Title: Sol Society
Word count: 1562
Warnings: Electrocution and Drowning.
Created for the Tropetember Event - Gaia’s Lament
The Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon, but 400 times further away, making them appear as equals and yet our society lived in a world where the Sun had dwindled away. I slapped the symbol depicting a waxing moon on the shoulder of the baggy blue uniforms, supplied by the SOS that I was wearing. The organisation that saved the world when it broke; The Sol of Society. As much as they are said to love their people, they would probably have demoted me just for not having my badge on…which I often forgot but my co-workers weren’t heartless, they had backups purchased, just for me. Leaving the confines of the clean white walls that were my room and I stepped outside into the cold air. My room that was just one in a building out of many. Tiny and definitely only for one person but it was what I could afford and I was cool with it. My uniform had built in heat pads like pretty much all clothing so we could brace the outside easier. Earth had been plunged into an eternal night hundreds of years ago when our Sun died. However, SOS saved us all when they created the Sol, our artificial sun. I was proud to say I worked within the vicinity of the Sol and was a trainee maintenance worker, so I was broke but on my way to having one of the most esteemed jobs in our society… then I’d be able to afford real food! I had only tasted artificial vegetables and the meat of a live animal twice in my entire life. All the animals were kept on the base floor of the building that held the Sun up. It was mainly just these things called cows and chickens and I really wanted to taste them. Only high society ranked workers could afford the good stuff. All of us lower workers just ate the artificial grub that was supposed to imitate meat and hold a bunch of protein and all that stuff I never paid attention to when I was in school like Vitamin C or whatever.
The dark skies were slightly illuminated by the orange glowing ball of heat resting atop the high glass building where I worked. Stepping through the doors were lights warming my body. It was always refreshing. Everybody walked with perfect posture across the marbled floor not causing even the slightest footprint, since there was no soil to dirty our shoes outside. Up the elevator I went, the doors dinging as they opened when I stepped in and dinging once more as I stepped out on the the top floor. Unlike the rest of the building, which I had been unable to see, as I was not permitted to go to many of the other floors, this one was not a pretty site to most. The entire floor was covered in thick black wires hanging from the walls, crossing over the floor and hard to step over. It was probably the messiest place you would ever be able to witness in the entirety of New Africa. The only continent that was able to survive was lower Africa however only one country remained liveable. After the world started to fall to pieces, SOS came in with the artificial sun, meaning many citizens from across the globe fled to South Africa, the only place that managed safety.
I stepped over the wires carefully, lifting my boots. My short black bob hairstyle hanging on my shoulders in a neat cut. I was reaching towards the door on the left wall where all my equipment was kept, when my hat fell from head. I leaned down to pick it up, forgetting my place, just managing to grab my hat but my clumsy butt let me fall face forward, hands out in front of me, holding the hat. I lifted my self up, barley standing, with bent knees and then I saw it. The mistake that was never supposed to happen. The badge on my shoulder had cut a smooth line into one of the wires. It wasn’t like they had been perfectly kept and maintained up here for all these years; it should have been an easy fix. An easy fix would have been nice but like the society that controlled New Africa the cut was clean and almost irreversible but like me it was an accidental threat.
The black covering hiding the metal strings inside tore apart and sparks flew from the rubber’s jagged edges. In a situation like this, a maintenance worker is supposed to flip the switch connected to the wire that has been broken and immediately evacuate the vicinity. I’m guessing you already knew, I couldn’t manage even that. I swear I could hear the voice of my late grandmother shouting at me, “Eva Nightingale, what in Sol have you done this time!?” If only I knew Gran. I reached for the flip but instead I hit the door handle open, crashing into the neat white room knocking tools all over the place. I shrieked as I hit my elbow on the table in the middle of the room. A wrench went flying past me with some screw drivers hitting other wires. Several sparks were now flying. I scrambled to stand again and thanked whoever was listening for the clean non slippery floors. I stepped directly into the wire I had cut open earlier and a shock rose through my leg into my gut, burning my skin. My leg started to go numb after tingling like crazy but I stretched my arm out toward the switches mounted on the wall. My finger barley reached it before I lost consciousness.
My eyes would flicker open from time to time and I would see the roof above me crumbling. I recalled the last time something had happened up here, the person responsible wasn’t heard from for years. In fact I could never remember anyone mentioning her after the incident. The second time my eyes flicked open the roof was almost gone, sparks flew around my body and I could see the Sol. The Sun was right above me, held high on stilts. It looked like a plastic light from afar but up close I could see the energy circulating around the sphere. The third time I opened my eyes I had fully awoken and there were men in white suits pulling my small body up from the debris, shouting things at each other that I couldn’t make out.
I guess all it took was one stupid mistake from a Rookie to unravel a fragile secret because as my numb body was carried out to the ocean, I could see the walls of the first floor build them selves up again with no help at all. I could see not a single face looking at me as I was carried past them, like I they couldn’t even see me at all. The men who carried me were silent like they knew they appeared as invisible. I tried to not slip out of consciousness, which became easy when we reached the water outside the perimeter of the city. We crossed through the perimeter, far from the houses and apartment buildings. A warm light hit my skin like the intensity of nothing I’d ever felt. My body was robbed of this feeling since birth. The men gently lay me on the sand pushing me into the waves. The intent was so clear when one man knelt down next to me and whispered in my ear, “The Society doesn’t need people like you who are as wild as the waves.” Then they all left and all I could do was lay there, my pupils shaking. Before the ocean swallowed me, I saw the clouds outside the city could part. Behind those clouds was something no one in this world would ever imagine seeing…It was the real Sun, not Sol.
Wild and unpredictable, unlike anything in the Sol Society. I never lived long enough to contemplate the society I lived in. Not long enough to see how evil it was but the feeling I had when I saw the sun that revealed the lies every single being was told for centuries, I knew just how angry I was. My head slipped under the waves, sand passing over my lips ruining my hair, that was cut by the way the society wanted it. The water that ran over my body, shaped the way the society wanted it. I realised as I slipped deeper into the water that my mind was formed just the way the society wanted too. I only wished that once I was gone I could see the wild unpredictable nature that I heard of in stories. Even seeing the vast water I had fallen into was shocking. The amount of water no one ever dared to explore. Little broken shells scattered across the sand.
I would wake up again one day but not as Eva Nightingale, Trainee of the SOS maintenance crew. I would open my eyes as whoever I wished to be, wether it be my Soul reborn or alive, washed up on foreign shores. I had seen the sun and even in death, I wanted to shine as bright as it could.
Bright enough to burn The Society down