Under Glass Skies
What if the city was a dome and outside was a lie? Mara begins to question everything, especially after seeing birds vanish in the sky for the first time.
I had always believed the sky was endless, blue streaked with white, and that the city was all there was. Dome City, they called it—a laughably obvious name, but we accepted it like everything else: unquestioned. I suppose it takes a particular kind of loneliness to make you wonder if anything is real.
They still let us outside the dwellings, at least those of us who kept up our work and didn’t make trouble. I maintained the rain harvesters—machines that filtered condensation sliding down the dome’s curve. Every day, I’d climb the spiral ladders and watch a stage-set sun glide across the glass sky.
But occasionally, if you waited, you’d see them. The birds.
One afternoon, the air carried the sharp tingle of ozone and static, and I raised my hand, tracing the reflection of clouds. A flock crossed above the dome, wings beating until, mid-flight, they vanished. I blinked. They simply ceased, as if paint scrubbed from a canvas. I looked around, but the other maintenance workers packed their toolkits and gave no notice. Not even a comment about the missing drizzle or the way the air felt heavier.
The next morning, I returned to the same spot, eyes stinging from sleeplessness. No birds, only pale simulated clouds. Yet the memory gnawed at me, and the skies above seemed less like a window and more like a limit.
Days passed. I stopped eating with the others, piecing together oddities in my private record files. The sun’s arc was off by a fraction each week. The same woman walked the path at 7:10, always in green. Laughter on radio loops repeated every three hours.
Was it my mind unraveling, or was I waking up?
That question kept me staring at my own reflection in the glass entryway at shift’s end, the face more gaunt, its dark eyes probing for answers. Sometimes I thought I saw another Mara looking back: uncertain, suspicious.
I knew talking about it was dangerous. Ever since the great blackout five years ago—the one detailed in a thousand sterilized committee reports—we all feared the Erasers. Anyone who asked too much got a polite visit, an “opportunity” somewhere else, and you’d never hear from them again.
Still, I couldn’t help myself. I needed to know.
At work, a new route assignment landed in my inbox. Unusual, since the rota rarely changed. This job was at the South Edge, where the dome met the old city wall. South Edge was for special techs, but the system said it needed a specialist for a rain harvest unit malfunction.
When I got there, the repair drone assigned to the sector hovered beside the wall, waiting. The dome curved low, and the city’s grid buzz gave way to silence. I braced on the scaffolding and tried not to look nervous, fiddling with the sensor nodes on my palm. There, near the base of the wall, I noticed a strip of dead pixels, no thicker than a spider’s silk, wriggling and shifting with my gaze. I hesitated and then pressed my hand against the glass to steady myself.
A voice, clear as water in my earpiece: “Do you see it too?”
I jerked upright. The comms channel was supposed to be private. “Who is this?”
A pause. “It’s you, Mara. Or maybe not exactly you.” The voice was familiar but slightly warped. “Don’t panic. They’ll listen if you panic.”
Heart pounding, I forced myself to keep breathing evenly, eyes on my work. “What do you want?”
“The birds you saw. They’re not real. Nothing up there is. Not even the sky.”
I glanced up at a sunbeam fractured on glass, swallowing. “Then what is all this?”
“You’ve been selected,” said the voice, modulating slightly with each word. “It’s your second chance.”
My hands trembled as I reattached the panel—then froze. Below the panel, something shimmered. It was a feather, glimmering with static, half-dissolved at the tip. I slipped it into my pocket, unsure whether it’d still be there if I looked again.
After work, I didn’t go home. I wandered, feather nestled in my fist, until I stood at the edge where a door should not be. There, the metal was cold and slick, painted to match the dome but set with a narrow seam. The feather flickered against it. Without thinking, I pressed the feather-tip to the seam.
The door shuddered open. Cold wind—real wind, not domed air—blew in, bringing the scent of earth and rain. I staggered, the sensation a blow to the gut. Past the threshold: dark trees, no wall, the real world stretching on in moon-whitened silence. The city not ending, but simply stopping.
A memory surfaced—my parents, their quiet words warning me as a child: “The dome keeps us safe. Don’t question it.” But I know now they meant to protect themselves, not me.
The voice—my voice, from the comm—spoke from over my shoulder, but I turned to see only empty street. “Step through,” came the whisper, “if you want to remember.”
I hesitated, head swirling with questions about belonging. Who would I be if I left? If I stayed?
A light flickered in the empty sky above; suddenly, my lifetime of maintenance flashed through my mind—the endless routine, the faces, the laughter on a loop. I pressed the feather to my wrist, feeling only the cool of the fake glass.
I turned, stepped across the threshold, and left Dome City behind.
The night air collapsed around me. For a moment I thought I was falling, losing myself, my memories fragmenting like shattered glass. Then my senses returned, sharper than ever. The forest hummed, alive with unseen animals. Thunder crackled far to the east. I wept, clutching the feather as it faded away in my hand.
Every now and then, on the fringe of sleep, I still hear the looping laughter, the gentle suggestions not to question, to return. But I do not go back. It is lonely, unbearably so, but I know the sky above me is real.
Maybe I was wrong to flee. Maybe Dome City will erase me—their Mara, gone. But I remember. I have the wind, the weight of the earth, the light that doesn’t fade.
And now I know: that is enough.
###END###
