The Dome

The Good & the Bad

When she got home, instead of sitting on the couch and feeling sorry for herself, she decided to go next door and pay another visit to the old lady. Her mother was working and wouldn't be back until that night, so Silasque ate a carrot and some vegetable soup before heading next door. She didn't know what compelled her to visit the old lady, but before she could figure it out, she had already knocked on the door and the old lady was standing in front of her.

"What a surprise! Come on in dear," the old lady ushered her in and closed the door behind her.

Silasque sat down in the same chair she did last time and the old lady sat down across from her.

"Everything okay?" the old lady furrowed her brows and looked at Silasque with concern.

"Yeah, just peachy," Silasque said, knowing she was being kind of rude, but she didn't care, and the old lady didn't seem to mind.

"Well you want to talk about it?" the old lady offered.

"No, everything's fine," Silasque sighed.

"If you say so," the old lady didn't seem convinced, but Silasque wasn't in the mood to spill her guts.

"You know," Silasque said thoughtfully, "I don't really know much about you. What do you like to do?"

The old lady laughed and leaned back in her chair, "I like to write."

"Really? That's cool."

"It is, you like to do crafts?"

Silasque nodded, "How'd you guess?"

"Well, when you were younger, you used to go around giving out bracelets you made."

"Oh, right," Silasque realized, embarrassed.

"I even have one of your bracelets right here."

The old lady got up and went into her room, coming out with a bracelet Silasque had made years ago. This made Silasque smile and the old lady brought it over for Silasque to look at.

"You should continue doing it."

Silasque smiled, memories surfacing in her mind, "I actually started doing it again a couple of days ago."

"That's nice, maybe you can make one for me sometime," the old lady ran her fingers along the bracelet, "It's very well made."

"Thank you, I actually have a lot of bracelets, I can bring some over sometime," Silasque's smile grew even wider as she thought of all the bracelets she had made over the past nights.

"Sounds perfect," the old lady took Silasque's hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze, "I'm glad you've gotten up again."

Silasque squeezed her hand back and beamed at the old lady.

"Me too," she agreed softly.

...

The next morning, Minski made her way back to the air vent duct she was in yesterday. If she was correct, the Guardians would have another meeting at the same time today to discuss their second course of action. Normally, she would have to be working at the library for her year of training, but Mrs. Prairie, being the nice lady she was, said it was okay for Minski to take a couple of hours off.

So as she crawled through the air vent ducts, she tried to remember which way to go. Finally, she began to hear voices and knew she was in the right place. Crawling a little further, Minski pressed her ear to the bottom of the duct and listened.

"It does not appear that anyone else has gotten the illness yet," the same young female voice she had heard last time informed the other Guardians.

"Good," the news satisfied Father and he eyed all the Guardians suspiciously, "Containing it and finding out how it entered the Dome are our first priorities."

There were a couple of moments of silence before another voice spoke up, "Perhaps we can use this illness to our advantage."

Had Silasque been there, she would have recognized the voice as Guardian Sarah's.

Minski couldn't see it, but Father nodded thoughtfully and Guardian Sarah continued.

"Maritha is a threat. We should be rid of her."

"We cannot risk Peter revealing what he knows," reasoned Father, "We also promised her life. We can not go back on our word."

"How many years has it been since she said that?" Guardian Sarah countered, "It was a bluff, Father. Peter is not coming back and he will not reveal anything."

"How can you be so sure?" Father fired back.

"I can not guarantee I am right. However, I strongly believe eliminating her will serve our purposes well," Guardian Sarah said.

"Fine, what about the promise then?" Father challenged.

"Only she and us know of the promise," Guardian Sarah stated as if it were obvious.

There was a pause, most likely Father debating whether or not it was a good idea, Minski thought.

"Alright, any objections?"

No one spoke.

"We will have the illness released on her this afternoon. After she is dead, remove the body. We will have to contain the illness," Father ordered sharply.

Minski's heart pounded. Maritha, she was still alive. She was here.

...

At noon, a messenger arrived at Silasque's door.

"I have a message from the Chooser," the messenger, a lanky man with neatly combed hair, informed her, "Your presence is requested at his office today."

With that, the messenger turned around and left. Oh right, Silasque thought. I'm a Guardian-in-training. With everything that had been going on, she hadn't had room for much else and had almost completely forgotten about the whole her-being-a-Guardian-in-training thing. Silasque closed the door and walked over to the clock that hung on the wall in the living room. She had an hour and forty-seven minutes until her meeting with the Chooser. She decided she would make a trip to the Locking Center, which was just a couple of minutes away. So she grabbed a key from her bedside table drawer and left the house.