was when the scientists discovered that the allergy stemmed not just from the sun but from UV radiation in general. It was a hell of a choice. Stay inside and watch your family starve. Or venture outside and risk imminent death.

Another million people succumbed to the radiation before the first underground cities opened. Millions more passed before the last of the remaining population was invited under the earth. North America suffered the most deaths, since that’s where the virus was released. But populations were also decimated in Asia, Africa, Europe. Not a single country escaped without extensive casualties.

Underground bulldozers worked, day and night, tunneling more space, pushing deeper into the earth. Building a new world with a third of the previous population.

And now my brother has limped to the security cameras in front of the underground city of the District of Columbia. The last time we talked, I begged him to retreat underground with us so that we would be together. So that he could be safe.

He declined. I didn’t understand why, but even back then, my body knew. As it does now. Sweat courses over my skin, and both my heart and stomach think I’m caught in a storm on the Bay of Biscay: tilting, falling, somersaulting.

Except I’m not. I’m in a dry underground cave, my eyes magnetized to the screen.

Archie laughs, loud and braying, and holds his palms up to the sun, taunting us. Mocking the world.

“It was me.” His eyes shoot all over the holo-screen, as though he might be searching for someone in the audience. Searching for…me. “I’m the one who released the Sun Virus. Not to punish the world, as you might believe, but in order to help you.”

I press my hand to my heart in an attempt to hold together the shattered shards. Oh, Archie. No. NO. I can’t accept this. Even here, even now, I cannot believe that my brother is the Maker.

“People have become cruel,” he continues, indifferent to my denial. Oblivious to my pain. “You care only about yourselves. You’ve forgotten how to be kind. Unselfish. You no longer remember the things that were supposed to make us human. You haven’t remembered in a long time.