Dreamers 4

I went back to the common room to find all the kids doing their own thing. Some where talking, some were playing computer games, and some were reading books. I went over to two girls, one with straight black hair wearing jeans, a white t-shirt and red slip-ons, while the other one was a brunette just like me, but with the bluest eyes I had ever seen. I had learnt that the brunette’s name was Carina, and the other’s name was Vulpecula. We got along well, discussed how we got here, the classic getting to know you stuff. As I mentioned Aarek and Olivia, their eyes darted towards the doorway, and I turned around to see Aarek and Olivia were standing in the doorway, holding hands.

I immediately got up, ripped Olivia from Aarek’s grasp and dragged her into another room, a bedroom I think, but no one was in there so I couldn’t care less where we were or whose room it was. I was more preoccupied with sorting things out with Olivia. Once I had slammed the door with all my might. I felt my anger explode like an atomic bomb. “Why didn’t you ask? Huh? Did you ever think I didn’t want to be here? And what’s with you and Aarek? How could you! I trusted you! I was just starting to think life wasn’t so bad, and you got me mixed up in this!” I screamed. I suddenly felt horrible for screaming at Olivia. She pushed me onto the bed and I started to cry. I had set Olivia off in the process of my screamed questions. She wasn’t screaming like me, but was pretty angry as well. “I thought this would be better for you! Rather than living in a sewer and not getting enough to eat, drink and getting dirtier and dirtier I figured that you would rather be well fed and looked after by Fornax and Corvus! And as for Aarek? I love him, and I don’t care how much him and his posse have beat you up. Just be grateful for what I have done for you!” I had never seen Olivia angry before, and my constant flow of tears had not stopped, but instead of continuing to scream at me, she sat down beside me and gave me a hug. “I’m sorry, Alya. I just did what I thought was right.” Her tone had become softer now.
“That’s okay. I guess this is better than the sewer, but I was just annoyed because no one had asked. You know I’m like that! I’m just tired and overwhelmed.” I opened my arms for a hug, and suddenly remembered she had mentioned someone called Corvus. I wanted to know who that was, just like I need to know everything, so I asked, and before Olivia could respond, The door was thrown open so hard one of the hinges broke, and a huge boy with a black ponytail emerged, with a tiny looking Aarek behind him. “I’m Corvus!” He boomed. “And I don’t appreciate people disrespecting my friends!” He must of punched me after that, because all I could see were stars and the only thing I heard was  a loud slap that must have been Olivia striking Corvus right in the face and screaming for him to go.

When I woke, I felt a cold force on my head as I sat up, a cold pack fell onto my lap. Olivia was sleeping in an armchair. I decided not to wake her, so I took a book off the shelf, and started to read. When Olivia woke up she was extremely apologetic. “Sorry about him. He’s not usually like that. But I wouldn’t worry, he gives all the kids here a hard time, but managed to give me and Aarek the burden of being his friends.” She was almost whispering, probably because of the enormous headache I had woken up with.
“Yeah, that’s okay. Listen. I want to see The Metropolis. Can you take me?” I asked. I was worried she’d say no, as I’m always scared of the word no. That’s what I had once told a psychiatrist once, just to wind her and mum up, even though it was true, but they wouldn’t take answers they didn’t like.

As we approached the room with the transporter, Fornax and Aarek emerged from a room, blocking our path. What was with Aarek and standing behind people? And what was with him getting me into trouble? “Olivia, you know going to The Metropolis is not allowed, unless you’re with me or Corvus!” he scolded. Before Olivia could object, I piped in, “Well, I’ve met Corvus, and we don’t exactly get on. I just wanted to see the place I’m supposedly saving!” I half teased, half argued. Olivia gave me a thankful look, and without even taking notice of Fornax, she glided into the teleporter room. I followed her, and so did Fornax, but Aarek just stood in the hallway, obviously annoyed at the fact that I wasn’t in trouble yet. What was his problem? That I had stolen Olivia? It’s not like I’m any competition. As we approached the silver dome, I felt a pang of nervousness. What if this didn’t work? What if we got stuck in some dimension full of aliens that looked like Marvin the Martian? I heard to sound of the door opening and had to be dragged inside by Fornax and Olivia. Inside the transporter were more flashing lights than the room it was in before. There was a green glow and multiple beeps while Fornax did complicated code-like things and Olivia was on the other side making sure everything was working by the looks of it. Suddenly, we were whooshed into a storm of flashing lights. We were moving so fast everything was a blur around me, and I could barely make out the silhouettes of Olivia and Fornax. I started to feel sick and just as I was about to throw up, we landed in some sort of lane and I banged my head on wet, gray cobblestones. There was water falling on my head. “Rain!” Olivia squealed. As I looked up, all I could see were tall buildings with balconies and pot plants, and I got a slight glimpse of the swish furnishings inside. Olivia and Fornax were already up, dragging me along at I stared in awe of this place. There were no factories or fumes at all, and there were buildings with big windows and plastic people wearing beautiful dresses and jewelry. “There called shops,” Fornax told me. “It’s where the people here get their clothes from. Back in Paris, we got given government clothing. Jumpers, jeans and boots for the winter and shorts, t-shirts and sandals for the summer. I had never imagined the luxury of picking clothes for myself, let alone having so many choices. I assumed they would cost money, and the only thing money was used for was to pay for the delivery of food and where you lived. You either lived in old shotgun style house with 1 or 2 bedrooms, or you lived in a two-storey house with big rooms. “Corvus says this is what things were like before the revolution. He lived in one of those,” Olivia said, pointing to a gigantic building, with windows reflecting the world around them like mirrors. She was clearly proud of her knowledge.
“That’s right Olivia. We went our grim, sad way, while this world is  just going keep on moving, like the Man In Charge never existed,” Fornax agreed.  Apparently Paris was one of the most romantic cities in the world, where people would go for holidays. But when the revolution came, only a few cities stayed the way they were. Even then people were made to work. In Paris, factories made furniture and day-to-day items, while food was made and grown in the country and made into microwave meals, delivered to the cities. That’s how it was everywhere. The leader of the revolutionaries, who took charge of Europe, never took on a title, so we just called him the Man In Charge. He forced us to knock down the buildings and build factories, so that we could live off them.  He claimed that we should only live to survive, because we were such a burden on Earth, blah di blah di blah. Anyone who tried to rebel against him was either publicly shot or taken away, never to be seen again.

As we walked around, I was taken aback by the people. They would walk around of their own free will, with no curfew or designated times of the day. People did as they pleased, wore what they wanted, did their hair how they wanted. It was amazing! The freedom was overwhelming! People were laughing, holding hands, happy as could be. I felt a pang of longing. I wish I could have been brought up here! Everything so perfect!  But before I could soak any more of it up, Fornax dragged us back to the teleporter. I was beginning to question why we needed to save our world. I bet everyone would love life here. I posed my idea to Fornax. “After saving The Metropolis, can’t we move everyone here? Everyone would like it so much better! I mean, what’s the harm? It’s a whole world, isn’t it?”
“No, Alya. It’s not that simple. We can’t just move a planet full of people. The Metropolis isn’t any bigger than Earth, and we could never do it without the Man In Charge noticing. He’d have us executed before we could blink, let alone move everyone. Then everyone would be dead anyway! You do realise he kept the nuclear weapons?” Fornax sighed at the thought. “There must be some way we can get everyone on Earth to leave a better life. Right now we just exist, we don’t do anything, we just work, eat and sleep. What’s the point in that?” I was beginning to feel desperate. After my encounter with The Metropolis, the thought of Paris made me sick.