Grounded | The Trapped Trilogy

Nine (Part 2)

Nine (Part 2)

He walks over to where the kids play, leaving me speechless. Anger rages inside of me like a sea in a storm, and I run. I run until I smash into the flickering Dome wall.

I hit it, and make a dent.

It feels good.

Oh, it feels so good.

I hit it again, and some of my anger recedes.

The panels start to crack and fall apart, and I hit them again, a dozen or so panels falling off and my clear serum seeping out from the cracks and the empty spaces. It turns purple as it touches air. It starts coming out in pools, and I watch helplessly.

My legs slowly collapse, and I sit on them, letting the serum gather around me and soak up into the dirt, soak up into my clothing. I look at my knuckles. They're bleeding already. It doesn't matter though. In an hour or so they'll be completely healed.

I run my fingers absentmindedly through the serum. My dream comes back to me and I picture the four bodies that had surfaced in it. The serum runs into the trees, and I watch it as it flows out, bright purple like the skin of a Rethurp. I reach up and touch the shattered and broken pieces of panels, and drift off into thought.

Think of something other than yourself?

I have been. The little boy in my dreams, Mer and if she ever finished giving those people the upgrade, the girl whose body I'm in, the two boys and the girl, the little girl Marybella, the President...

I have thought of other people, Tanner. It just doesn't make it past the thinking part...

I sit there for a while, staring off into space, staring at the pools of serum being wasted on the dirt below me, and thinking about these past few days.

I laugh at thinking how much I enjoyed the meat and how boring it is inside of here.

I stand up after God knows how long, and stretch. My legs carry me all the way to the other side of the Dome, where I open it up and walk back through. I see the two Domes on either side of me, gleaming in the simulated sunlight. It's at a different time than the Inner Domes because the calibration was off when they first did it, and they just left it because they thought it would be interesting.

I find the burned down camp once again, and I hear the kids shouting and laughing past the trees that I had watched Tanner disappear into.

I walk up to the bush that separates the area with the stump from the area of destruction, and I watch as the children run around, giggling and screaming. Tanner sits on the stump, and he's talking to Marybella, who is looking from the ground to him shyly.

I back away slowly and head to the shimmery flickering part of the Dome. I place my hand on it. It reads my palm print and opens up, peeling back like a banana.

The difference between the inside and the outside of the Domes is that the outside of the Dome walls just need a name, and the inside of the Dome walls scans your handprint and lets you through. In my case, I bet Peratt uploaded a scan of my host's to the database and that's how I got inside with this body.

My host...

I shake my head. I need to get back to the Government Building in section one. I work my way through the crowd of brainwashed people, looking down in case I recognize someone, and exit out a random gate. From the look of it, I'd say I'm in section four. I have to go one section over. I walk to my left and reach the wall that marks off the section.

YOU ARE LEAVING SECTION 4.

NOW ENTERING SECTION 1.

I go through the tall cement arch and make my way to the outer edge of the planet, where the building is located. Our planet is flat, and it looks like a circle with a chunk taken out of the middle. Or a flat doughnut. We have a thick atmosphere, although it doesn't retain much oxygen. The sky is almost periwinkle, and the clouds are always white. The grass has a bluish tint to it and our dirt is bright red. The sun is yellow, of course, because it's a yellow star, and our gravity comes from a thick strip in the center of the planets' layers. We actually have a pretty good amount of it too, or, well, it's enough to not be thrown off into space if we jump. We have a few rivers and big bodies of water too.

We have two seas. One is located in section two, and the other is located in section four. They hold fish and whatnot, but we don't eat them. Because Rethurps are "vegetarians".

Bleh.

I would give anything to eat one of those fish.

We have one river. It goes through sections one and four, and actually empties out into the seas.

That's about it for our water supply.

Trees are everywhere and they grow hundreds of fruits. We have all we need on this planet. It's amazing to think that we were ever in danger of becoming extinct.

Extinct.

Tanners words about the humans sting me a little bit as I think about them, so I push them away and continue my walk to the building.

It's huge and it's back is right alongside the outer edge of the planet. Wouldn't want anyone walking out the back door or they would end up space-bound for eternity.

So I guess it's good that we don't have a back door.

I walk in and knock on Peratt's office door. He doesn't answer, and I crack it open a bit.

He's not in there.

I groan a little and walk around the building aimlessly trying to find him.

How does he expect me to tell him things if he's not where he's supposed to be? In his office-that's where he's supposed to be. It's my job to be out of the office.

"Hey, Erit," I call as he walks down the hall. His noses are still glued to the screen of the tablet. He doesn't notice me, so I call him again.

He looks at me, his eyes wide.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"Y-y-yeah, just, just pr-preparing for a, a war," He chuckles, and starts walking again.

"Hey, do you know where Peratt is? I have something to tell him-"

"N-no. No I-I have no idea. S-sorry, sorry."

He strides away, his plump alien body jiggling. It's a wonder how you get fat on this planet, what with all of the vegetables and fruits and salads.

I roll my eyes and continue to walk around the building, searching for Peratt.

He's got to be around here somewhere.

He couldn't have just disappeared.

Well, actually, maybe he could. With a hologram.

But then I'd see through it.

I groan and stop to get something to eat.

I wonder if you can make a hologram that is so strong, not even a Rethurp can see through it.