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lying in his bed at night, Lux listened to the sound he had heard all his life – the
deep, intermittent rumbling, far off in the distance. as a child, he did not think much
of the sound – it was second nature to him, and most of the time he didn’t even notice
it. but as he got older, he started questioning the sound – what was it? his friends, his
family, never had noticed the sound – eventually, he decided it was a problem with his own ears.
the doctor agreed with him – although, Lux could have sworn he saw a peculiar look of
understanding in the doctor’s eyes that day, many years ago. but as he fell asleep
between the walls of the cave he called home, he was always grateful for the sound, for
it always helped him to drift away into the darkness.
he has grown up in this cave, it is all he has ever known. it is a huge cave; thousands
of families live here, all descendants of the families Oriens or Occasus. the Oriens
mine the materials; the Occasus refine those materials into usable goods. disputes arise
here and there, but for the majority, everyone gets along. there are only a few rules here:
do not hurt anybody; do not get near the fires, for they are easily extinguished but wearisome
to reignite; and do not talk to the deceivers, for their lies poison the mind, and if subjugated
to for more than a brief moment, one would go into a catatonic nightmare state, a personal
hell, for which death is a better option. for this reason, these evil demons are shunned,
and without question they are to be instantly attacked and killed by anyone, by any means
available, if they break their code of silence. it is said that the deceivers – men who
wear black eye paint and masks over their faces – are only able to speak to you if
you speak to them first. they are ugly, dangerous men who must be avoided at all costs.
swinging away with his pickaxe the next day, the lunch whistle blows. Lux runs out of the
section of tunnel he’s assigned to that day, looking forward to his favorite time
of day – mealtime – and hoping, as he always did, that they would be lucky enough
to receive a bit of the special meal today. his father Orbis, his mother, brother, sister
– the Oriens Orbis – sit beside him at the table which spans as far as the eye can
see, running down the center of the huge cave, dividing it by family into two halves. all
the other inhabitants of the cave are also in attendance; mealtime is the highlight of
the day for most of the others as well. as the elder Oriens rises to say the prayer,
everyone joins hands and shuts their eyes. the elder Oriens and the elder Occasus take
turns praying for the good fortune of the families at every meal.
but as the elder is finishing up the blessing, a fly lands on Lux’s nose, and instinctively,
he opens his eyes. out of the corner of his eye Lux notices someone walking away from
the table. at first, he notices because this is not a fellow citizen – this is a deceiver,
wearing a dark, hooded cloak, a black mask over its nose and mouth. but then, Lux notices
something particularly odd about this person’s figure and air: this is not a man! though
she wears a hood and a mask, there can be no doubt about it; in a glimmer of fire light,
he sees in her eyes a beauty only found in a woman. when the prayer ends, Lux quickly
excuses himself from the table, indicating that he does not feel well and trying to conceal
his astonishment. out of curiosity and fascination, he wanders towards the woman as she turns
a corner and slithers away. he knows that he cannot talk to this woman, but she has
caught his eye. there are times in a man’s life when he must go against everything he
knows to be right, and for Lux, this is one.
he trails the woman into the darkness, making sure not to be seen, by her or by anyone else.
at the edge of the cave, there is a fire. the woman walks towards the fire; Lux becomes
nervous. he knows that no one is to be in proximity of the fire, but this woman seems
not to care of any such rule. as she nears the fire, she stops, looking back to make
sure nobody is watching. Lux ducks behind the corner for a second, and then peeks out
again, just in time to see the woman walk around the fire – into the corner – and
disappear. dumbfounded, Lux approaches the fire. when he reaches it, he notices something
he had never noticed before – a hole in the floor of the cave – the fire, its sole
guardian and protector, betraying one of its duties to nature, its duty to illuminate that
which otherwise cannot be seen. after imitating the woman with a quick look back, Lux jumps
past the fire and into the hole, throwing caution to the wind. and like a leaf in the
wind, he has no control over his next destination, falling down a stone chasm and into the darkness.
Lux awakens outside on his back, gasping in a huge breath of the exotic, oxygen-rich air,
his head pounding with pain – putting his hand to his temple, he feels a bloody gash.
“The fall must have knocked me unconscious”, he realizes. he tries to open his eyes, but
the light is blinding, and his eyes have grown accustomed to decades of the dim fire light.
but this… this is no fire. he sits, patiently but bewildered, in a patch of sand below the
wall of the cave, surrounded by a field of oats. the minutes seem like hours as he rests
there, listening to the cyclical, rumbling sound – louder now, more real. slowly, slowly,
he is able to open his eyes. as he starts to focus on his surroundings, he notices a
pair of objects coming towards him, animate lifeforms which he has never seen before.
the animals, alien creatures to a caveman, frighten Lux more than he has ever been – he
runs, in no particular direction except away, his eyes fixed behind him – hoping the creatures,
now trotting along behind him, aren’t looking for an easy dinner.
running up the face of a mound of sand, he stumbles and falls. as he tries to scramble
to his feet, face full of sand, he hears a voice: “Do not be afraid.” he looks up
to see the girl he had followed standing at the top of the hill. “They won’t hurt
you. They’re only dogs; they’re my friends. I’m Zandra”, she says. though she speaks
comforting words, they only serve to scare him more, as she is a deceiver.
“Shut your mouth!” he screams as he instinctively lunges towards her, intent on doing whatever
must be done to silence her poisonous words at once. but predicting his advance, she grabs
a dagger from her waistband, holding it to his chest, forcing him to stop in his tracks.
