Kafft's Tower - The heir of "The Valley"

Just another day

Unlike many of us who live in the prison "El Valle," I am not a prisoner. I work for the state under the orders of my father, Kónaff, the director of the prison. However, I still have the same craving for freedom as the prisoners do. A craving to walk and walk without stopping for days. But you look at your feet as you walk and bump into a wall, you lift your head and realize that there is nothing more than four walls, an immense world around you to explore, outside this prison that reduces our reality to just a few meters.

Once I regain my composure and strength, I get out of bed, wearing the usual gray jumpsuit that we all use in the nation. I go to the control panel located at the entrance of the room and enter the combination to make the walls facing the sea become transparent. Most of the employees' rooms are made of a translucent material that can be given a completely different appearance thanks to a control that can make it opaque and take on the appearance of any material, whether brick walls, rock, paper, or even a specific color. This material, which is used to simulate glass and recreate shapes, is called crasil.

I walk to the bathroom and see an immense sea, a sea that seems endless, a sea that hides the land, that very land that I haven't seen for years and, to my misfortune, haven't walked on either. As I wash up each morning, I look in the mirror and ask myself, "Where is that boy who had a life, friends, dreams, and family?" ... all I see is a young man with blond hair and light eyes, consumed by work and by the tyranny of his father, a life that is slowly killing me. The life that is sold to us in the nations is nowhere near the reality we live. A nation for all, where all evils have been eradicated, but where dictatorships still exist in disguise. And while I fight every day against that, I still have a long way to go for and with those who have no voice.

After this daily moment of melancholy, I leave the bathroom and enter the uniformity capsule next to the room door. I enter the code and step inside to dress. This is one of the best technological inventions for making life easier as it saves a lot of time, though being here in this prison, saving time only prolongs the agony. The gray jumpsuit disappears, giving way to the work uniform; in my case, each person can choose their attire in the capsule.

Another day with this uniform, white with blood-red trim on the collar and sleeves, a black belt and high black boots, and the great national emblem on the chest—a black inverted triangle with a white angel with outstretched wings in the background—a symbol of freedom that, in my opinion, does not align with the way this Nation is governed.

When I leave the capsule, I approach the shelf next to the bed; it's a ritual I do daily as I never forget to look at the face of Clarise Crodar, the only memory I have of my late mother. She had brown, curly hair, large, light eyes, was one meter seventy-five tall, and quite slender... she was very beautiful, I never forget her. The frame is, I think, the only relic of our ancestors, as it is carved wood. In the year 2087, some things are no longer used as they once were, including photographs. Instead, we have R.I.C.s, "Real Imaging Chips," devices capable of recreating entire scenes as if they were a movie, which is played in a loop according to its duration. Unfortunately, I couldn't capture any images of my mother as we were a lower-middle-class family back then when we lived in the Nation, so I have this frame by my bed.

I leave my room and head to my workstation: I am a computer engineer. I finished my studies here in the prison because, at fifteen, after my mother's death and my father's promotion to director, we had to leave the Nation to start our new life here, like many children who accompany their parents. We received our training as the children of the nation but in a smaller, more familial group. Currently, there are children in the prison, children who come with their parents, but they are located on the upper floors, and access is restricted to unauthorized personnel, meaning the prisoners. Evidently, I was too young to be left alone, and with my mother gone, I had to come with my father, like all those children who are here now, and after so much time, I now work under my father's orders.