The Buttoned Sky

A bleak future stretches beneath hovering, button‑shaped gods that watch every move of the common folk. Revel, a hard‑pressed miner from the mist‑shrouded town of Dolfya, wakes to a world poisoned by the whims of the gentry and the relentless surveillance of these celestial orbs. As he struggles to fetch water for his ailing mother and confront the daily cruelties of a corrupt ruling class, his restless mind entertains the impossible idea of challenging the very deities that dominate his life.

The story follows Revel’s first uneasy steps into the mines where the gods’ presences flicker like yellow lanterns along the tunnels. Guided by a telepathic greeting to a silent god‑guard, he descends into labor that feeds the powerful while his own hopes flicker between resentment and a yearning for something better. In this gritty, myth‑laden landscape, the narrative asks whether a single voice can disturb the sky of buttoned gods that have long held humanity in their cold grip.