*STORY IN DESCRIPTION* Hey there! Hya here with my entry! This is actually part of a longer story I'm working on... hope you enjoy it! ~ It was a bleak but hot day, as all were, when Allie looked out that window. It was not a humid, natural heat, but a sickening dry heat, stinging with the carbony smell of exhaust and manure, becoming all the more prevalent and nauseating in the °105 Fahrenheit temperature. The temp never dropped below °80, anyway, since the Climate Collapse (or Climate Rebirth, as the Joy and Happiness party called it) of 683 P.E. (Post Elon). Regardless of any party’s preferences towards language, that was the day when it started for Allie. It was no more than her 8th night at the Rejuvenation Facility, a residential home designed to assist and eventually let free the disturbed, destructive, and disgusting of the nation. She never quite got why she had to be sent there, seeing that all she did was briefly go off her medication simply to cut expenses. She had lost her job recently, and seeing that they were the most expensive thing in all her receipts, it seemed only logical to cut them. She doubled her daily shocks, of course, simply to keep her obsessive tendencies at bay. By Lord Elon’s cologne, she even notified the Council of Common Bliss. But back to the point. At around dusk every day, just to relieve her unsteady mind, after going off all her treatment as one did in an R.F., she would gaze out the window of her quarters (which were thankfully air-conditioned). It wasn’t much to look at, though, as all the terrain was shrouded constantly in dirt-brown smog. Until that fateful day. As all patients did, she had one Free Day a week, an unscheduled time when one could re-educate his or herself outside of the mandatory classes. She typically spent hers reading in her quarters, though not the most legal literature. A friend from before she arrived, Honey, stockpiled banned books in her apartment and occasionally gifted them to Allie. She didn’t quite know how she got them, but thought Honey said something about a friend who had a sibling who had a spouse who had a cousin who volunteered at the archives. Regardless, it was always great when she did, as the only legal books were all generic romances, adventure stories steeped in blood and entrails, and the occasional bedtime story for children. And, during this Free Day, she sat in her windowsill reading a banned story by some fellow named William Twistspeare or something. It was a perfectly tranquil, quiet moment until she read one unfortunate little line, “To thine own self be true…”. Allie leaned back. Such a word, “true” was unheard of. She remembered looking it up in a dictionary at Honey’s place before she left. “In accordance with fact or reality…”, She mumbled to herself, trying to possibly capture such a concept. Such ideas, “facts” and “reality” had died when the Common Digital Net came about. She lay the book in her lap, staring out the window. It was one of the rare days when the smog thinned, and she could see much more of the surrounding terrain than normal. She thought more of that odd, odd, word, thumbing nervously at the tattoo on her wrist, one black bar on dark skin the color of hazelnuts or bitter honey (both foods she had heard about in Honey’s library). It marked her as a prollyx, one of the lowest and poorest members of society. Most simply wore his or her class markers on his or her garments, but all the patients at R.F.s received an additional tattoo. It was when she looked up from that lone, life-defining little black bar that she saw the most peculiar sight, made clear by the sudden dissipation of smog in the air. Looking out, she saw the most peculiar little brownish-black cavity in the earth. It had to be less than a quarter mile away, she noticed, it suddenly hitting her just how widespread and chokingly thick the smog was. Regardless, her focus was that sinkhole-seeming blotch there. Looking closer, she noticed something that made her blood run colder than a Synthetic Travel Center: A sea of objects with the exact shape and color of bodies. A sickening rainbow of flesh buried in the earth. She gasped, of course, the sight choking off every bit of breath in her body. The most powerful shiver she had ever experienced shook right down her spine. What in Elon’s name is that? “No.” She muttered. “No no no no no no no…” (Rest of my entry is in the notes & credits.)
Before she could practically collapse, a figure appeared in the doorway, creeping like Death itself. This is it, Allie thought. She muttered her apologies in a quickened breath. “Allie? Are you alright?” It was Bertha, her roommate. Oh, Elon, Allie thought. It was bad enough she had to be witnessed recoiling and panicked like that, much less from her frankly attractive and poised roommate. Bertha was a bourgyx, and knowing she was already taught the prejudices of her class that prollyxes like Allie were lazy scum, despite being literally born into an inescapable condition, Allie truly wanted to seem acceptable to her. Shallow, she knew, but it mattered to her. She watched in terror as Bertha parted her delicately poised lips. “Can you hear me, Allie? I’m sorry for intruding like this. It’s just that I was going to the mess from the Connection Courts, but I heard you gasping for breath. You’re only 19, right? Too young to have a heart attack…” She said something about how not even a heart attack was possible in this day and age, anyway, for all the incredible accomplishments of the Joy and Happiness party. She was gorgeous, sure, but did she really need to bring patriotism to every single discussion? Allie turned around to look at her, hair the color of bitter coffee standing out against her pale, pale, skin. Unlike Allie’s blending, cool temperament, everything about Bertha seemed to stick out, even against itself. Pale, blue-gray eyes like the moon stood against black eye makeup thick as a raven’s wing (A now extinct bird, apparently. That Honey knew her stuff.) Her defiant posture set off by her delicate, poised nature. Allie breathed in. “I’m alright. I don’t know what came over me.” Bertha looked at Allie in polite confusion, understandably. Allie sighed with frustration internally. Bertha’s image of her was now permanently ruined, surely, for such an outburst as Allie’s could be a sign of only madness. Bertha also became aware of the awkward silence between the two, though it took her more time than Allie. Allie understood it, though, odd as it was, considering most bourgyx never came into contact with another human soul their entire lives. They had no need to, anyway, and human bonding could only keep one separate from a life of investments and ownership. Allie understood that basic social rules were likely entirely unknown to people like Bertha. At long last, Bertha spoke. “Well, I’m sorry about that. Only thing we can actually rule out is a panic attack- they abolished those centuries ago!” She let out a thunderous laugh. “Yeah..” Allie said, coughing out a weak chuckle. “Sorry to have interrupted you.” Bertha smiled. “Oh, it’s quite alright, really. I had to do my weekly Purity Assessment anyway.” She pulled up the tab of the assessment on her small wrist implant, just below her three-bar tattoo. Allie had wanted one since she was a child, but knew it was impossible even then. Prollyxes could never be able to afford such a commodity. “Oh. Alright then,” Allie said, sitting down on her bed on the right side of the room, cracking open that Twistspeare book. Bertha sat doing her assessment at the simple desk that sat in the middle of the room. The two sat like that for what must have been a little less than an hour, until Allie cracked one deadly question. “Did you see that chasm earlier?” Bertha looked around at Allie, questions in her mind. “What chasm?” Allie sighed. “This odd… hole. I don’t know how to describe it. But it was filled with… bodies.” Bertha stared at Allie, stunned. “Bodies? That’s peculiar.” She thought for a moment, looking upward. She made a sound suddenly, a gasp of recognition. “Ohhhhhhhh. You mean the Gape of Returns.” Allie squinted. “‘The Gape of Returns?’ What’s that?” Bertha chuckled. “Oh, of course… you’re a prollyx. Makes sense. The Gape of Returns is a place to dump old Synthloves.” Allie a slight “hmm” sound. “Synthloves? What are those?” Though her previous laugh may have been a poised tinkle, the one Bertha made now was more like a thunderous eruption of waves in a SynTrav. “Oh… Allie, Allie, Allie, Allie, Allie, ALLIE.” She could practically implode now, she was guffawing so hard. “Of course you don’t know what those are… they’re family! Helpful little androids to give you the family or spouse of your dreams! I can’t believe you’ve never owned one…” -END-