It was Saturday, and dusk was about to fall in Lanura. As the twilight deepens, the city's lights begin to spark—streetlights and neon signs turned on, turning the metropolis into a "river of headlights" and a "sea of gold and silver".
Lara leaned slightly toward the window, watching the world glide past as the Bentley purred down the quieter main avenue of Aurelian Village. The hum of the city faded behind them.
Instead of skyscrapers, fire trees lined both sides of the road like silent sentries. Their branches were thin and skeletal in the late January chill, leaves sparse and brittle, but bursts of bougainvillea flared between them—violent reds, hot pinks, streaks of orange—like paint splashed across a gray canvas.
On the center island, dwarf bougainvillea bloomed in careful clusters of tri-color. Manicured. Precise. Moneyed. The kind of landscaping that said this neighborhood didn't just survive—it curated itself.
Soon the car slowed and turned right.
