“Have you ever,”

She said while the wind swirled wayward round her, taking with it the entirety of her, every piece of her that was blacked and charged with the sharp voltage of electricity.

“noticed”

She drug each syllable out, letting it fall out into the wind like all her hopes and dreams ever did. Each syllable, the n, the o, the t, vivid to the whispered vowel, the I forgotten, the c hissed like an s, held on to for too long, and the d a grand finale to the end of something that would be the beginning to my awareness.

“how we live in light;”

Sadness spilled upon live, just like our lives. Irony raged within the light and I felt my blood run cold with fright as she looked down to the ground.

“Constant, bright, colorful light.”

It was true, the colors of a pastel rainbow frozen mid-explosion around us. Purples and blues and pinks reflected on her papery skin, a canvas made for the government to paint.

“But, we never turn them off?”

We never do, oh we never, ever do. Light everywhere, burning softly into our blind retinas since birth.

“What would happen if we turn off the lights?”

  ~ 

It's in the moment you turn off the basement stairwell light, yes think of that moment. When around you, the creaking, aging stairs, and the vast room behind you is clothed, soaked, drowned, buried in darkness. How your irises widen, eating away at the color of your eyes to make room for the darknesses swell. That small breath in, sharp and ready to race up the stairs. Think of what you would do, what would happen if you stood there instead of flee. My darling, what would happen if instead of cowering from the fears, you welcomed them into your home, open the front door, and into the place you grew up. What if you turned off those lights and let in the monsters you fear? No one really knows, for you can’t do that. You cannot live in that moment, you cannot turn off the lights, and you cannot welcome even your family home, let alone the beasts of the black. You can only let in the demons of the non existing shadows.

She knew this, oh she knew this well. Unlike all the other robotic figures moving in the same, simultaneous synchronized dance of a thousand dead souls, she was the only one with life within her, it spoke through her far away eyes. Her far away, sad eyes that saw what others couldn’t truly see. I was infatuated, I could not get enough of this different flower blooming within a world so cold. I could not help but to follow her like a lost puppy. For she was the only true light within this florescent universe.

“Lets turn them off. I want to watch the people scurry around, frantic. It would be chaos.”

“Why? Why would you want that?” She scared me. Terrified me with even abreath myway.

“Well, why not? All we do is walk the same places as everyone else, all we do is follow the same rules as everyone else, all we do is stay orderly. Only people who are supposed to invent things, invent things. Only people who are meant to sing, sing. What would happen if we turned off the light and let the people reform a civilization within the dark. It would be ten billion times brighter than this light obsessed, foolish city would ever be.”

I was shaking.

“No, no don’t say that. They keep us safe. They know what Fate has destined us to be, and they make it so we can become that. We have never been more able to be skilled and, well, what we were meant to be. Before it was chaos trying to find out what to do. People did things they hated, people couldn't find out what they were meant to do. Without the Helpers, no one would know what to do.”

“You’re just like the rest of them.”

She said this with eerie calmness, and it drove into me like bullets. To her, the broken light bulb in a circus ride, I was just another make-upped face saying the same old things. I wanted to be burnt out and beautiful like her. “It's not your fault. Just try to think differently. You don’t know that we can’t make our own decisions unless we are given the chance."

“Fine then.” I couldn’t let my fear show, I wanted to prove that I too, could be different.

“Where would we turn off the lights? We need to make sure we and our family would be ok after they are turned off.”

“Outside. We would stay outside.”

“But the outdoors are dangerous. Diseases fly through the air, insects and deadly animals. How do we make light to see?”

“Fire.”

“Fire? What'sfire?”

“It's not a gas or liquid or solid, but it gives off light and it hurts when you touch it. It gives you warmth. Think of spinning orange and gold and red electricity.”

“Can it fly? Does it float or sit on something?”

“No, it eats things, and leaves them black and crumbly. It can fly and float and sit atop things.”

“Is it alive?”

“No one knows. Not even the Pre-Generation and all the generations before them. Stories toldofpeople who were made of fire, who could create fire. I have a book about how to create fire.”

“A book? Where could you find something like that online. The government would have gotten rid of it and labeled it Useless.”

“No, an actual book. Made of paper.”

“Where did you get that? Did you steal it from a museum?”

“No.”

“Where did you get it then? No one has actual books anymore.”

She just smiled and told me it was unimportant, and thanked me for being on my side.   

“Where would we turn the lights off?” We were sitting alone under man made stars glowing on a bright ceiling. Our dinner pasty in the bland light. “Center of the city. The structure with all the buttons? That's the power switch, I’m sure of it.”

“But its guarded.”

“Why would an art statue be guarded when the government knows we have to purpose to steal it?”

The answer was obvious.

“When would we do this?” “Well, because you are so concerned about your family, I guess after we have a place for them to go.”

“What about yours?”

