The World's End | ONC 2024

ੈ✩‧₊˚ |𝟮𝟭| 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗲𝘁 𝗟𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿

Keira

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

The tunnel stretched across the longest underground passage I've ever been through. Miles held the torch in his hand, and we all huddled close to one another. Wylan carried Alissa, who was playing with his hair, twirling it around her finger and giggling. Axelle watched in awe at Wylan's protectiveness. She still didn't know that Alissa was his sister.

"Miles. Are you feeling okay?" I asked, wary that he was unwell and on the verge of death a few days ago. He startled me when he suddenly ended up saving us all, seemingly fine again.

He nodded. "Just tired."

That's all before he quietly led us through the tunnel that was leading somewhere but nowhere. The facility that the Verids took us to was close to the fence. The very fence that I noticed from a distance. The one that signaled the end of Veridonia.

Wylan brushed past me to match Miles' pace and asked, "Um...could I ask you something?"

My brother stopped and twitched his eye, nodding. It was an old habit that he had, and I was glad he still had parts of him that didn't change. It was exactly as I'd remembered.

"Is there something about Veridonia we should know?" Wylan asked, and I thanked him inside my head. It was something that I wanted to ask Miles, but I didn't want to.

"Veridonia wasn't supposed to exist. It's not a part of the real world," Miles said shortly, his voice dropping a register. He didn't say anything and Wylan raised an eyebrow, expecting a better explanation.

"Your mother. She was sent out of Veridonia because she was this close," Miles explained, pinching his fingers, "This close to realizing that Veridonia was just a dome. An experimental dome."

A wave of epiphany hit my mind. The rocket ricocheting back to the ground made sense now. We were just living in an orchestrated world without meaning. And Wylan's mother was so close to finding out about it.

"Caity got out, and so did her family. Once outside, she figured out everything. Vancouver is directly outside the fence. They created Veridonia, 85 years ago."

Axelle asked the question I was burning to ask, "But why?"

"To save humanity."

It was an unexplained explanation. It was a revelation that hung in the air, but the weight of it still didn't feel real to me. When Madame Henderson said subjects, I didn't think that she meant Veridonia's existence itself was a subject.

Veridonia was just a constructed reality. It was a facade created by the real world, a world deemed dangerous by the Dominion Council. The one that they won a war against. But what was humanity in danger from?

Everything hit us like a thunderbolt.

We continued through the long tunnel, our footsteps echoing against the coal-colored walls.

"You want more," Miles chuckled, looking at Wylan's expression. He did look like he was going to ask for more information. I knew why it was so important to him—his mother's life was devoted to this one thing. It was the one part of herself that she never shared with anyone in her direct family.

"The world outside was on the verge of ending. The atmosphere there, the sky, the soil, everything was real. The sky there is infinite. But there was a problem. They call it climate change. The real atmosphere was too polluted with toxic gases. Cyanide and methane were abundant. At one point, there was so much of it that people started getting affected. They got sick," Miles paused, his gaze drifting into the darkness ahead as if recalling something. "Vancouver's research scientists were able to provide medicines for these sick people. But that wasn't a permanent solution. Then, they got the idea. Evolving humans to the disease. Seeing if they could survive if the air they live in is completely in toxins. Natural selection."