The Dome

Sunday at the Square

A Guardian behind the Counter took out a tablet to record Henry's death. And even though Guardians concealed their emotions and thoughts, the Guardian looked a little uneasy, but he quickly covered it up. Silasque wondered what made him slip. Because Guardians never slipped.

"Everybody look forward and remain still," Father spoke as the Counter took out a slightly different looking tablet of her own.

When children are too young, they aren't old enough to be injected with a chip yet, so they can't be counted electronically. Each person's chip contains a number. The chip allows the Board of Guardians to keep track of them. When someone died, their number was deleted from the database. Silasque found it rather silly that they didn't use names instead of numbers, so they didn't have to ask who wasn't present and why. She also thought it wasn't worth injecting everyone with chips if the only purpose the chip served was for the counting every Sunday.

She remembered learning in her Dome history class that the chips used to serve more purposes, such as monitoring health, listening in to conversations, location tracking, punishing people with pain, etc. When chips started existing, the Guardians turned from a symbol of hope and leadership to a group of feared and secretly hated cruel leaders. So, the Guardians stopped injecting those chips in everyone and started injecting chips with only numbers to be identified by and with the only one quality being the ability to be scanned for the counting every Sunday.

The Counter held her tablet up and scanned the crowd. She showed Father the tablet screen and Father simply nodded, "We have two people who aren't present. Have they passed?"

The same woman who was sobbing earlier raised her hand and looked forward with teary eyes, "My husband, William, and my son, James. They are both sick and coughing. I requested help at the infirmary."

The woman wasn't too far away from Silasque, and from a distance, she could tell the woman wasn't in very good condition herself. She appeared so exhausted, Silasque was worried she would fall over any second.

The Guardian who recorded things recorded this information too, and Father started making announcements.

"All children who turned 13 this year must report to the Test Administer's Office at the time shown by their household number on Tuesday and all children who turned 14 this year must report to the Job Distribution Center at the time shown by their household number on Monday."

"As a reminder, food will be distributed to each household today. Please step outside to receive your week's food supply at the time shown by your household number. Thank you all for gathering here this morning. You may proceed with your day."

As Silasque thought of it, Sunday was the only day off during the week and they were all required to be present at the Square for the morning of their day. In other words, she didn't like how the system worked.

As Silasque filed out of the Square along with everyone else, a sense of dread filled her, followed by a whole bunch of other feelings she couldn't comprehend. There were two years of her life that she had been dreading the most: the day she had to take the Test and the day she was to be given a job. You didn't get to choose your own job. In Silasque's eyes, you didn't get to choose your life. Her logic was that she was born into a society with strict regulations and requirements and if you screwed up in the least, you had to pay, and once you've complied to the rules and ways of society, you're basically living the same life as everyone else, the very same life that has been designed and molded from the very beginning.

When she arrived home, her mother and sister were already there, her mother comforting her crying sister. Silasque closed the door and walked silently over to where they were and sat down next to them, pulling her sister into a hug.

"Hey, it's going to be okay Daph," Silasque hugged her sister tightly, willing herself to stay strong for her sister.

Daphne looked up at Silasque with fear and determination in her eyes. Unlike Silasque, Daphne's facial features were sharp and defined, and she had cherry red lips that lit up her whole face. However, like Silasque, she had the little bump along the bridge of her nose and an overall thin figure. She was the spitting image of the sisters' father, except in female form.

"I'm going to go make you girls lunch," their mother got up and wiped the tears away from her amber eyes before going into the kitchen. Silasque looked up at her mother and gave her an assuring nod.

"Was it scary for you, too?" Daphne asked, leaning into Silasque's embrace.

"It was," Silasque admitted as she held her sister close, running her fingers through the tangles of her sister's long brown hair, "But you're strong and caring and when you come home after the Test, mom will make a huge dinner just for you."

"How-" Daphne sniffled, pulling away from Silasque and turning her gaze on the floor, "How do you know I'll pass? I thought the Test was just all plain luck."

Silasque didn't know what to say. Part of her didn't want to scare her sister with the truth, but part of her wanted, knew her sister needed to hear the truth, and when she spoke, it was just above a whisper, "It is."

At precisely 1:47 that afternoon, Silasque stepped outside to collect the food. A deliverer handed a bag of vegetables to her and Silasque took it without a word. When she was younger, she used to thank the deliverers when they handed her the bag. Her mother had scolded her and taught her that you aren't supposed to say thank you because it's the job of the deliverer to deliver the food to you and they're supposed to do it for you. Now, Silasque had finally learned to resist the urge to thank the deliverers.

"Such a lovely girl, I hope she makes it," Silasque turned to see the old lady next door standing outside with her bag of vegetables, her poofy hair and round glasses accentuating her wise brown eyes, "You know, I heard this year's population is the highest it's ever been."

Her words induced more fear into Silasque, fear of losing her sister, and Silasque suddenly couldn't breathe, her thoughts swimming. The bigger the population is, the more children that have to be killed during the Test. Which meant there was a greater chance Daphne wouldn't survive.

"Well, you have a nice day dear, enjoy the sunshine while it's still shining," the old lady hobbled up the front steps to her house and opened the door, placing the vegetables in first.

Silasque watched her for a couple of seconds and then turned and walked inside her house, quickly glancing at the plate of silver with her house number carved in it before shutting the door. Silasque felt anger at the old lady, but she knew that wasn't fair. It wasn't the old lady's fault they were going to kill more children this year. It might've been insensitive, but Silasque knew the old lady meant well. Sighing, Silasque handed the vegetables to her mother and went to spend time with her sister.