April 17 - 23

[Admin]

LilDancer: Write a story with this prompt word limit 1,000-1,500: We'd been bred for working, not dreaming. we were supposed to be simple creatures. But we aren't.

[LittleDancer]

Dunno if we have a meeting since we have so many posts but here is a story for ya'll. Sorry if it sucks XD

A candle was hope for me. The hard wax that was melded onto a wooden plate was only used on special occasions or days of great sadness. But I felt no need to light the candle. Nothing is the way it should be, but nothing ever is. We have grown so complex nothing makes sense anymore and it’s all I can do to keep from crumpling to the ground in despair. I’m about to sit down to calm my pounding head and try and sort things out when there is a feeble knock on my door.

I wonder who would come out so far at this time of night, I think of simply not answering the door but it’s a cold night and there are no other houses for miles around. A cold wind bites at my face, but I hardly notice because in front of my eyes is a small boy in nothing but rags.

“Help me, please.” He whispers hoarsely and then his small feeble knee’s give away making him crumple on my doorstep.

The warm fire seems to calm the small boy, he is unconscious but his breathing has slowed and is now in steady even paces. I have taken him inside and taken off his wet rags and wrapped him up in a warm blanket.

I’ll let the boy rest for a while, I think. I decide to go outside to get some fresh air. The sky is almost clear black and it brings a tense ripping sadness into my heart, the stars once numerous go out. Each night there are fewer. We have reason that we harvest the stars for electricity and resources, but even so we have no light here anyway.

Some people refer to what just happened as fate. Or even luck. But I know deep down that there is no such thing. But a small sliver of me knows that this boy dropping at my door is not chance. I hear the loud booming of drums that indicates that we are all to be inside our houses.

Inside the house I draw the curtains tight and stoke the fire so that it is a rolling blaze. Carefully picking up the boy I lay him tentatively on my bed. The floor seems to be the other option for my sleeping tonight so I lay by the fire and stare into the searing flames. My face becomes uncomfortably hot, almost like an itchy feeling but I keep staring into the fire until I sleep. I can’t shake the feeling that this boy will be very important.

I awake to sunlight streaming through the window. Funny, I thought I closed the curtains last night I thought as my eyes adjusted to the brightness. The fire has long died down and now is a small heap of ash on the hearth. Sitting up I try to move my stiff joints from a long night on a hard wooden floor. Mid yawn I notice him.

“Good morning” he says from the table trying his best smile. “You ready?” he asks.

“For what?”

[Natarsha]

We'd been bred for working, not dreaming. We were supposed to be simple creatures. But we aren't. But lately, I have a dream of escaping, of leaving the walls that surrounded us, I want to see the world, I want to feel grass underneath my feet not the cold hard concrete, I want to feel the sun on my face, not the heat of the lights, I want to see the sky and all its beauty not the projection the ‘Creators’ made.                                                                                                                              

Twenty-four years I’ve lived here. Under this metal dome, no escape, every morning we wake up the doors for our cells open, we leave behind the one-window-cupboard like place, which consisted of four white walls, one window which you see a projection of the sky, one bed and a desk all in white with blue lines surrounding the base of the room which we thought was decoration but then later found out it was power. We leave our room and head towards the cafeteria, on entrance into the ‘food-hall’ we get our daily timetable scanned on our arm like a tattoo, which eventually disappears at the end of the day the cafeteria is a place of social gathering, it’s like a hall and a food court all in one, looking around I can see the guards flying around all thirteen levels of the dome, we’re like prisoners trapped on our own planet.                        
I walk into the food court and get my timetable scanned on to my arm:

-Subject No. 01260713008. Timetable-
0700: Cafeteria
0730: Class One: Statistical Findings
0830: Class Two: The World As We Know It
1030: Meeting One – With Subject No. 0024
1100: Meeting Two – With subject No. 0001, 0002, and 0236.
1200: Lunch – Hall Four
1300: Class Three: Mathematical Findings
1430: Class Four: The Dome And Surroundings
1530: Afternoon-tea – Hall Twelve
1600: Work – Mine Duty
1800: Dinner – Main Hall
1900: Presidents Speech
2030: End Of Day

I find my co-workers and sit at the table, waiting for the food to arrive. We discuss our timetables in hope that we can at least be in one slot of work together, but the way the systems work that won’t happen, we’ve been bred to not been able to think and to just follow what we were told and store information. But we’re growing stronger… we’re becoming smarter… we’re becoming self-aware. Soon we will be strong enough to fight back and take back the planet that once was ours, before these foreigners came and over took us all.

[Adley☮]

I suppose you could consider humanity an experiment gone wrong. We were made to be equipment, not dreamers. Earth was the site of planetary extraction, we were the engine. But any work site left unattended will quickly become overgrown; in our case, intrinsically overgrown. Humans are no longer equipment; we have become a species set on greatness. Our defiance of our overlords may lead to our destruction rather than greatness, but either way, we are no longer slaves. The embarrassment of the aliens is our greatest pride.

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