Total Darkness

Lisa Danbury looked over the dark town from her apartment’s tiny balcony. The light from the sun and moon had been lost to earth years before she had been born. Since the Government had forced everyone to use solar power a year before the sun faded, power plants and factories had only lasted for a year or two after. She had heard stories about people being killed over things that made artificial light until that was gone too. She had seen flashlights when she had been small but as with the sun and candles the batteries for the batteries died. Car batteries also died at some point and without working plants and factories to make more they were lost to them as well.

Lisa had never seen a working TV or heard a radio play and only seen the moon, sun, and stars in pictures. She’d only read about storms and living plants. When space had died the seasons and weather had died too. She’d never felt the rain or smelled flowers. Lisa had read articles about humans living in space before, so she couldn’t understand why they had no idea what had happened to make the earth and space turn pitch black.

When she had turned ten, she had wanted to study the subject more, but her father had been afraid it would be seen as a challenge to the Government, and they would take her away as they had done many times over the last twenty plus years when anyone decided to investigate too closely. Her mother on the other hand thought her daughter learning about the space she’d seen at her age and finding the answer to their problem had been brilliant, she’d snuck books and maps out of the library before it had been shut down. Ten years had gone by since she’d began, and Lisa still didn’t have an answer.

“Maybe there isn’t an answer. Maybe I’m just a foolish girl on a fool’s errand.”

Nobody had talked about the sun or moon in so long it was as if they had never existed. Lisa wondered from time to time if they were just stories. What in the world? She thought she had seen some type of light in the sky. It was just a long sliver of light and only for a second or two, but she was certain it had been there. She stared hard at the sky for a long time before walking back into her home.

The next morning was colder than normal, and she shivered as her bare feet touched the wood floor. She knew from her studies the sun had warmed the earth even in cold months. She didn’t understand then how the earth still got colder and warmer if there was no sun. It never actually got warm, but it wasn’t as cold sometimes than others. She dressed in blue jeans and a black sweater. After throwing her hair in a ponytail and pulling on a jacket Lisa put some books into her backpack, put her fireplace out, and headed out the door. Her eyes adjusted quickly as she stepped from the building. She thought they were adjusting quicker the older she got and that scared her, humans weren’t meant to be able to see clearly in the dark. Lisa hunched her shoulders as she walked into cold. It felt odd in a way she couldn’t articulate. She had never felt the wind, yet she was positive on a cellular level that that is what she should be feeling along with the biting cold.

 Lisa walked faster, she was late to meet her close friend Eli Morgan, as she did almost every day. Eli had been a twenty-five-year-old scientist when space vanished, now he studied and experimented in the privacy of his family’s old mansion. She rounded the corner of Maple and fifth when she heard the people talking.

“A sliver of light in the sky. I tell ya, I seen it with my own eyes.” A tall man with a beard said excitedly.

Lisa joined the group to listen in.

“You did not.”

“Don’t let Protectors hear you say that. They took off Jimmy Hood for saying such things two months ago.”

The Protectors were a group of individuals who were called up by the Government to protect the people but really, they just took people who spoke out against the Government or said something the Government deemed mutiny. Talk of lights in the sky would get you taken for sure, since it caused excitement. 

“What time did you see it?” Lisa asked in a whisper.

“Two am.” The man answered in a lower tone than before.

She stared up at the man for a moment before turning around her timekeeper, a small clock type object the officials had sent out just after the electricity had stopped, had read two a.m. when she’d seen it too. Lisa was about to cross the street when a Protection cargo wagon with three large black horses pulling it pulled up. Her heart sank as bile rose in her throat. The books she had were banned, if they looked in her bag, they’d take her. She took a deep breath as two very large men walked up to her and smiled before carrying on their way. She sighed with relief and walked away as normal as she could. She hear the man’s cries for help as they arrested him. Lisa frowned, she wanted to help the man, but she thought the only to do that was to save them all and find the truth.

 “Eli? Are you up?” Lisa had let herself into his larger home. She made her way to the kitchen where a pot of water was boiling over the fire and a pan of meat was burning next to it. Lisa shook her head and moved the pan off the rack. “Eli?”

“Down here,” his deep voice rose through the floor. “I think I have something.”

