We moved down a huge hallway with a red carpet, and the walls were covered with portraits of Daimon. At the end of the hallway there was a huge room with a marble fountain that in the center had a golden statue of Daimon. It was like being in a narcissist's home, everything in the house was covered with something glorifying him. It was very tacky, and everything made me dizzy. They took us to a table to eat lunch. For the first time in my life I ate something that tasted good, but it was way too good. My stomach wasn’t used to eating good food, so I had to leave to the bathroom and threw up. When I went back to the table, everyone was finishing their meals.
After everyone finished eating, we were directed to our rooms; there was one for each of us. The rooms were really fancy, but at the wall in front of the bed there was a huge portrait of Daimon, with his piercing eyes looking at you, it was really creepy. I didn’t take the time to meet the other 9 teens, and then I noticed that everyone except for me were boys. They all stared at me like if I was an alien. Some of them even tried to approach me and be friendly, but I just rejected them. But there was this asshole, Jeremiah, that’s in my same classes. He is the kind of guy that every girl wants to be with, and every guy wants to be friends with. I always hated that jerk, he had such a huge ego and thought that he was better than everyone. Then I went for a nap since I was very tired.
After taking a nap for three hours, I heard Ms. Tabitha yelling outside my door. I hurried up to the door and opened it. “Young lady, tomorrow be ready at six o'clock in the morning. Good night!”
I waited for her to leave to go to the kitchen for a glass of water. Apparently there was no water in the lavatory, so I had to go to the kitchen. On my way there, I noticed that the door of the conference room was half open. I peeked through the opening and heard Daimon saying “Finally! Another 10 brats that we’ll get rid of!” I
pulled out my phone from my pocket and started recording what he was saying. His words were: “I can’t believe how stupid the citizens are. They would never realize that this stupid act of The Coming of Age, is just a way of getting rid of teenagers that can ruin my power. Nobody survives The Dome, I bet they will be eaten as soon as they enter.”
After he finished his “wonderful” speech I stopped recording and ran back into my room to sleep. I put my phone back in my pocket and since that moment I swore that I won’t lose it in The Dome.
The next morning was really sunny. My eyes were blind with the sun-rays on my face. I woke up and went directly to the bathroom. I took a quick bath and put on this horrible black outfit that they gave to all of the teenagers on. The outfit is composed of a black plain shirt, skinny black jeans, which made by legs look like chicken wings, a black leather jacket, and black combat boots. It was a total black blend, I swear I looked like a blonde gothic girl. At least, I wasn’t the only one looking like a gothic demon.
I got out of the bathroom and headed towards the kitchen. Everyone was already sitting down at the table and eating breakfast. This time I reduced my food rations to prevent another stomach disease. The food was actually “ok,” they served ham and cheese omelettes, bacons, bread, and pancakes. It was a typical-type-of-breakfast. While I was eating, Ms. Tabitha and Daimon explained to us that after eating breakfast they’re going to send us to a bus which would take us to The Dome. Some of the faces of the boys looked really scared, I’m pretty sure they’re going to be the first to be dead. Those who are scared, die first; those who are clever and brave, survive longer. So I promised myself to leave fear behind in order to survive and find the question that I’ve been thinking for a while: is Chloe dead or alive?
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The door to the dome opened; the forest looked like the prettiest place I’ve had ever seen. The trees were really tall and green as well as the grass, the fog made the forest look like a mysterious place, and from inside, you couldn’t tell that you were in a dome. Everything was quiet, but then I heard something behind the bushes. The doors closed, and everyone panicked, then an enormous, black silhouette started rising from the bushes; it was a Komodo Panther! I slowly moved apart from the group and started running by the borders of The Dome. As I ran, I heard a loud roar, screams full of terror that were lost. Everyone was eaten. I just kept running as fast as I could hoping that one of those creatures wouldn’t appear. When I looked to my right, I saw a body following me, a human body. I realized that it was the same silhouette I had seen before. It was a boy, I couldn’t see him very well, but he was running after me. As we ran, he started screaming: “Stop! I’m not gonna hurt you!”
