From now on I'll be abbreviating Phantasmagorias on the Horizon as PH at the title of the post. Also, I think I'll spend the rest of my Saturday drawing on SAI art tool with my graphics tablet despite the good weather...
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Day two of the Audio Recording project. Ms. Nichols is attempting to get us to speak in a 1st person narrative from now on when recounting our days here at Asihe and good grades tend to get people off my back, so it looks like I wont be ranting at this mic anymore.
Consciousness slowly drifted to me, an awkward melting pot of thoughts from my ever lucid dreams and thoughts on the coming day. After the confusion subsided I realize it's a new day, opened my eyes and rolled to the left mostly subconsciously. I stare out of the small window in the bedroom wall I face, the oceans confirm I've returned to reality. Rolling over to the right away from the wall I throw off the sheets and stand up on the red stained concrete flooring. The floor's rough texture scratches my bare feet a bit as I walk past a heap of dirty clothes towards my closet and get dressed. A nice dark gray zip up collared sweater over a white t-shirt, blue jeans on my legs, and black sneakers on my feet I walk out of the bland room into the halls.
Stainless steel and glass, how creative. Walking down the metal halls and there are doors all along the right and large panes of glass windows to the greenhouse below. Even though the gaps between the trees are clear at the 3rd floor the vegetation relaxes me, reminds me that there is something more than water and steel even if it is the same most days the trees grow and change more than the waters ever will given time. Mindless searching for a change in scenery along the way. Left turn at the end of the hall and there's an entrance to the elevator on my right. The walk from my room to here took 5 minutes that seemed longer because of the disappointing view. The elevator welcomed me inside with the telescoping doors contracting to the left along with the subsequent “ding” to remind me that I'm alive. I walk in and select the greenhouse level just so I can walk through it and get a whiff of some air that seems more natural before heading down to the School/Rec floor right below it to start the school day. Lost in thought again through a monotonous process I think of what I want to get out of the day. “Hopefully”, I thought “I'll be able to get together with Amile after school is out, then we could at least do something interesting then since I couldn't come up with interesting if I had a blueprint in front of me”
Attempting to think of something to do on Asihe left me so deep in thought I nearly missed the fact that I was on the Greenhouse Level. One day I'll die in an elevator because it stopped making that dinging noise. I walked out of the elevator and breathed the fresh and natural smelling air in the greenhouse. It felt so good because the trees process the air here and make it natural and rich in oxygen. The filters regulate the oxygen levels to just above bare-minimum needed for survival and store the ultra-oxygenated air left over in case the trees died. Apparently the air from outside is toxic or something. Maybe it just doesn't smell good, which I'd be wiling to blame the ocean for, something like that body of water must reek after brooding in itself for so long. I headed towards one of my favorite spots in the expansive greenhouse, the bamboo thicket area. It's a bit small but since bamboo grows densely in small spaces it's one of the few areas I can walk into the middle of and pretend it's all around me since I can't see past it much. It's not much but it gives me a way to escape the monotony a bit. Sitting there now in the thicket I thought about how I could find out more about the world outside of this dome. Maybe I could find a way out of it physically and traverse the ocean to find something else, unless the air is toxic of course, but there must be equipment for that. The only thing I could think of was to follow my father's footsteps. He was one of the lead engineers here at Asihe and he had to juggle both me and his job alone since my mom died after giving birth to me. My dad would always say I reminded him of my mom, I talked like her, had her hair and eyes, and I hated the monotony of life here just the same. He said I always reminded him of a promise he made to my mom, but he'd never tell me what it was exactly. “One day, once I can fulfill that promise, you'll find out” he said in his reassuring voice. Well, one day he came home to tell me that it was almost time and that soon everyone would be able to experience something great that was his promise to mom. The day after that, he had a heart attack in his office. They inter-commed my class while I was in school asking me to visit Administrations, which is basically the government here and gave me the news when I got there. They didn't let me see his body because I was a mound of incoherent sadness bawling on the floor of my room waiting for him to come home. I wish I would have gone to see him one last time now. I was 10 and I had no clue what to do without him and I couldn't do anything but mumble to communicate and lie awake staring at the ceiling when I was supposed to be sleeping for the longest time. Asihe's engineers gave me his office that he died in, the apartment he and I lived in, his money, and all of his possesions. They also had someone check on me and make me go to school and feed myself. I left most my inheritance alone. I used the money to buy a small apartment for myself when I turned 14 and got rid of my caretaker. Most of the people I called friends left me alone after that because I wasn't much fun anymore I guess, only Amile actually stayed friends with me and helped me through it more than anyone else.
