Thin Glass

Nothing New

I had lived in this cage my whole life, I knew nothing but the crystalline walls of the sound dome. I had only ever known stories about the outside, fables passed down from generations back 200 years, the last time anyone had set foot out there. We have a good life in here, water, food, friends; what more is there? We call our dome, serenity. It offered us refuge from the plague that wiped out billions. Only about 100 of the people back then made it inside here, leaving the rest, infected or not to die.
Originally, serenity was built for the ice seeking clean air away from our polluted environment. Things took a dark turn however when we found out the chemicals released from our bleached coral was infectious, first spreading throughout the water, then to the fish, and then it reached us. But we found this out to late. Half of Europe had been wiped out and it quickly spread worldwide. My great great great grandmother was one of the lucky few who lived in California. She made it safely into the dome at the age of 27. She is where our family tale of the outside originate. I have been told the mystical tales of what was once called a butterfly. It had beautiful wings decorated like stained glass and had a ghastly 6 legs and a long stabbing nose it would use to drain the blood from flowers. I had nightmares about that monster for weeks. My mom assured me that it was nothing but a myth and that sort of beast never existed, much like a bird or bat. She told me it was silly to imagine a thing could fly, it was impossible.
My grandmother still tells me about how she imagined what a bumble bee would look like. She imagined a long curly body like a hose with sharp fangs and wobbly legs. My favourite part was always drawing her silly ideas. I once tried to draw our town but it seems I am hopeless at buildings. They are sleek and angular, completely white always with 6 windows. We have a total of 267 housing units in our dome with the district in the middle. The district is the only area in Serenity where you can exchange platelets, our currency, for goods such as clothing or entertainment.
My mother told me that many years ago they had been promised a new food, but it never came. Each day our meals are the same. Plain oatmeal for breakfast, a banana with bread and butter on the side for lunch, and chicken with carrots for dinner. Everyone ate the same thing everyday. The most interesting thing we had was the drink we got on our birthdays! It consisted of a creamy chocolate liquid with a frothy white whipped looking cream on top. It tasted like heaven. You only receive them until you turn 16, I stopped getting mine last year.