I sat up in bed. My scraggly dark hair partly obscured my face. Artificial, white light leaked into the room through the poorly curtained window. It was the middle of the night in Battery City, and I wasn't to be awake for a few more hours.
Lying back down, I ran my hand through his hair. Another nightmare, I thought. I'd been experiencing the same nightmare for several nights now, it was the night before Better Living Industries. I'd been with my family and my friends. We'd been laughing. Dancing. Singing. It had been the last night I saw my family.
I'd awoken to find a note from my wife, telling me she'd made a run for it with the baby for the desert. She didn't want our child to be raised under the influential likes of the Industries. The industries that I now worked for. It was a nightmare because it was against everything Better Living worked towards, everything that I worked towards. Perfection.
My wife had told me that she wanted our child to have the freedom to sing without fear. Now, I felt that my job was easier to do without the distraction of a family to have to provide for. Flopping back down, I stared up at my pale ceiling. I forced myself not to miss my family, it was weakness. I couldn't risk being weak.
I lay staring up at the ceiling, its blank surface dull and flat, with no personality. Just like me, and the citizens of Battery City. If you didn't make yourself like the way the Industries wanted you, you'd be taken away. I attempted sleep once more, but it was futile.
My mind had already awoken, and there was no turning back. Hopelessly, I sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed to rest on the cold floor. Pushing my hair back out of my face, I stood up and glanced out the half-opened curtains. The cold, artificial sun rose over a horizon that wasn't really there. All fake. I knew that.
But life inside the perimeter of Battery City was so much easier to live, rather than fighting to survive in the desert, as I was told daily. In the city, I was able to do what I wanted. And as a part of the Industries, I could help people. It was just...right. It felt right, I was told what I was doing was right, no questions asked.
Watching the white sun, I got myself ready for work.
KAMU SEDANG MEMBACA
Finding Myself Again
Fiksi PenggemarA Better Living Industries' worker who is of importance finds himself questioning his ways once having to interview the strange person called Raven who talks of the desert and a family beyond in search of the worker. This strange, small man accuses...
