The Walled City

"They say dreams are a door to your subconsciousness. This door is a gateway to another dimension, a dimension of thoughts. What kind of world will we discover this time? One and all, I welcome you to step through and find out... in Alice's Dreamland." - Alice Watling

"To-night's story is from a dream I had. Dreams can sometimes be a better writer than our conscious mind, wouldn't you agree? To-night, we take a look at the life of an unsuccessful person, who ventures into a secluded society to turn things around, but will Dreamland really grant what we want?"

My life has not been very successful. After quitting my second job, I have remained unemployed. I spend my days reading books, eating lunch, and sleeping. Nothing eventful ever happens.

One day, I heard about this... Walled City. It is a community secluded from the rest of the world. It is self-sufficient, with a kind of farm of its own, places to live... It promises good opportunities. Maybe I'll be able to find work there, and have a change of pace. That's how I ended up going to the Walled City.

The walled city is perhaps a bit of a misnomer. It is pretty much entirely cut off from the outside world aside from its glass gates - the structure has a ceiling, and there are no windows, so technically we aren't getting any sunlight. However, the people there have developed a kind of technology that allows plants to grow there, and the artificial lighting supplies an almost natural sunlight kind of radiance. The community here does not really care for the outside world, although anyone could leave at any time they want through the glass gates, and anyone could join the community, provided they are not here to cause harm.

*****

It's been several months since my stay at the Walled City started. I have a decent life in there, selling food. It is not much, but it is something that isn't very stressful.

At some point, there had been a big snowstorm, and the glass gates had gotten frozen shut. No one could get out, and no one could come in. We were at first slightly troubled, but eventually we decided that we're all happy with our life inside this space, and that we don't really care to get back out. And so, the gates remained frozen, and we returned to our lives.

*****

As more time passes, the more it weighs on me. Is this really fine? Do we not want to know what the outside world has become, any progress it has made that could benefit us? Any new developments in technology or medicine. I gathered people around where I lived, and I told them my thoughts. For all intents and purposes, this will be our universe. We will know nothing about the outside. The Walled City is going to become a graveyard. We'd eventually just all die here. Are we really happy with that? It seems this has resonated with many of the residents, so they gathered more and more people around. While we wanted to live in a secluded society, it was never our intention to turn a complete blind eye to any development the outside world has.

Eventually, we all agreed to use a makeshift battering ram to knock down the frozen gates, that have remained frozen this whole time. Once again, we will be open to the outside world again. Perhaps, for the first time, we will learn of some new breakthrough that we could use.

Heave, ho, heave, ho. We slam the battering ram against the gates until they crack and crack. Just a bit more...

The gate is shattered. We made it. The gate is now broken, and we're free to exit once more. But suddenly, the walls of the structure started shaking. It would seem that the gates somehow were holding the structure together, and that breaking it is causing the structure to collapse. We hurry everyone out before it all comes crashing down on us.

A few of us sustained some minor injuries, but all of us made it out alive. Now, what awaits us in this-

Wait. Everywhere we look, there are flying saucers. The place is desolate. We don't see any people around, only UFOs flying all over the place. A newspaper blown around by the wind informed us that aliens have taken over the planet at some point since the gates were frozen shut, and now they're here to hunt and eat us.

One of the UFOs discovered us. We all panicked and ran in different directions, but it was no use. Each of us eventually got beamed up by the spacecrafts, and we hear their shrieks of terror as they got sucked into the ships.

My group ran, but we didn't last very long. Eventually, we were cornered by several UFOs. That's when it occurred to me. We should have been content with life inside the Walled City. It was protecting us from these aliens, and I never should have suggested that we come out...

As the UFOs closed in on us, we awaited the inevitable end...

"I woke up and looked at my clock. 4:37am. Seems I haven't been sleeping for very long. So this time, we saw the life of someone who was not content with what they had and pursued more, only to realize what they had was also what protected them. A harsh lesson from the deep stretches... of Dreamland... I should go back to sleep. I still need to wake up at 7am to get to work. I hope I can catch some more Zs, and I will meet you again next time... in Dreamland. Ta ta for now."