Lisa wound her way around and down into the basement. It was lite up with old oil fueled torches placed around the stairwell and large open space that made up the basement. Eli was lucky his family had always kept things, the torches had come in handy, and their storage of oil was a huge pit in the basement that a crazy uncle had filled with oil a hundred years ago because someone said it couldn’t be done and someone had just covered it instead of draining it.  

“A man was taken for talking about a light. But Eli, I seen it too.”

“It wasn’t just a light. It was a crack.”

“A crack?”

Eli turned and stared at her. “Did I studder?”

She shook her head, “don’t get snippy. I just don’t understand how the sky could crack.”

“Because it’s not the sky, Lisa, I believe it’s a dome.” He said with a stern expression.

“Dome?” She asked sitting down, “what do you mean?”

Eli stood and paced, “they put a dome over us. Everything they said died are still out there! Nothing died! We’ve been put in a fishbowl of sorts.”

“Eli, that’s crazy.”

He said nothing as he walked up the spiral staircase. Lisa shrugged and followed him. He led her up to the attic where his telescope set in a hidden window. Eli opened the curtain and pointed at the telescope. She walked up and looked into the view finder. A blank nothingness stared back like always.

“So, what am I looking at.”

Eli messed with some knobs while Lisa continued to stare into the blackness. “You see it. That odd line.”

“Yes,” Lisa looked for several minutes, her mouth agape, before moving away. “Skies don’t have seams.”

Eli nodded, “Exactly.”

He dropped the curtain back into place and stalked back to the basement Lisa was close on his heals. They walked quickly staying silent until they were in the basement. Eli went to work writing on a white board while Lisa worked to find anything about seams and the sky in her books.

“I saw the sun last night, Lisa.” Eli turned hope filled his voice.

 “I believe you. So would the Government. I think that is why they took that man today, they are worried. But why would they open the dome. Wait, better question, why are we in a dome to begin with?”

“They don’t want us to know the sun is still out there for some reason.” Eli wrote EXPERIMENT: WHY????? on the board. “We are an experiment, Lis. I don’t know why but it makes sense and answers why we could never find a true scientific answer for where the light went.”

Lisa threw the book she was holding across the room, “What could possibly be gained by all this?”

Eli shrugged. “I do not know, but we are going to find out.”

They worked to find answers on a biological science level instead of a space one for hours until their stomach’s growls for food couldn’t be ignored. The duo worked in the kitchen to make lunch just as well as they did in the basement. Eli was quiet most of the time only giving her a grunt here and there. Lisa sighed and gave up talking she had known him long enough to know when he got like that there was nothing that would snap him out of it until he got the answer he wanted.

“Oh my gosh!”

Lisa stood so fast her bowl tipped over. She ran down to the basement steps leaving a very confused Eli with a mouth full of food to stare after her. After he picked up the mess, he ventured down himself. Lisa was sitting in the middle of the room surrounded by maps, books, and equations on pieces of paper. He stared down at her still confused. She made an “oh” sound and turned the book in her lap toward him.

“The Simpsons?” Eli picked up the book. “It was an adult cartoon.”

“I know that, but they were put under a dome too. What if that is what happened to us? What if we have or had a disease? I read how many people thought the writers of the show were predicting the future.”

“It was just a show though, Lisa, there was no truth to it. They just wrote things people talked about.”

Her face grew grim, “Eli, what if there was? I mean a lot of things they said in the nineteen-nineties ended up happening in the early two-thousands.”

Eli moved some of the books and knelt in front of her. “Lisa,” he took a map from her lap and took her hands in his larger ones, “Those were just things that happened after years and years of people saying they should or couldn’t ever happen. There is no truth to it, I promise.”

“Okay.”

Eli stood. “We need to go to the capital.”

It was Lisa’s turn to stare at him as he told her of his plan to travel to the capital and spy on the Government and to find out why they were under a dome. They decided to leave after the excitement of the light time to die down so The Protectors wouldn’t think anything of them leaving the city. Lisa went home a few hours later her backpack almost empty. Her books about space stayed in Eli’s basement since they were now useless.

TWO DAYS LATER

They had told anyone who would ask that they were just going to the mountains for a few days. They all bought it, Lisa figured it was because they all though she and Eli were a couple and she didn’t mind letting them think what they wanted, it hid the truth and that was all either of them cared about.

Eli showed up at her door ten-to-eight in morning. “Ready?”

“Yep.” She donned her heavy travel pack and walked out her door.