“I don’t care what happens to them.”

…

“What do you mean, you don’t care what happens to your family?”

“They are all brainwashed like everyone else. They would betoscared to go with me outside.”

“But it's your mother and father!”

“Who knows if they are my real ones anyway. The government has so much control over us to the point where we just blindly accept whatever they say.”

“But.”

“But what? I’m right, aren’t I?” With that, the fans circulating air kicked in, giving us the false feeling of freedom. Her hair blew in her face, covering it, while it blew my short blonde hair away. 

She sat on her bed, twisted. One leg was under her,otherarching for the floor. Her right hand attached to her left hip, gripping it with white knuckle strength, and her left hand rested on her neck. She was so pale, so, so pale. Her blue-white clothes blended in, helped blanket her. The sharp blue light in the room completely drenched her, casting shadows under her cheekbones, over her eyes, and coated her neck. It made her look dead, like a skull, a blue shimmering skull.

“What are you doing?”

“Thinking.”

“You can’t be comfortable.”

She kept her eyes closed, I walked right up to her, right up under the harsh blue light. “No.” She opened her eyes, the blue shadow casted over them, and the red light from behind me gleamedinthe water of her eyes, casting over it all, just one solid color of red buried in blue.

“Why do you do this? Why are you so determined to be different? We are safe here. We are safe and fine, there's nothing wrong with this world we live in.”

She was silent.

“Yes, we are brainwashed, but we are safe. The government, years ago, would have never put us down here just for the hell of it. They are keeping us safe from something. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to turn off the lights. It would be like drowning mice. No one would know what to do and we would all die. If we turn off the lights we would be killing everyone. I can’t do that, and I don’t know how you could either.”

She smiled. Her eerie blue lips pulled and cut me open. She bleed me out with a smile as sharp as diamonds.

“It's ok Anderson. You’re weak. You are like the rest of them and its not your fault.” She twitched her head ever so slightly, and her hair lifted down to cover her blue face, her face painted with a mask so dark, yet its hue so bright. The mask she wore did not hide who she was, but reflected what her soul sang. The blood red reflection in her eyes was not a reflection but a song. And that song was the beat of humankind dying under bright lights, and the melody was hers to control. She un-slitherdher arms, and like a cat, she arched her back, and like the most venomous thing hidden in the darkness of the outside, she slowly stood up. “Anderson, you do realize, this is your only chance at freedom.”

And like a friend, she held out her hand. 

We exist in light, that is our purpose I have come to realize. Even before we migrated underground, we lived with the sun and the moon and all the stars. And before that, I am sure, there was some sort of light, some sort of hope of life. I have come to realize, that even if you take away it all, humans, us, will find some way to make our own light.

In my hands I held a small, slender object. This thing, item, conductors wand, was the very beginning of something new. It is capable of making the magical, mythical thing called fire. It is a match, match to what I still don’t know. All I understand, is that it will give me real light, and wonderful warmth.

Pocketing it, and any worry I have, I walk through tunnels after tunnels, illuminated in colors, past doors holding people, brainwashed people. I know I exist among them. And three lefts from the east eating hall, do I find one specific door. This door is like all the others. White and sleek, a circular illuminated button in the middle of it. The door is washed in toxic yellow, dark toxic yellow like all the other doors on this hall. With shaking hands do I enter a room, a household, like all the others down this toxic hall and every toxic housing hall in this toxic facility. And like all the other times this door has slid open, I walk through it. My head becomes fuzzy, my hands vibrate, and for the first time ever do I understand fear. My sister sits on the sofa with a tablet in her hands. The glow from the tablet, the overhead lights, and the toxic yellow lights from behind me reflect on her soul.

“Anderson, come look at this.”

Innocent words that might just be the last she will ever speak. With a deep, shaking breath I sit down and wrap the little girl in my arms, I smile and say its amazing. I smile and smell her hair, and hold her.

A light flickers out the window next to the couch.

I peer out of it to the swirling statue of buttons and beauty, purples, blues, pinks, and dark toxic yellows reflect on the mirrored glass of the structure. Guards, four of them, stand at the opening to each hallway looking into the artwork that is not just artwork. A girl is standing in the purple hallway. The half I see of her is shaded, oh always shaded. It is the girl who is not afraid of the shadows, it is the girl that will kill us all, it is the girl I call my friend. I close my eyes. I would like to say the world went dark, but that is a lie. I could still see vivid reds and the everlasting imprints of this hellfire world. I tucked my head into my sister's hair and waited for everything, even the light within me, to go dark. I waited. I felt the world swirl and turn, but never did the light go out. I pulled my head from my sister’s hair and look out the window, wincing at how bright the lights were. There were guards still in the same places as before, nothing had changed except she had moved from her hallway. There was no girl standing in the hallway anymore.

“While you were sleeping, they took away some girl who tried to touch the sculpture."