It is sunny out. Out of place as it is in this sort of place, the star millions of miles away is still casting its radiant glow onto the planet without any clouds to interfere and it is sunny out. It always is.

The sunlight hurts your eyes. Your eyes are more sensitive than you think they should be, taking longer to adjust to a sudden flash of light in a dark place and almost burning if one thing is basked in more brilliance than something next to it at a noticeable degree. You partially blame this on nights spent in a near pitch black room, reading and writing and coding and discovering on a massive computer until the Pidgey are singing their morning tune and you realize you haven't sleep at all that night. Or the night before. Or the one before that. You used to shield your eyes frequently if you were outside, but your money was well spent when you gained a pair of lenses that doubled up in function for the helpfulness of being able to actually see things – not just jumbled up blurs – and the shade of natural and artificial light failing to penetrate through your sunglasses. Needless to say, the sun would have never been what you'd call best friend material.

Not that the added baggage helps much at all.

The last day you spent with your mother – really spent with your mother – it rained. Rained on and off for nearly six hours straight before the storm clouds rolled off to a town not surrounded by desert waste. Both you and she danced together outside for as long as you could, not caring when your few neighbors caught sight of you and flashed perplexed looks your way. Not caring when the heaven's tears soaked straight through your clothes and skin until the cold was bone deep. Not caring when you both collapsed to the ground in a tired heap, using the last of your energy to laugh at the stupidity and beauty of it all. Then she scooped your five-year-old body into her arms, spun you around twice, and took you inside where you drank warm cocoa and watched detective shows before you passed out on the couch. You figured her joy was not out of spontaneity or from the rare rain shower that lasted longer than ten minutes, and you were distraught when your fears were proven correct; in the morning, you would find the first sticky note of many slapped on your door before you went to school saying that her new job started that day and she wouldn't be able to see you off in the morning – or the afternoon, or the night time, or any time, really, though she was kind enough to leave that out – and that you'd have to walk to school alone. You rarely saw her after that point. It was sunny out.

Then came the day you came home from one of your annoying visits to your abhorrent aunt and found your mother sprawled out on the floor at the foot of the stairs, which is strange because she should have been at works hours ago and – She doesn't stir when you shake her. Doesn't stir when you call her name repeatedly. Doesn't stir when you press your fingers to her neck and find that there is no pulse. With shaky hands and watery eyes you call an ambulance and preform CPR to the best of your abilities until they get there. You find out half an hour later that she had been long dead and all of that effort was wasted. You don't say anything about it to yourself, to your aunt, or to the one person you were starting to develop a real friendship with at school. Actually, you don't say much of anything. They throw her funeral in the church two towns over – Aria Village is small and deep in the desert, it's not much of a surprise as to why they don't have anything too religious-centered within its boundaries – and you say nothing, your face blanker than it has ever been even after hours of practicing a straight face in front of a mirror to get it down perfectly. It is only when they've lowered her casket into the ground and start to fill in the hole that reality dawns on you and your barely ten-year-old hands grab wildly at thin air, pleading, begging, “Don't take her! Please, please, don't take her! Mom, wake up! Wake up, I need you! Don't you even love me?” before your aunt has to drag you back inside and sits on you until you finally stop flailing and fall into silence once more. The light from the sun outside the stained glass windows hurts your eyes.