The late-afternoon sun streaked through Mei's curtains in hazy bands of gold as she lounged on the couch, scrolling through Instagram. Her workshop smelled faintly of resin and paint—a comforting mix of creativity and chaos.
A bright splash of turquoise hair caught her eye. She paused on the post. The image showed a small, sharp-eyed girl with a mischievous grin, guns slung over her shoulders, eyes like molten emeralds. The caption read only: "Best girl forever."
Who is this? Mei wondered, leaning closer. The character looked punk and adorable at the same time, a whirlwind of attitude wrapped in a tiny body.
Without thinking, she screenshotted it and texted Hana.
> Mei: Ever seen this character? She's cute.
Hana: Hold on.
Minutes later, Hana replied with a voice note, excitement buzzing through the tinny speaker.
"That's Rebecca! From Cyberpunk: Edgerunners—the anime, not the game."
Mei frowned, replying aloud even though the voice message couldn't hear her. "Anime? But I played the game… well, half of it. I don't remember her."
A second note arrived almost instantly.
"Yeah, she's not in 2077. Totally unique to the show. Trust me, you'd love her. She's chaos in a four-foot frame."
---
That night, curiosity tugged at Mei long after Hana's messages ended. She set her phone aside, meaning to sleep, but the turquoise-haired sprite lingered in her thoughts.
Two days later, while mindlessly scrolling TikTok during lunch, she stumbled across a clip: neon city lights, gunfire, a streak of turquoise hair. The caption read: "Rebecca deserved better 😭💔."
The video cut to a brutal flash—Rebecca laughing wildly one second, then a sudden, merciless impact.
Mei's breath caught. "Wait… she dies?"
The comments were a storm of crying emojis and quotes: Best girl forever. She went out like a legend.
"No way," Mei whispered. "No way that's real."
Her stomach twisted with disbelief. She opened YouTube, fingers trembling as she typed Rebecca Cyberpunk death.
Countless results appeared. She clicked one.
For several minutes the room filled with the pounding soundtrack of Edgerunners, the chaos of a world on the brink, and Rebecca's fearless grin. Then came the moment—the strike, the silence.
Mei's chest tightened. The screen went black.
She closed the laptop and sat in the dark, the hum of her 3D printer in the corner suddenly louder than ever.
---
That night she dreamed of neon streets and endless rain. Rebecca darted through alleys of electric blue, laughing, defiant. When Mei woke, the echo of that laugh stayed with her.
---
By morning, an idea had taken root so firmly it felt inevitable.
I'll make her real again. In my own way.
She set to work immediately, sketching Rebecca's tiny frame—oversized guns, sneakers, and the untamable hair. Capturing the reckless grin was the hardest part; no drawing felt wild enough.
Days blurred together as she transformed sketches into a 3D model. The printer, long silent during her welding days, sang again—layer by careful layer, Rebecca's form rising from the print bed like a spirit being rebuilt.
---
One figure became two. Two became five.
Each time a print cooled, Mei would sand the ridges smooth, prime the surface, and hand-paint the details: the acid-green eyes, the streaks of grime on her jacket, the faded decals on her oversized pistols.
She experimented with different poses—Rebecca mid-leap, Rebecca crouched and ready to fire, Rebecca simply laughing, head thrown back at some cosmic joke.
Every new figure felt like a conversation across worlds, as though Mei was preserving pieces of a story that shouldn't have ended.
---
A month passed almost without her noticing.
When Hana visited, she stopped in the doorway and gasped. "Mei… your room…"
Figures stood everywhere. Twenty tiny Rebeccas grinned from shelves, desktops, and window sills. Some balanced on stacks of paint jars; others perched like watchful gargoyles along the tops of bookcases. Neon streaks of pink and green lit the room in a soft, electric glow.
Mei, brush in hand, looked up sheepishly. "I guess I got carried away."
Hana stepped carefully between the displays. "This is—wow. They're incredible. But… twenty?"
"I know." Mei set the brush down and rubbed the back of her neck. "I kept thinking of new poses. New ways to keep her alive. Every time I finished one, I felt like… like I was saving her again."
Hana picked up a figure of Rebecca mid-jump, the paint so fine it captured the scuffs on her boots. "You really loved her story, huh?"
Mei hesitated. "It's not just that she's cool. She's fearless, you know? Lives exactly how she wants, even when the world's falling apart. I guess… I want to remember that. To keep a piece of it close."
Her voice softened. "It feels like… like keeping a spark alive."
---
That night, after Hana left, Mei stood in the center of her room, surrounded by twenty miniature guardians.
Each Rebecca seemed to watch her, eyes bright under the LED strips Mei had installed along the shelves. The figures cast tiny, defiant shadows across the walls.
A warmth spread through Mei's chest—not sadness, not obsession, but a quiet, steadfast respect.
She whispered into the stillness, "You're not gone. Not here."
The printer hummed in agreement, ready for the next project.
---
Sleep was slow to come. She lay in bed, the neon glow painting her ceiling like a night sky.
Her mind drifted back to the convention, to the little girl who had called her a superhero. Back to Uncle Jian's workshop, to every weld and burn. And now to Rebecca—this fierce, fictional soul who somehow felt as real as any of them.
Mei smiled in the dark.
She didn't know if she'd ever stop making these figures. Maybe tomorrow she'd start another. Maybe she'd create her own original character again, someone inspired by Rebecca's wild courage.
Whatever came next, she knew one thing for certain: art—whether metal, fabric, or plastic—was how she kept the world's brightest sparks alive.
And in the quiet hum of her studio, twenty tiny legends agreed.