Page 52 - The Muse 2019-20 Issue

Gianna didn’t respond. In fact, she didn’t even make a sound. Two minutes went by of total silence.
“Kid? You there?” Mitch shouted. No response. Nothing. “She probably just went home or something,” he said out loud.
“Woah,” Gianna said in awe as she pulled the case off from the wall to reveal an office. It was quite unorganized. There were large stacks of paper on top of the brown wooden desk, a black stapler, and an immense amount of surveillance monitors covering the walls that were all shut off. She walked through the room staring at the simplicity of the four basic walls. It reminded her of the Twin Towers in New York. It was simple, yet busy, all at once.
“Where am I? Probably just in Mitch’s secret office,” she said laughing to herself. She walked through the office and went through the exit door. She opened it to reveal the outside. Ummmmm, Gianna thought, half panicking. She wasn’t in her town anymore. Was she even in her world anymore? She didn’t see the same complex, white houses with solar panels and windmills at the end of every street. No, she saw huge black buildings. Buildings that scrape the sky, buildings that absorb the sun’s heat, she thought. She looked around and there was smoke everywhere. Pollution, plastic bags, and garbage at the corner of every street.
“Yuck!” she said staring at the new world she had just discovered.
“Are you lost?” asked a stranger. It took a while for Gianna to answer his question.
“Um, Yeah,” she said hesitantly. “No! I meant no,” she corrected herself. She didn’t know where
she was or if she could trust anyone.
She kept walking and looked up to find huge screens promoting a ‘Coca-Cola’ and ‘iPhone’. “What a funny name! What could it be?” she said to herself. She kept walking and noticed some
people sitting on the sidewalk asking for money and others asking for “Broadway Tickets”. She was confused about why someone would need to beg for money or tickets, but she kept walking. She bumped into a man who dropped his bag by accident.
“Fork? Why would he yell fork at me if he’s mad? Maybe he’s just hungry,” she said laughing to herself. Then the man started sprinting, heading in the direction that she had come from.
That reminded her, I have to get back and tell Mitch all about this! She walked back to the office where she came from and went inside. She opened the door to find that all of the monitors were now on.
“Wow,” there were so many of them. She stayed staring at them for a couple minutes until she noticed what they were showing.
“Mitch? Mr. Prado? Mom?” She was confused. Why would these screens be watching the people in her town? Ring, Ring, Ring. She glanced at the desk. The thing ringing looked like the walkie talkies she and her friends used to play with as kids, but far more advanced. She waited until it stopped.
“A new voicemail is in your inbox,” the thing said in a robot-like voice. It played the recording.
“Boss, it’s the girl. She’s here, she knows!” The recording stopped. It sounded like a warning, but a warning for what?
Gianna continued looking at the objects in the room. She looked through some notebooks.
Day 892, none the children have noticed yet. The solar panels are still working perfectly as everyone expects. Electricity is still being provided by the windmills. Air quality is amazing, better than it has ever been. Food is growing exceptionally well. The dome is still functioning. No one has rebelled so far. Still perfect as always.
“What does this mean?” She simply could not believe it. Her world, her perfect world was all Fake! Nothing was real nor genuine in her world. It was all just Fake. Her face turned bright red with anger. A small tear ran down her cheek and landed on the paper of the notebook she now despised. One tear quickly turned into a dozen.
She kept reading when she suddenly heard someone opening the door. She took the notebook and left the strange world, the real world. She slammed the door behind her to find a blank canvas when she turned around.
“Huh? Wh-what?” It was gone. Nothing was left. A blank abyss of nothingness. A book without words, a one hundred-dollar bill without worth. There was nothing. Her home was gone, and there was no way out.
52