“Nearly, I’ll be out in a moment.” Sky replied, and Father went away. Now there was just the matter of her hair that Sky needed to deal with. Other girls were likely to do something extravagant, but that didn’t appeal to her. Instead, she pulled her hair up into a simple half up. With a smile, Sky opened her door and prepared to enter her family’s sanitation tube.
Her mother was standing by the opening, tapping her foot impatiently. “You’re late. Everyone else has already gone to the House of Revelations.” she said. Turning to the voice recognizer, she told it the destination that she wanted to travel to. Then Mother stepped into the tube and got sucked away.
The traveling tube was the way that most people got around when there was a major gathering, such as that years revelations. The tube was black, and fairly thick. They were built so that a person could fit in it, be sanitized, and not feel claustrophobic. “House of Revelations.” she said. Once Sky stepped inside, she couldn’t see two feet in front of her face.
Cleansing liquids began shooting out at her from inside the tube. It wasn’t especially pleasant, because the liquid was cold. But it did its job in ensuring that each person who entered was clean before they went to the central system underground. After the cleansing liquid was done spraying, another liquid began to come out.
No one quite knew what each liquid was. It was so dark in each of the tubes, that you couldn’t see what was being shot at you. However, the first liquid was noticeably denser and smellier than the second. Then came the part of the cleansing that was actually enjoyable. Hot air began to blow on Sky, drying off her skin and clothing. Everything stopped for a moment, than the gravity shifted and she was pushed forward in the tube.
The tubes were by far the quickest mode of transportation, but it was such a hassle to be sanitized every time you went into one. It was necessary in order to keep the tubes nice and clean. If no one was cleaned upon entering the tubes, then they’d become a filthy, stinking mess quite rapidly.
It was cold when you traveled by tube, because they ran underground. Had they been placed above ground, then the sky would look clustered. You couldn’t have that, not in Utopian Earth. Sky shook her head, this wasn’t Utopia. Utopia didn’t exist. The world wasn’t perfect, no matter how hard it tried.
She stopped, and the tube opened. The House of revelations was right in front of her, and there was a large crowd of people standing in front of it. Sky scanned the massive crowd for her family, but it was hard to distinguish individuals in the sea of people. Then she spotted Aiden. He was waving his arms over his head with a grin on his face so big, it went from one ear to the other. “Over here!!” he shouted.
With a deep breath, Sky maneuvered her way over to Aiden. He had begun to jump up and down, perhaps to make sure she didn’t lose her way. It was loud, so loud that Sky nearly reached up to cover her ears. She restrained herself from doing so. It wouldn’t look good if she did that. It might give off the illusion that she didn’t want to be there.
Finally, Sky managed to reach her family. “What do I do?” she asked. The question was geared at Aiden, since she was closest to him, but Mother answered.
“Just walk up those steps and stand with your gender.”
“You couldn’t just say the other girls?” Sky sighed.
Her mother frowned and rolled her eyes. Then, with one swift motion, Sky was off. She took as large of steps as the crowd would allow. She hesitated slightly before climbing the stairs, then scolded herself. ‘There’s nothing wrong with finding out who you are.’ She thought.
Chapter 2
Start from the beginning
