“ You sick worthless child! “
These were the cries of every grown person who has bothered to acknowledge me, these happened to be the cries in my daily life. I was not in shock when these words escaped the tattered lips of a “wise one”. Apparently, originality is a crime. In this town square of lost emotion and despair, we live here in a colorless place. Every day I do what I am obliged to do, I follow the rules, I obey the law. We are like slaves in a house of evil, we are given no rights no freedom, I can only dream of escape. In my town, no one has names, we are given black cloaks and on the back are numbers, I am number 2091, this is what I respond too, in the shadows of other numbers and blank expressions. This is a self-proclaimed tiny country, isolated from the rest of the world. We, the people and citizens, of this place are forbidden, as an illegality to mention the other world that we once came from, had we not been born in this nightmare. I used to be a part of a world that had life, 10 years ago, when I was three, I lived in a beautiful village. I went to school, I saw birds, I smelled grass, every flower, every house, every clothing, music, books they were all different and all wonderful, there were so many options of art and love, the only thing that I was scared of was being driven away from my sweet home. There was nothing wrong with it. It was perfection.
One day I was riding my bike, and I speed across enjoying the free air and the sunshine, when a black van, like I have never seen before, drove towards me. Stopping suddenly as I made eye contact with the driver. The birds that had followed me on my journey through the village on my bicycle flew away. I stood there isolated; abandoned by the chipping creatures, as two men dressed in cloaks (numbered 13 and 66) grabbed me and left the bike behind. The sound of my bike horn rang through my ears over and over again as the vehicle drove me away. Each time I look back to the starting of my dark memories- this inception and the bike horn is what I reflect upon. I have not seen my true family since that day. The wise ones claim that the only true love that should be felt is protection, and that is what they are giving to us. The wise ones like to say that we are all family since this horrid moment. Even the birds here were heartless and gray. Ever since, I have become one of the many bait, in this torturous place.

The “wise ones”, the ones who have once also been stolen from their true homes and forced to live here, but have grown to love it, were the true demons. These “wise ones” who have now turned elderly, have devoted their pathetic lives into making sure that our lives are uneventful and solemnly bland, are the reason for my on going hatred. We have workers and “wise ones”, the only few people whom are allowed to express, but more so control the hell of this town. They are the rulers, who have the say whether or not we are punished if we misbehave. Misbehaving would be doing something that is differed from your orders. Your orders, are in your job, everyone is given a responsibility, this accountability must be fulfilled, and when the screamers, who’s responsibility is to scream out different times of the day, yell work day over, we must terminate our workings, and return to the homes that have also been preselected for us.

Location of you home wasn’t a choice either, not that the actual house, more so cubicle was either. Cameras everywhere, even on trees, plastic grass and fake flowers,( which was all the same length and color) catch your every move. You had to be precise and follow the schedule, and respect all order. If you were somewhere where you were not supposed to be, you are punished. Every building is identical, every person is dressed as a twin, the expressions strikingly similar, the face of having lost hope and being forced to be woken up to another day of pure gray. There is a name for everything, nothing is out of place, when something is different it is thrown away, into the dungeon of vulgarly. On the outskirts of this prison, that’s what I call this place a prison, it is found, unlike everything else here, it is colorful and beautiful and no one but the people who were assigned the job as guards are allowed near it. I have never seen inside, but I have visited it in my dreams, my dreams are also illegal, but the cameras cannot catch me. Here, the human race is enslaved to the fear of people branching apart and seeing life as a happy thing with art, laughter, and creativity. These people who founded this nightmare thought that it was safer to eliminate all aspects of life, in fear that problems would evoke, if everyone was under their control no one would ever be depressed, yet no one would ever be truly happy.
“ If everyone’s the same, if everything’s the same no arguments would occur, no opinions would be made, no crushed dreams.” Said every “wise one” I ever passed, drenched in their little class A cloaks that somehow always tend to have a pattern of sinisterly numbers.

One day, coming home from my responsibility as a child tamer while the majors could not look after their creations, I just could not resist the horrid temptation of the dungeon of vulgarly. After ten years of boring bland identical days, I decided I have nothing to lose. This is true, life like this was worse than no life at all, and it felt like I was the only one who saw it like this. The brainwashed humans that I “lived” with, seemed to have such colorless minds, that they did not even search for joy.
Cameras everywhere on the trees that were too perfect and all accurately the same height, were watching me as I decided to leave during the night. This is when we were all expected and trusted to remain in our homes. Leaving and breaking the law would be so unimaginable no one would expect it, so no one watched the cameras. I assumed the security would be taken by someone who was having a dreamless sleep- purely using their awakening of their subconscious for rest. Here everyone was short of emotion so something as drastic as this would give all of their unlived hearts, heart attacks.