I had to stop, partly because I was going to fall since I was getting tired. The boy came to me and I noticed that he wasn’t one of the persons in the group. He looked tired and sweaty, yet he also looked charming. He had beautiful enchanting blue eyes. He was a white boy with blonde/brunette hair. His face and jaw were very determined. I was really enchanted when I saw him. All of a sudden, the dream broke up and I realize he was talking to me.
“Hey! Girl! Are you okay?” he said.
“What?”I replied.
“I said who are you? I’ve been asking you this for like a minute and you just stare at me like a creep.” - he rudely said.
“Oh! I’m Iris, Iris Flowers, how about you?” I said blushing and realizing how stupid I was.
“What a beautiful name. Mine is Aiden.” he replied.
After a silly talk for a while I told him why I was there, and he told me how he managed to stay alive. He was one of the 10 from the Coming of Age that happened two years ago. He had survived because he found a hollow tree in which there was enough space to live, and he had been eating plants that grew on the forest for the last two years. I asked him if he had ever seen a girl that looked like me in here, but he said no. We went into his hollow tree and stayed there for some days.
On the first day, everything was awkward, really awkward. I barely spoke since I’m usually really shy and I was out of my comfort zone. It’s really ironic that I think that I’m out of my comfort zone since I’m literally in a bubble. The morning was really pretty, the birds were singing all in unison and colorful butterflies flied by. He taught me how to climb trees and how to hunt with bow and arrow. I really suck at it; the only thing that I could hit with an arrow was a tree, even though I was pointing at deer on the ground. I’m not bragging, but I’m a pro at tree climbing; Aiden says I’m like a blonde little squirrel. There was this awkward moment in which we were at the river and I decided to bathe my body, and when I noticed, Aiden was staring at me while I was in my underwear. It was kind of creepy.
On the second day we ran out of water. We were going to the river to take a bath and collect some water, but when we arrived. the river was nothing but a little streak of water running through the ground. We were alarmed since we needed water to survive; however, rain fell and we collected it in my bottle in order to drink it. Since I am a terrible hunter, Aiden told me to collect fruits from trees while he hunted. Again, we had an awkward moment, but this time I was the creep; it was a cold night and I was freezing, so he gave me his shirt and his jacket exposing his amazing body which I couldn’t help but stare at it. Then while we were sleeping, and I was freezing, he hugged me and we fell asleep.
On the third day, nothing interesting happened during in the morning, but at night everything changed. I was lying on the ground watching the stars, and then Aiden came. He was kind of nervous but he lied next to me. Then he grabbed my hand, which started soaking with sweat. Then he turned sideways looking at me, I did the same. We were staring at each other’s eyes, and I was getting more nervous. I was going to stand up and go to sleep but as I was pulling myself up he grabbed me and pulled me towards him and kissed me.
I must confess that I fell in love with him. Maybe it was the way that he thought about the world, the way he held me and told me to calm down after waking up from my nightmares, or maybe it was just the way he kissed me. I know I told you that I don’t like to let people about my life, but he’s different from every other guy. I sound like those stupid girls that fall in love, but it was inevitable.
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Going back to the story, on the fourth day, I was walking by a small flower field next to the tree, and I saw four Komodo Panthers standing 500 meters away from me, but they were staring at me. I slowly entered the hollow tree and saw as they slowly approached, I told Aiden that we had to run away quickly. The four beasts started running after us, we were running as fast as we could but the beast managed to surround us. It was the end, we were going to die without being able to get married, and have a family. But all of a sudden a flying vehicle came towards us and a geeky man told us to get in the vehicle. We jumped quickly and flew away from the panthers. We were going to the top of the mountain. On our way there, the guy who saved us said something really odd to me. He said: “You look familiar.” I was wondering what he meant.