“Wait”, she instructs him. “Think about what you’re doing. Take a deep breath and
think.” with no other option, Lux stands still, carefully considering his options and
the situation. after a few moments, he backs down.
“You… you spoke to me. They said you couldn’t speak to us unless we spoke to you first.
How?”, he sputters. “Yes, we were always able to speak to you”, she explains. “But
if they saw us talk to you, they’d kill us. You know that.” a million thoughts run
through his mind at once.
continuing her elucidation with an understanding empathy, she explains to him. “The food
they give you is not good for you. It is deprived of nutrients; it is made to keep both your
body and mind under their command. Out here is the good food. It is harder to find, of
course, but it is much, much better than the meals you are fed in that cave. Every so often,
when we have more than we can eat, we bring some in for you – the ‘special meal’,
as you call it. We’ve been trying to give you all a taste of truth, to give you a hunger
for reality, hoping that the more open-minded among you would come to enlightenment; anything
to break this spell they keep you under. It’s why I was in the cave today.”
“We?” Lux asks. “Yes”, she answers, “there are many of us. My friends took some
of our food to the people in the other caves…”
“There are other caves?” he interjects. “Many, many of them”, she replies. “There
is a whole world out here that you’ve never been told of. There are hundreds of other
civilizations that we know of, and probably thousands more beyond that – all enslaved,
as you have been, as I once was.”
“You still haven’t told me ‘who’. Who is ‘they’?” he asks again.
Not sure how to answer, she does her best. “Well… the elders, in a sense. But they
too are controlled. You see, there are bad people out here – they call themselves ‘The
Summus’ – much less of them, but they are clever, powerful, and have more riches
than you or I can even dream of. They use these assets to manipulate people like the
elders into doing what they want, promising them great wealth and a luxurious lifestyle
if they agree to comply – and great harm to themselves and their family if they do
not. THEY are the true ‘Deceivers’. Didn’t you ever find it odd that you’ve never seen
the elder Oriens or the elder Occasus until they came to those positions? Or, like the
others in that cave, did you never even think twice? They are outsiders, but your people
are so repressed, they don’t even notice, or care. While you slave away in there, The
Summus out here reap the benefits of your labor, half of everything your people produce.
Didn’t you wonder where it all went?”
disregarding her question, he continues his inquisition. “Why the painted eyelids? Why
the mask? If what you say is true, why maintain this dark image of yourself and your people
on the outside?”
“We don’t do it on purpose”, she replies. “It’s not what it seems. The masks feed
us oxygen. From birth, your body has been able to function with low amounts of it, but
once you’ve lived out here for a few days, your lungs expand and if you go back into
the cave you will suffocate in a matter of minutes. As for our eyelids, they have been
painted as a matter of necessity as well. Without doing this, the sunlight will burn
through your paper-thin eyelids in a matter of minutes. My mother, sadly, learned this
the hard way – she is blind now. In order to save your vision, I did it to you too,
before you awoke from your unconsciousness. I had to – I’m sorry. We always wait a
few minutes after we leave the cave, in case there are any unseen followers, such as yourself.”
wiping his eyelids in disbelief, Lux confirms what she has said; a dab of the dark ink stains
his fingertips. things had been so crazy, he hadn’t even noticed. “Liar! I don’t
believe you! I want to go back!”, he shouts in denial, starting to hyperventilate, panicking
that the life he had known was gone forever, wishing for a moment that he could return
to his life of blissful ignorance, instinctively wanting to believe his life in the cave was
all that mattered.
solemnly, Zandra tells him what he wished he didn’t already know. “You can’t go
back to your former life. You can’t cast aside what you now know. Once you went down
that hole, there was no turning back. I’m sorry. It’s the only way, or you would have
gone blind, or worse. If you’d gone back, if you’d spoken to anyone, if you’d been
spotted, you would be killed. Don’t you remember the pact?”
Lux hangs his head, unable to reconcile the existence he had known for decades with the
revelations which had just been disclosed to him. he lets his head fall backwards into
the sand, dizzy from mental and physical overload. he lies there for a while, the thoughts rolling
around in his brain. finally, reason trumps emotion; he realizes that the things he has
known all his years – ideas ingrained in his mind since birth – are lies, circumventions
of reality. there are times in a man’s life when he must go against everything he knows
to be right, and for Lux, this is one. all of a sudden, he realizes the sound now roaring
in his ears, more lucid than ever before. he sits up.
“Come here”, she says, noticing the change in his aura. like a child listening to his
mother, he obeys. as he reaches the top of the mound, he sees it – the blinding, sparkling
light forming the horizon behind her – and instantly he understands. understands the
source of the sound that had chased him all his life, but also, understands that this
whole new world, full of curiosities and vulnerabilities, is not just the story that she is trying to
tell – it is reality.
as he ran towards the ocean, watching the waves roll in and crash, he was not afraid.
as he dove headlong into the surf, he barely minded its freezing temperature. as it slammed
him into the bed of the sea, he was only in awe of its power. Lux thrashed around in the
cold water, learning how the waves moved, awed by its vastness, marveling at its infinite
movement, until he was drained of every ounce of energy his repressed body possessed. he
stumbled out of the ocean, exhausted, and collapsed next to Zandra, who had watched
the scene unfold with a smile on her face. she could already tell Lux would like it out
here.