Emotional Future

The Giving Ceremony

I enter the building. The elevator was full, so I decide to make not so smart move. I take the stairs, following few people in front of me. In a couple of moments we become a crowd that climbs low lighted steel stairs. The uniform sound of our steps rings in my ears and soon I can feel the heat in my joints. When we hear that the ceremony is taking place on the last floor, I almost turned around and went down.

When we finally arrive on the last floor, my lungs are on fire and I am fighting for my breath. Some guard dressed in white elegant suite stands like a sculpt, holds the door and welcomes each and everyone separately. I would stop but the crowd is pulling me inside in the bright room. I can already see that there will not be enough space for everyone, so I move quickly through the crowd and find empty seat at the top of the amphitheater.

I squint 'cause of the bright light. When I look up I realize why is this place named the Dome.

This room doesn't have a roof. It does, but it is made of glass. It's beautiful. You can see the clouds as they heavily fill the azure sky. At times I catch a glimpse of couple birds as they are flying across the stunning sight.

I've never been here. It looks like the Giving ceremony is being held here for the first time.

I turn my head, look down the stairs and see the first familiar face. Caren Price was heading right towards me. Tall, toned girl with bright green eyes. Call me superficial and empty-headed, but she looks like someone worth dying for.

As she is elegantly walking up the stairs, slender, strong body is slowly writhing repeating the steps again and again. She was heading directly towards me. While smiling she raised her hand to wave me. At least that's what I thought she was doing. I should have known that it was a mistake how my brain processed the information.

If it was working properly, then it would have sent me a message, like: Did miss Beautiful ever show signs that she know about your existence?

But my brain didn't do that. I saw that she was intending to wave me. I waved her but at the same moment I saw her expression changing. At first, she looked confused, then her wide smile was changed by something that you could call "smile of pity". She nodded, and moved forward.

I looked behind me and almost died at the scene. She was waving somebody behind me, and that someone was her older brother Kian.

The look on his face was "questioning" while he was hugging her. He looked at Caren and smiled. He looked at me once more, with a serious look, before he took his place.

What did I read in his look? It looked like condolences mixed with anger. What was that? The crackling of the microphone stuns me. I look and at the other side of the room I see mayor Patrick Johnson in flesh. He touches his hair and clears his throat. I stare at his face. The face that dominates the TV screens every day and at least one article in the papers. How much time did it took for me to get used to see him at special events? I don't know.

"Hello" he says. "My name is Patrick Johnson, for those of you who don't know. But I highly doubt it." Half-smile. Arrogant. Cold.

"Before we start I would like to play you a video that will be necessary for the further course of the ceremony."

The screen behind him turns on and the picture is disturbing me. Much more than possible. Across the screen the pictures are switching fast, almost too fast to see. Picture of a man on his knees with a gun on his head. Woman with empty look on her face holding the gun.

In the distance a contour of some person hanging on the lamppost. Metropolis covered with high layer of sand, dried rivers, the hole the size of a house filled with the bodies. There are