Blue Hope

-Chapter 1- Emeri-

"Don't let me catch you here again!"

Emeri ran out of the bakery empty-handed. She couldn't blame the baker for damning her from his shop. Unfortunately, she also couldn't help that stealing was one of the only ways to ensure that she and her brother had food on the table each night. Under the Dome, it was survival of the fittest. At least it was for us humans anyway, Emeri thought.

She kicked a grey stone on the gravel road; it was all because of the Verans. After they invaded almost a decade ago, killing anybody who fought back, they took the best parts of Earth. Every human who survived, including Emeri and her brother, was stuck in the Dome- all of the money and land taken away from them. It wasn't fair- orphaning children, leaving the human race, halved in size. Nobody knew why any of this happened. Emeri glared at the roof of the Dome- Why can't they share Earth? What had we done to them, anyway?

The Dome was what separated humans from the rest of the world; from the Verans. It kept them trapped, a jail cell for each surviving human, although they hadn't committed any type of crime. The top of the dome was clear, giving a view of the sky. The sky was a grey mass, and had remained so since the day the Verans arrived. As the colour had seemingly drained from everything, the clouds moved to trap the blueness of the sky. They are a blanket to smother and suffocate the blue sky, just like the Verans suffocate us, Emeri thought, bitterness shrouding her thoughts.

The Dome was void of feeling, and filtered it out of those forced to inhabit it. The cold, inwardly- curved metallic walls provided the sense that their poverty was an endless cycle. Which, funnily enough, it was- every human in the Dome was on the same level for the first time. Everyone was stuck at the bottom, struggling for food as best they could. It's impossible to steal food, Emeri thought, when people are so good at noticing- there's no point even trying! It's either: learn to steal and constantly fail, or learn how to thwart others' attempts.

So Emeri did what she could to provide food- and stolen food was better than no food. Sure, she thought it was demeaning to have to steal for dinner each night- if she even succeeded. Her brother, Alexadri (or Xadri for short), somehow managed to find seeds to grow into crops- but that only helped when others could afford to buy them. With everyone else struggling just as much, nobody had the money to buy crops. Everybody had to fend for themselves, and that meant there was always a tense, cold atmosphere in the Dome. Nobody will ever think of helping somebody else out again, will they? We're all stuck in a world where hunger and no freedom isolate us, and will keep us that way- since there will never be a way out. Emeri chuckled, she knew the chances of ever having her old life back. A big fat zero.

Her train of thought stopped, as she walked into her 'home,' which she shared with her brother. "Xadri! I'm home!" Emeri called, her voice emanating into the only other room in the house- if it could be called that. It was a cylindrical area, sectioned into two compact rooms, with a rounded roof. She leaned on the table and pulled her long, ruby red hair over her shoulder, as shiny with grime as the polished metal of the Dome.

The room was cold with the air flowing in through the cracks in the thatched roof. Emeri ran her fingers along the grain of the wood, her finger catching on a splinter. She shook it off, sucking on her finger. As she rose, one of her fiery hairs caught on the chair, "Ouch," she winced. Emeri shook her head, today is not my day.

"So? Did you find anything?" Xadri sauntered into the room. Emeri wondered how he was always so relaxed about everything. Xadri was four years older than Emeri- nineteen. Their parents were both killed in the initial invasion and neither liked to bring it up. They had been extremely close before the invasion, and still were after all that could happen to a five and nine year old. He had been very overprotective of her when they were children; and ten years once was no different.