"Welcome number 882391; please remember this. You are on the planet Treya in the civilization of the Updales. Press this button and this machine will find your name."
He sits up, confused. The world around him is a blur. Two strange looking men are standing above him; both looking remarkably similar, although one is noticeably older. He finds himself on a metal slab that he guesses is used as a sort of operating table. Intrigued, the man sits up and presses the red button on the machine next to him. After two seconds of a muted buzz, a name appears on the screen.
"Good 882391, your name is Markus. Now to answer your question: the machine randomly selects a name for every person brought into this world. A new person is animated every time somebody dies. You are loaded from a set memory. Everybody is the same at birth."
"How can you..." Markus manages to blurt out.
"Easy. Everybody is the same at birth. Everybody has the same thoughts. When everyone thinks the same way, the questions always come out the same way."
"So you're,..." says Markus.
"No I am not the same as you. People change. People are shaped. Everyone has his own identity as it changes by the events that surround his life." The man turns around and grabs a set of keys. He starts walking out the door when Markus realizes his chance. The other man is passionlessly filling out paperwork at a small metal desk.
"Where the hell am I?" he asks himself as he quickly sits up on the table. After scanning the room for an alternate exit he finds an unmarked door on the far wall. He runs for it, and lets it slam into the wall as he bolts out of the building. He scans the street only to find that he has no idea where he is and where he should be going.
Picking a random direction, he sets off running left, away from the building. 12 blocks later, he sees something off in the distance. It was as if the night sky had a film over it. It glistens slightly with the streetlamps, yet he continues running towards it.
A few minutes later he reaches the film. There is a parked car a few feet to the left, a mailbox on the right. In front of him, all he can see is a thick opaque glass. It almost appears to be a shell. The man cannot tell how thick it is. Behind the glass it's barren. All he can see is empty land covered by sands and dust. A wind blows somewhere as he watches some of the dust changing position. Everything appears dull and colorless.
"Markus," says a man exiting the car. Markus swings around to find the man that was standing over him in that room.
"I'm not Markus. How did you..." he begins to respond, when he is cut off.
"They all run here; you are Markus. And you will have to start using your name," says the man. "My name is Cornelius. I am your mentor."
"What is this?" asks Markus.
"This is what we call the Barren. Straightforward name, really. You see, Treya does not support life. We are in the biosphere. Air is created here, and we could survive. Out there, we hypothesize there is no air, and nothing could live. No life form survives without the oxygen we breathe."
"The biosphere is a thick glass dome. I cannot tell you how thick the glass is, I cannot tell you how to leave the dome. This glass is what separates us from death, and no one has managed to cross it as of yet. Come on, get in the car. I'll take you to your residence. You need rest after your run."
Silently, Markus obeys. He opens the passenger door and sits down. Cornelius drives him without mentioning anything. Silently, he pulls up next to a building that looks like every other. The only thing that's different is the number on the door.
