✔Celestial Beauty

Chapter 16.

Peaceful. For the first time in my entire life I felt like I truly knew what that word meant. There wasn't pressure or stress, there weren't even any stares. Although that probably had more to do with the way I was making sure to stay on the outskirts of the town walking along the tall border and all the trees. I had decided after checking out the cabin I was assigned, that in order to get back to my friends I first needed an escape plan. However, what was an escape plan without an escape route? So that was exactly what I had to figure out. From what I gathered so far, each zone had only one way in and out. This had to mean that the entire campground had to be architected in way where each zone was against a part of the wall. Meaning the initial gate to get in or out of the camp had to be somewhere at the front of what I'm guessing is a sphere shaped village. The gate must be giant because of the size of the border and the width of the individual zones. It must have been hours already yet I still have yet to reach a border zone or a wall partition, anything to signify a perimeter.

The most important things I picked up on though was that there wasn't security at all. That was something I wasn't used to, in the society barriers security was everywhere. They always reminded us that it was for our protection but never stated why we actually needed the protection. When I had wised up to the real reason it confused me even more though. It wasn't protecting that the security was there for, it was surveillance. At the academy there wasn't much security due to the AI system we had. The one installed on the senior dorm level only could only sense things by hearing, so what it could hear was what it could see. The AI system for each level was different, like on the elementary levels it was thermal so it could sense body heat in its halls so that it could pick up on kids more efficiently. Reason being, kids were the most likely to try and sneak out. The thought of sneaking out reminded me of the night I had snuck out before the graduation ceremony for the group's last official meeting. The hallway incident still frustrated me since I couldn't figure out what the incident what had really happened that night and why. We weren't allowed to casually talk to one another in public at the academy so no one could talk about it but there was always whispers and notes being passed around about the disappearances. I had first started noticing them around middle school. Though I can't remember the missing kid well but I definitely remember the feeling that something was just gone one day. They must have done something to make us forget because I can't actually remember anyone disappearing but I can always recall the feeling of something missing each year. The aftereffect of whatever they did to us more than likely had something to do with the dose I had heard about.

This was exactly why I had to get the gang out of there, whether or not they like the idea. There was something uneasy about our society. There were so many questions that could never be answered because no one dared ask. Maybe after figuring out a way to get out of the society we could all come back here, wherever here was exactly. I had a feeling however that it all wasn't going to go down the way I thought it would. That all the questions and answers I don't have are the only things worth understanding.