Coming Alive, a short story

Every night when I go to sleep, I enter a world of magic and life. It’s completely the opposite of the world I live in. Everything is vibrant and pulsing. It’s alive, breathing, and moving with purpose, things that don’t exist in my world. I never want to wake up, but I do. Every time I wake up, I try to hold on the the feelings that come with it, because when I leave my sleeping pod, I am forced to abandon them.

I hate my world. It’s monotonous and boring. We do the same things over and over. We hear the same propaganda over and over. There is no music. There is no pulse. There’s no purpose. We’re constantly being cheated on. Our government brainwashes us and takes our freedom away. We have no life other than what the government says.

But they can’t tell me what to think, they can’t tell me what to dream.

Every night, I have the same dream, with the same person in it. His hair is short and brown. His eyes are pale blue. He has white wings and wears white robes. His skin is light.

“Maribel.” He says. He holds out his hand. I take it, and we dance. My grey mechanic’s clothes changes into a beautiful dress made of green silk and is trimmed with gold. My black hair is released from its ponytail and it flows with every move I make. Instead of my goggles, I have a tiara made of silver.

He tells me about his life. I tell him about mine. He tells me about his world and all about the things that my world doesn't have: music, love, breath, art, a vibrant pulse. I want to go to his world. I want to be free and play music with him, make art, dance.

I want freedom.

I don’t know his name yet. He never told me. He says that he knew my name from the moment he saw me. I will find out eventually.

I wake from my sleeping pod in my dorm. We are allowed to look up the history of our world.

The government censors most of it. They don’t tell us the whole truth. I want to know. I need to know.

There are rumors about archives stored in the government. My guy in Luna dreams told me about it.

I need to be free from the tyranny of the government. I need to come alive.

#shortstory #dystopian #anotherworld