The Dome

Being left alone is never fun. Especially when it is by your own happiness. Life is a recipe, you’re given the instructions and ingredients to make the perfect cake but let’s face it, you never make it look like the pictures. But the thing is, you may try to follow the recipe to the dot, but it can still end up opposite of how you imagined. I never imagined I’d feel like this. That I would be struggling like this with no one to turn to. No one I can relate to. I get home and every night I take off this mask. Every night I must pray I can be strong enough to see another day. If I could make it through this day, I can make it through one more. Everyone goes through difficult spots, some worse than others. But we deal with them all in different ways.

It started off that everyone lived outside the Dome. It wasn’t until people started disappearing. But it wasn’t the people that didn’t matter. It was the ones that did. The happiest people. Soon it became aware they were leaving for the Dome. We never thought we could. There were special doctors that taught you how to leave, people that could change your path. It was "a new breath" when you were in the Dome. No one really knew how to escape there, you just woke up in this new world. A world where it was always the right temperature. The colours were bright, you would wake up to the sound of bike bells ringing and birds tweeting. The adverts for the Dome were strategically sprinkled around the towns. Everyone hoping that when they woke up, the autumn leaves would no longer be crunching under their feet and dull brown colours were replaced with life. I was happy with autumn. It was my favourite season, but it never lasted long enough. Neither did this world. We weren’t kept in the dark about the Dome, and we could contact everyone still. It just took a long time for us to finally reply. It was difficult. It wasn’t long after discovering the Dome, that people I knew would disappear.

I did the same walk to the bus and every day the bus was quieter and quieter until there was no bus at all. The streets were as dead as the autumn leaves beneath my feet as I trudged back home. I was the only one there now. I was alone until the next morning. The next morning, I woke up. My once dark brown bed sheets were now an off-white. "I did it," I thought. "I made it." For the first time in a year I was excited to go outside. I was going to see everyone that had left me behind. I was going to be in this new world. I made it to the Dome. The Dome of happiness.

As I sat up in bed, my eyes adjusted. There was no colour. Everything looked like an old film. The occasional red was there almost like the noir films. The messy room was black and white. I hardly recognised where I was, but I was home. I knew it was my home but it just felt so distant. I opened my bedroom door and saw the truth. The truth that I hadn't moved at all. It hit me when I was looking at the new world. The one I had dreamed about living in. No one had left me behind, I had left them. I was the one who was in the Dome. Me alone. Watching everyone go about their lives, wishing I could have made it too. I pushed everyone away and it was just me. It was like looking through steamed up windows. The blurry bright colours and distorted laughter. The Dome was not where I wanted to be but I had no choice. The darkness is my home now.