THE DREAM CATCHER

4.

I stand at the elevator stop waiting for my transport to school and I still can't recover from my precious discovery. I can feel. I can feel everything. Now I see everything I didn't notice before. I see faces, I see people's emotions painted on them. I don't see them as a blurry stain. They are like me.

For the first time I feel overwhelmed by my home town. I live in the city centre and I'm attacked by skyscrapers growing thick from the ground like a grass from every side. Suddenly I remember something. I knew it before, I knew it very well. But I never spent even a second thinking about it. Now it crosses my mind and I can't get rid of it. The reality I live in isn't as good as I perceived it. To be honest, I never even tried to perceive it in any way. It was like a blank space to me. I was always floating in the numbness I didn't even realise how terrible our world had gotten.
There was a war before I was born. Nuclear, horrible, bloody and deadly. Three quarters of the humanity lost their lives. Half of continents territories were flooded, bombed or burned down to ashes. Some people call this conflict the World War IV. But some call it The Final World War. It happened so fast. Intolerance had gotten to the point where people would break to their neighbours houses and set their hair on fire because they were different ethnicity. Hatred was so intense, that people from the same race gathered and started attacking those different races. It was just a matter of time before they would start bombing. And they did. I've heard stories. Now, I remember them and they make me feel uneasy unlike they did before. The starvation and poverty had gotten to the point when cannibalism developed. People would drag others out of their houses on the streets and murder them in most horrible ways just to find something to eat and a place to hide from dangerous weather conditions. Every significant city was destroyed. Everyone was homeless. And hatred was even bigger it was said that another war is coming to wipe humanity of the map. But then, a handful of remnants found a way to save those who still lived. The Sun cities were created. One on every continent, two in Asia. The cities are called after the planets in the solar system. Mine is Neptune, probably because it's the newest to be built. The Sun cities consist of six rays - districts inhabited by people only one race. There is black, white, yellow, orange, red and brown ray. The rays are connected by underground tunnels that deliver supplies. No resident from other ray can cross the borders of another ray. Under a threat of death. The restrictions are very serious. There are no exceptions. The rays are located very far from each other in order not to bother anyone. In each ray there is also a district inhabited by people of different sexual orientations because intolerance didn't end at skin colour. The rays spread from a ginormous, oval square surrounded by a tall wall. It's called the Heart and it consists of army territories, laboratories, farm lands and like. It's highly prohibited to enter the Heart, only under the strict supervision. Everyone who crosses the wall without a permission is shot on the spot. There is an urban legend that someone once broke into the Heart and stuck a sign ,,End of the world" in the middle. It is said that it stands there until this day. The rays are huge - each is inhabited by 1 to 3 million people. They are all build the same. There is a city centre that consists of 70 floors tall, glass skyscrapers that are connected by a mazes of bridges on the 20th floors. The wide roads are decorated with artificially kept alive trees and high lanterns. The city centres are absolutely lifeless, colourless. Even the trees seem to be greyish-green. It's like you're watching a black and white movie. Some here and there there are an old, ancient, restored buildings scattered around the city. They are beautiful, pure evidence of art that has gone extinct and shouldn't have. Those buildings provide this dull city a little life. There are schools there or government facilities. Most offices or shops are located in the glass apartments. The suburbs are worse. The buildings are not that high there and people can't afford living there so most of them are abandoned or destroyed. The neglected blocks are home for drug addicts and a shelter for homeless people and animals. The buildings are connected with wires that local people use to hung their laundry. The trash piles are everywhere. The streets are dirty and covered with holes, the lines on them are faded. Most of the car signs are stolen or totally demolished. The trees there don't look as alive and the grass is mostly yellow and dry. The territories closer to the ray's borders are the worst. The deserted, sandy ground is scattered by rarely seen, dying trees that look like bones. Single beton squares or even wooden huts are home for people there. Residents are an example of devolution of human race. Their starving, miserable, dirty faces say it all. Most of them die out of hunger or diseases that are spread there on a daily basis. The authorities have troubles to keep up with cleaning the dead bodies from the rocky streets.
I was lucky to live in the city centre. My mother who was a respected scientist and my father who was a war army officer guaranteed us this warm place to live in. But many people were not that lucky.

However, I feel like a stranger there now. I never noticed, but now I see that people around me dress weirdly. Everyone wants to pay attention so most of the people wear big, spectacular, colourful clothes. Everyone wants to be seen and remembered. To mean something in this falling apart world. I look almost stupid around them dressed in casual clothes. I don't do weird makeup or crazy hairstyles. Maybe I'm just paranoid but I swear that every time I take my eyes off someone next to me, with the corner of my eye I see their face frown in wicked, insane smile and their eyes turning whole black. But as soon as I look back they look normal. Normal for them. Normal for the present world. I look like I'm from a lower state here. I see their fake smiles and widely open eyes trying to absorb every aspect of the surrounding world. I never did. And I feel sad and ashamed that I missed everything. People say that the only immortal thing in this world is the story. Story never dies, it's always there as long as people remember. But mine never even started and it's already gone, forgotten. I've done nothing in my life. I'm nothing, I didn't even realise I was nothing. But now, since something changed I feel irresistible need to mean something. Anything. I don't want to be invisible. And when I see a group of army boys doing a training patrol around the streets I remember about my brother Noah. And I decide my story starts now. My first chapter is going to be finding truth about my brother's death. And then - revenge.

Fury.