A long, metal wall runs around the entire city: a cage that has wound around me for the entirety of my life. Beyond lies the unknown, that which is forbidden to explore for most of the city's inhabitants.
"I do not see anything," they whisper behind me. A shiver goes down my spine, my lips stretching into a smile. Just a little bit more… The device rolls from my hand with lopsided movement towards the ledge. I stop myself from peering over, as I've done many times, with the knowledge that what lies beyond is something more than darkness.
"The divine can't always control us, Angel. If you can't see what's to happen, that means we're on the right track." The wind picks up, shifting my bangs into my eyes. In my periphery, Angel is crouched on the ledge with their eyes trained on me rather than the device. It teeters on the edge as if wary of the beyond.
"Or, perhaps we are walking down an irrecoverable path. The divine is believed to be omniscient for good reason." They seem to slouch away from the edge as the device finally drops out of sight. A breath escapes my lips with a shaky demeanor. My necklace begins a series of small beeps before I silence it. "Crow Cross, we are going to be late."
"Is that foresight or hindsight?" I chuckle and click the side of the rectangle in my hands. The screen displays three rotating dots. Under my breath I am pleading the device to work. Angel's presence increases next to me as they lean over my shoulder for a better look.
"It is what you would call an inference." Silence falls for a brief moment before they speak again,"It does not seem to be working. I did try to warn you that this plan was ill-concieved—" The screen flashes white, replacing the rotating dots with gold text that reads: Message received.
Angel intakes a large amount of air. "It is not possible."
"You need more faith," I laugh, stealing a glance out of my periphery before returning to the screen.
"You do not understand, Crow Cross—" They are cut off by a white-gloved hand shooting out from the darkness beyond the wall. It grasps the tablet, trying to pull me off the ledge and into the beyond. In a split second, Angel's hand grips the back of my shirt and drags me 100 feet into the air. The rest of the arm emerges, belonging to a woman clad in white and gold. She twists the tablet around in her hand, eyes narrowing and darting around the area. My lungs feel as if they're about to explode. Sweat drips off my forehead and plummets towards the ground.
I gasp, but it freezes midair and hangs there. Angel's hand twists in front of us, the sweat drop following suit and flinging off to the side. My eyes trail back down where more figures are emerging from beyond the wall. The woman is staring directly at me with icy eyes. My throat chokes on a breath of air. The group has a short exchange before they pull the woman away and head towards the center of the city.
"Shit! The dome!" I stand and sprint off the side of the building, jumping straight to another building. A clang reverberates through the air.
The dome is a solid tetraquad away from each edge of the wall, meaning I have about ten minutes to make it from here to there on a full sprint across the buildings. That also assumes no one stops me on the way there. I raise a hand to my necklace and the time reads 1~4. Exactly ten minutes to spare. The glint of gold greets me before the shape of the dome can register in my eyes. In a city of dull metal, the dome had always stood out as pure, polished gold, symbolic of what the city believed to reside there.
The lights are already dimming inside the dome as I sneak through the back of the seating area. Everyone in the lower families is silent. The balcony of the higher families rumbles with quiet conversation. Angel's head peeks out from backstage, blond hair shining through the dim light somehow. They gesture for me to hurry up. Behind the drawn curtain on stage is a few rows of seats, all filled with those who are 20 cycles old. My seat is cold when I finally sit. Angel sits a row ahead of me just as the curtains draw open and a golden light hits center stage. A figure hooded in white strides into the light, face hidden from view of all.
"Greetings, all from high families to low. Today we gather for the cyclic tradition of the choosing. Once every cycle, five of our young will be chosen to train as light holders. They will keep our city safe from what lies beyond the wall. Our gracious deity bestows upon these five light holders powers unique to each individual. O' powerful, benevolent deity, grant us our watchmen again!" The speech ends with a flourish of gold-trimmed sleeves being thrown in the air before the light dims once again, allowing the spokesperson to leave.
A tense silence follows. I have come and gone from this ceremony 20 times in my life, and upon each return my skepticism in this deity has only grown. In the 20 cycles I have lived within the walls of this 4-tetraquaded city, the light holders have made no progress beyond the walls. The division of the high and low families only increases. It is obviously a ploy to keep us weak.
Something changes in the air and gasps ripple through the crowd. Their deity has shown its presence for the nth time, yet they are able to react with ample surprise every cycle. The youth sitting around me stir with what I assume is anticipation. The spokesperson of the deity allocates a hefty sum of quarter to each family of the five chosen. In addition, it's said that every family is granted enormous luck by the deity. Suspicious, isn't it?
A ripple goes through the crowd again, signaling that the entity has chosen. Silence hangs over me like a heavy wind.
[Help us]
What?
The golden light flickers on again, the spokesperson returning to center stage. "This year's chosen are…." They pause suddenly. "This year's chosen is Crow Cross."
… What?