A bit of sunlight shone through my closed eyes as I lie on the floor of the thicket, giving me escape from my memories. Not the best time I've had in the thicket and I decided to leave since I was probably already late for school. Walking to the elevator opposite the side from the one I used to get in I took it down to the School/Rec level, aka Floor 1. No or glass in these hallways, we were below the glass dome so there was no may to look out. I walked down the halls as those annoying rows of light at the sides of the ceiling stretched onwards overhead, hurting my eyes the more I looked at them. A few turns and I ended up in my classroom. I walked in thirty minutes late for no reason and sat down next to Amile, also the only one to even look towards me as I entered. I geuss I was starting to get predictable. Amile's wide-opened dark aqua eyes told me she was either completely annoyed at me or extremely worried. Probably both.
“Where have you been?!” she whispered just about as angrily as you can whisper
“I got uhh... stuck in the bamboo thicket”
“Oh. Stuck huh? Well, just try not to get lost like that, you almost missed it.”
“What's 'it'?”
“Listen to a teacher for once and maybe you'll find out”
“Alright class, since it seems you're all here and accounted for both mentally and physically at long last... Time for me to make an announcement.” Ms. Sheyrl, the Advisory teacher (The lady that suggests/tells us what to do with our lives) began. “Today is Jacob's 16th birthday at last.”
“WOOOOO, Yeah! Let's-” Jacob tried to exclaim as he climbed on top of his desk.
“Shut up Jacob and get off your desk this isn't about you.” Ms. Sheyrl's cold icy blades of words stung.
“D'wah?” Jacob sat down, extremely confused.
“Today is Jacob's 16th birthday, which means all of you are 16 now. Asihe can no longer afford to simply grant you free living here. Regardless of whether your parents take care of you or not, or if you have them to begin with-” I think she was referring to Frank, the test tube baby- oh no wait there's the cold stare, yep she meant me. “You must start looking into serving Asihe somehow. You are required to compile a list of jobs you'd be willing to take internships for during the rest of the week rather than go to school.”
A paper was passed around with fourteen blank lines to fill in, followed by another paper with a list of about 50 different jobs to intern at. Ms. Sheyrl explained that we had to read them all tonight and then return tomorrow with the list filled out, the day after that we'd have our list of the seven things we'll intern at for the week which will be based on our preference and our qualifications so far in school. She explained that if after this week's round of internships we'll be given one that we will go to for the next few months, that one will be determined by preference and how good we are at it as well.
“Alright then, short classes today, you'll be dismissed from your classes as soon as you retrieve your homework but roll will still be taken and you are to show up at all of your classes” Short glare in my direction, I think I'm loved.
“Go now” she finished. We all got up and headed out of the room.
“What do you think of that? We might stop going to school even if we're good enough at our job already too. We'll have some new things to do also.” Amile started to say as we walked down the hall to the next class.
“Yeah, I hope it's as good as all that, I'm kind of hoping I'll be able to get fully into it without having to intern and do nearly nothing for months.” I answered.
“Mhm, that'd be nice.”
“So what do you think we should do for the rest of the day Amile?”
“Dunno, what haven't we done?”
“We haven't escaped this dome yet.”
“I think we've talked about this, even though we both want to you know we might die AND kill everyone here if the outside air is poisonous or something, or maybe a zombie parasite will come along and turn people into zombies.”
To which I responded with a cough and mumbling about brains.
To which I responded with a cough and mumbling about brains.
“Quit it”
“Fine, but we still need something to do. Maybe we can at least find a new place inside of Asihe.”
“Sure, can you think of one?”
“We'll find one.”
“Deal, after school today we'll wait till some people are asleep, start in the greenhouse and snoop around. Hopefully we'll be someplace safe to hide around curfew call.”
“Sounds good”
With that we went along with school and parted ways after it was over. Now I'm sitting here in my room doing my Audio-Log while I wait for 10pm to roll around because I wont have time to record later on tonight. And I'm probably going to record something else over that last part before turning this project in.
Iden, out.
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