Child's Dream

Prologue

Magic. My dictionary defines it as "The power to influence events by using mysterious or supernatural forces." Almost everyone yearns for magic, a "magic" solution to your problems, or to achieve your goals without much effort. You could argue that, wanting magic is human nature itself, isn't it? But it only exists in fantasy, magic is not something that actually exists, otherwise everyone would be happy. That would contradict our very existence, wouldn't it?

Actually, no. I take that back. Magic does exist. People just don't realise it. The most influential form of magic is religion, the power of belief and moral righteousness to pray for miracles. It also exists as love, love itself goes beyond that of logical choice, and that is also the nature of magic. There is plenty of forms of magic in this world.
Admittedly, it isn't the same magic as shooting fireballs, or materialising swords out of nothingness. Now, you might be wondering why I'm philosophising about magic. Let me explain my current situation.

The year is currently 205X. The world has drastically changed from 30 years ago. Pollution has reached its peak, and military forces all around the world are preparing for the oncoming war. The sky is dusty, with sorrow and chemical residue. The animals population has largely decreased. Heck, even our population has been greatly reduced. I don't know about the rest of the world, but our community has shrunk down into one square mile with a density of about 1,000. It's not the end of the world, but everyone knows that it's soon approaching us. All we can do is laugh and pretend it's not happening. The children run around in the brown wilted grass with their friends, screaming and laughing. The adults drink and smoke, and everything is quite peaceful for an oncoming war. Crime rate is non-existent. It's a golden temporary utopia. How ironic, that the end of the world would have a prelude of "World Peace". Perhaps we know it's coming, and we all decided not to cause conflict and simply have a nice last meal of happiness, full filling our desires before the inevitable.

Most of the smaller organisations and businesses exist no more. Such stupid things such as dentists and insurance has no place in our current world. They were promptly shut down. All is controlled by the government, and for the time being they are being fairly nice to us. Each citizen gets a certain amount of water and food, and every citizen fit for work is expected to help clean, teach or maintain the city. However, I refused. I am a proud scientist. My entire family had been for years. I refuse to let this laboratory shut down. I stood my ground and refused to let my branch of science which has been running on for generations, simply be shut down for the convenience of the greedy government. Without science, we would have never developed this far. Science and discovery is just as essential as education. Looking back at it, I could've easily got killed for this decision to rebel. I got very lucky.

I owe it to my brothers wife, Tsubaki. She moved in with my brother about 10 years ago and travelled from Japan. The past doesn't matter much, but what's important is that she is a largely respected figure in our small society, and is known for her kindness and charity towards children. Her husband died recently, but they were great people. Everyone knows them for feeding the homeless children, managing our school, and providing necessities such as hygiene and safety for our future generation. That woman was kind enough to convince them not to purge me, and to make a deal in exchange for my laboratory's existence. In exchange for funding and allowing my research centre to exist, they turned half of my building into an orphanage for teenagers, and quickly won the hearts of the public.  The government decided to spare me with this lab in exchange for the public's approval, and to raise the few children that didn't have a family. I got the chance to keep on researching on magic, and the public trusts the government. This was a smart move of them, controlling people with kindness. We are thriving, compared to some other countries that have been thrown into chaos and oppression.

The appearance and layout of my building is important to the events that follows, so allow me to explain it. It is a 2 story building, and has two underground levels. The entrance to the first level, which I shall refer to as the lobby, is where you enter the building. It has the size of an average classroom. There are large glass sliding doors at the entrance. The tiles on the flor have a calming light blue tint to them. The walls are grey, and Tsubaki keeps it clean with the help of the children. There is a receptionist desk at the front which serves no purpose currently. The lobby has a coffee table and some chairs, but Tsubaki mainly uses this level for keeping toys and medical supplies. There is an old stone staircase on the side, which leads to the orphanage above and my research centre below. There first underground level, is where I complete my paperwork, and record my progress and activities. The tiles are a darker shade of grey than the flor above, and the lights are bright. I have a large stone desk, and empty tables neatly arranged in rows which used to be full of staff before they all left. On the bottom basement level is my testing area. I wish I could accurately describe its layout, but I was never good with my words, that's my older brothers forte. What's important is, this room is very large. I have 20 chambers which can supply oxygen and and IV fluids, if I need to test on volunteers. There's a few cages with mice in them, which the orphans take care of more than me. There is a large dark maple wood table in the center, with computers and plenty of papers and sheets to record experiments. There is a cupboard with almost every single element on the left side of the room, the opposite side of the stone staircase. The floor tiles are dark grey and have years of wear and stains. Charts of various topics drape all the walls. There is a venting system, which purifies the the dusty oxygen we are forced to live in, which is connected to the entire building. I have to close it off before I experiment with gases, otherwise it may diffuse into the entire establishment. The other two stories above the lobby is the orphanage, and I assume that it's divided into one story for boys and one for girls. Each child get a bed and desk, but they spend most of their time outside anyways. It's important to note that the children here are mostly teenagers from from 11 to 15. Although there is one exception of a 17 year old.

Returning back to the topic of why they allowed my laboratory to continue, they revealed their true objective. No matter how kind they are, at the end of the day they need military might, even if it's a bare minimum to defend themselves. They gave me some crucial information which quickly caught my interest, and ultimately allowed me to sell my soul to them. Magic does exist in this world. They had uncovered an interesting discovery, an undiscovered element had been unearthed, and this in itself is quite the achievement, chemically such a thing should not exist. It's origin is unknown, but it reacted with our polluted world once it was brought to the surface. The government lacked scientists, and did not want to risk losing soldiers to this. They handed it over to me, and threatened me not to get on their bad side. My family's golden reputation for generations protected me, and now they needed me. I was a rare asset., being an exceptionally talented and phenomenal scientist with plenty of education. Why would they give it to me and fund my laboratory, and allow children to thrive when they could save resources by turning a blind eye to them? It all became clear.