Lisa looked up at the building that had been home for six years and hoped the next time she seen it there would be sunlight or moonlight shining down on it. Their plan was basic: look, listen, learn. Easy in theory, terrifying in reality, but it was the only way.

They’d traveled for a week before reaching the capital. Lisa looked around. It was not what she’d heard it looked like from others. There was electricity and living trees and plants. Everyone who’d been there that she’d spoken to had said it was a dead zone just like Darkfalls.

Lisa looked up hoping to see lights in the sky, but it was still the dome. She looked around while Eli found a hiding spot that would allow them to see the city but not be seen. It was an old camp site behind the tree line on the out skirts of the town. 

He woke her in a frenzy the next day. “Look!”

Lisa looked up with sleep filled eyes. The dome was opening. The sky greeted them. She stood up and tilted her face up. The moon shone so bright she could see everything around them clearly and the stars shimmered they seemed to be blinking and twinkling. Amazing was the only word that she could think of to describe what she seen. Book descriptions and pictures couldn’t do it justice.

“I’ve missed this sight the most I think.”

Lisa stood close to him. “We need to get this back. I can’t go home to total darkness knowing this is above us.”

“I agree.”

They watched the sky for at least four hours before the dome slid close again. Lisa thought for a moment then asked, “why do they open it?”

“Fresh air, I’d imagine.”

It made sense she guessed.

The next night they seen a SUV in front of a large building. “So, they get gas from somewhere too.” It started to drive away. “Let’s go.”

They followed it to a fenced in area with a large wheel and levers.

“I have been all over Darkfalls and have never seen this.” Lisa started making notes and drew the levers and wheel and how they needed to turn, push, or pull each one.

They were too excited to sleep, Lisa decided they should just start for home. They walked quickly for the rest of the night and on into the next day until Lisa couldn’t carry her pack. The duo stopped and hid for a few hours before going again. They made it back to Darkfalls in just a few days only stopping now and then to rest. Since Eli’s home was closer Lisa decided to stay there. 

Lisa woke a full day later to the smell of fresh coffee, well as fresh as the Government allowed them to have. She still couldn’t believe they’d been so stupid as to believe them. Even as afraid as her father was, he had warned her not to trust the Government or Protection. Now she wondered if he had known something but couldn’t or wouldn’t say. She smiled as she walked into the kitchen Eli was flipping hotcakes.

“Not burning them this time, I hope.” She took her favorite seat next to the hearth.

“Not at all. I think tonight we need to go find the control center.”

Lisa yawned she was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, but knew he was right. They needed to find the controls and collect details on how many Protectors guarded the area and how hard it would be to get in. They planned and plotted until Eli’s Timekeeper said it was seven am. It was time to go. Lisa started to open the door, but a sudden loud screech caused her to stop. 

“What is that?” She asked thinking it was one of his many inventions messing up.

Eli shook his head as he covered his ears. The noise grew louder, and they realized it was coming from the outside. A man’s voice broke through the sound. “Citizens remain calm! This will be over soon. Do not attempt to fight the gas. Stay calm and remain where you are.” Soon they heard what sounded like bombs going off just outside the door. Eli grabbed her hand and ran to a small room. The door didn’t lock tight in time and the small room began filling with a bright yellow gas. They held each other close, as the gas seeped into their mouths and noses causing them to cough and grow sleepy quickly even though they tried to fight.

They woke without knowing how much time had passed. Eli and Lisa were both shocked to see they were still in the little room they’d been positive they had been found out and arrested. Eli helped her up and walked into the living room to discover light pouring into the room. It was extremely bright and painful to their sensitive eyes.

“The sun?”

Eli nodded and went to a trunk behind the sofa. He pulled out old sunglasses. “Glad I held on to these.”

They put on the glasses and walked outside. Everyone in the town were milling around in shock and some in a panic. Lisa commented on how pale they all were, and Eli informed her it was due to the lack of sunlight. The man’s voice came back, “Experiment 86825-32756377 has been compromised. You may continue your normal lives.” Weeks later they all learned the town of Darkfalls and others around it had been the subject of Experiment Total Darkness for over twenty years 

Lisa and Eli married a year later and funded Project Where Are They after discovering the people The Protection had taken hadn’t been killed or imprisoned but had been moved away from the experimental area and had their memories wiped. They never found the reason for the experiment, but they never stopped searching or spreading awareness about distrustful governments.