“Hey Owen! You’re not going to need that are you?” drake said as he eyed the food in Owen’s arms. Drake’s hands reached out greedily. As the hands got closer, they changed direction drake’s greedy face faded and his fingers morphed into large hands that tossed him to the ground. He was suspended in the air the ground rising slowly to greet him. He hit the ground with full force knocking the breath out of him. He felt everything but complete monotone satisfaction as it was ripped from him and hid behind steel walls along with most his memories and his senses. He was numb emotionless and cold. All he remembered was the ordinary monotone routines. Wakeup, eat, find shelter, eat, sleep. Over and over and over again. He was in front of the wall. Something was caught between the panels. It brushed past him, and he grabbed it. He pulled. Slowly, slowly it relented the wall cracked. His grasp faltered it was being pulled away from him. He fought it and the feeling came back to him. He felt a tingling in his limbs, he felt and ever creeping slinking stalking fear. Never up close, but behind the scenes always there. He grasped and found it was gone.

“Owen?” a voice called out through the darkness.

He felt himself rising as if in a giant bubble then…

His eyes opened. He was lying on the floor of his hut. He looked up and saw the girl standing in the door. His wild eyes stared into her blank emotionless ones.

“I told you” She murmured then slipped out the door into the twilight.

The next day Owen joined her by the river. Her head turned slightly as she heard him approach.

“Have…” she stopped then continued. “Have you ever wondered what was over there? How there is this whole huge world built for us, but we never go past this point?” she paused then laughed at herself when she heard no answer.

“of course not. It is too dangerous out there. They were able to protect us from most, but not all the threats. What was I thinking?” she shook her head then turned to Owen. “We will never leave. we are trapped here, and we don’t even care.” She then turned and walked away.

Owen glanced at her leaving then though about what she had said as he gazed past the river into the land nobody has crossed into. Lost in his thoughts his hand brushed his temple. An electrifying spasm ran through his head and arm. His hand yanked away, and he clenched his fists. Slowly his hand reached up to his temple. He hesitated for a moment before he grabbed the chip. His fingers were burning, and jolts went through his arm. His head seared with a throbbing pain. His fingernails dug between chip and skin. Slowly, the painful throbbing faded away replaced by a flood of memories as the steel walls in his mind crumbled into rust then evaporated. He remembered every time he woke up for a second, then every day for another. They came faster and faster going back in time as he slowly pealed the chip off. Suddenly there was a flash of light. All was dark but a blinding white pillar. He was surrounded with pure darkness. all he could see was the pillar which was a constant beam of solid flowing light energy. The light grew to the sky and spread out in long ribbonlike arms with a membranous field connecting them. They spread till they reached the ground. He saw the wavering steel walls were nothing but a mirage, a holograph. The pillar grew brighter and brighter untill it had consumed every bit of darkness making it one with itself. Owen put his hand up to his eyes to shield them from the intense light. Another flash and Owen’s hand fell to his side his fingers red and burnt. The chip fell slowly to the ground where it's dim white glow finally flickered and went out.