12 Am, I managed to shut my door quietly as I rampaged for the dungeon, the guard who stood there had fallen asleep, and he was mumbling. OH JOY, if he was talking in his sleep, this must mean there was a bit of actual dreams going on in his head. Though I was happy for him, for not being a completely dull, blank mind, I could use this against him, if he caught me breaking this law. If I was caught I could turn him into the safe keepers as well, he would turn me in too, so neither of us would be thought of actually committing a felony. But I still had to be careful. The dungeon was beautiful from the outside, and when I opened the entrance, passing the now sleep walking guard of security I wondered why it was miraculously unlocked. I had no time to think about this. I had entered a true paradise. Music was playing, movies were rolling, books, unicycles, heavenly birds, ponds, uneven grass, clothes that were outrageous, instruments, wild decorations uneven wigs, oddly shaped musical instruments, and more importantly people who had souls.
Wearing pants that were multi-colored, and a shirt that I was incapable of processing with hair that was curly, straight and pointing in haphazard directions, a boy came up to me and said “Hello”. Ashamed of my colorless cloak I looked down on my own boring ensemble when I realized it had morphed into an oversized shirt and a neon pair of shorts. I was so appalled I would have fainted, had I not forced myself to stay conscious this entire time in fear of missing precious seconds of this heaven. I could not evoke words, the boy himself continued.
“You must have come from the land of no return, the brother of our land. You use terms such as wise one, but you see no intelligence in the people who believe that ways of dull identically and their ways of terminating anything that can have a negative aspect, we have heard much of you. We lost hope that you will ever come and find us, Alice Vail.”
‘ I.. .I.. I just opened a door… and.. and.. “ My heart was beating much quicker than anything tolerated. I was nervous and anxious, emotions that have been prohibited. Generally at a moment like this, I would be fed numbing treatments, so these precarious scenarios would disappear from my head. But as of right now, I had to be free and accept these overwhelming ideas instead of freezing up my thoughts.

I thought I was turning delusional. This so called dungeon was it’s own village, city, country even world. Was I still on planet E? Or had I left to a different one? Maybe a different universe? A parallel dimension? What if this was all inside my head? What if I was still asleep? Infinite amount of questions had popped into my mind, but I tried to ignore them, knowing that the concept of eternity was not allowed. Then I realized I was free from that terrible place, and all concepts about anything must be fully accepted here. This was insanity. But I felt perfectly sane.
There was clowns, and mimes and roller coasters it had laughter echoing, through the walls. Walls? There was only sunset and sky. Oh how I miss the sun! I have not seen anything so beautiful for a decade. Sunshine was prohibited; we only had one whether, grey. Sunshine could cause skin damage, there could be sunburn, and there could be heat stroke. I looked around. I could no longer find the door where I entered, let alone could I find any door. I was standing outside in a village, a mutated opposite of where I had just left. This is where all of the life was sucked into, the amazing life that I have dreamed of. It seemed even better than where I came from before. It was full of wonders. It was full of impossibilities.
“ How is this possible? “
The only words I could spit out, though they came out with many jumbled letters in between, stammering was also a dreaded illegality, dialogue and words used when conversing had to be used in perfection.
“ You, have been different than the rest of them. You have been chosen to slowly lead your people, who frankly aren’t your people, - but you get what I mean. “ – The boy kept on cutting himself off. He was a lunatic, or maybe I am. “ Well anyway, forever had your people downgraded life into some beast form, the guard just tosses anything he finds in your land into here” – This time I cut him off, “ It is not my land! “ This was the first time I have screamed in many years, I never yelled in fear of punishment or words of stupid from the wise ones. I just couldn’t bear hearing them say things that I did not believe and I knew for a fact were untrue.
“ My name used to be number 42, I was a common citizen of that place” His joyous expression turned into a blank cold face. “ The guards know about here, but no one is supposed to know in fear of losing this precious so called balance”
There was a young girl and her family eating cotton candy sitting on an oversized watermelon on a hill in the background. This place was far from balanced, but it was far better then where I came from. “ Everything that we are sent that your rulers dislike, gets sent to us and we grow and expand our country. You must understand though, your family on the other side needs our aid, they are slowly killing themselves, and when you kill yourselves so will we. We can only consume a certain amount of imbalance you see. You may be the only now who sees life as a beautiful adventure, but you need to teach others to see in your way. The more colorless you and your side will grow, the more colorful we will become, but at the point that you have nothing and we have everything, all life would be ruined. You are the only person in your village who understands this and must aid us. Please lead your people to share the same view you have, and accept “invalid” things. It is your destiny.” I fumed at his words, he wanted me to go back to my torture, he wanted me to suffer for more agony and lose what I just received. He wanted me to depart happiness and liberty, and wild days. Here there was no obsessive power and controlling demands, and there, that was all that there was. “ I will not leave here! How dare you? I find what I’ve been longing for and you want to send me back!”

I refused to move as he attempted to push me. He explained that this will be here, this side, to visit when necessary. But he could not have the negative energy to clouding the atmosphere in between the divide of the dungeon. He repeatedly told me “ Your family is not all cold hearted, they just believe their views are best. You must alter them. You have to help them so we can achieve our balance again, the depression and lifeless eyes that you never had you will never receive, but you know at the bottom of your heart you cannot leave your new home in pain. Lead them to love Alice Vail. “

I stared at the bottom of the pond of what appeared to not be water, but ginger ale, and my reflection stared back at me. I had forgotten what I looked like, I was born different. Straight blond hair and mismatched eyes, my appearance screamed for me to join this world so separate yet right beside my own. I wanted my life to resume to perfection just as it once had been. I wanted my years to flow by smoothly with freedom and expression and laughter. However, the hole in my heart ,for the grey people on the other side who have not had the chance to see this life, to know that there are other ways to actually achieve happiness, grew.

Some day I will eliminate this door, the divide of the dungeon that was getting closer to my vision now. Some day the dungeon won’t exist, we won’t need to be separating these two worlds and we will live in harmony. But for now I must return to where I have been asked to help. Where the desperate people need to be saved. Maybe I will finally give up a decade from now, and realize this is impossible and return here, or maybe it will be an utter success. I stared down at my feet walked directly to forward and saw that door, with one last look at my sweet escape I pushed the door open and my I felt my heavy cloak emerge back on my shoulders. I no longer remembered the name that boy called me, but here I was back at home, number 2091, feeling as no other number had ever felt before. This world will change.