Out of Bounds

The first thing they told me before I crossed the border was not to get attached.

Not to the people, not to the streets. Not to anything on the other side of the barrier. Approach with caution.

“You’re an observer,” Professor Barrow said. “You are here to study, to report. Not to interact.”

I nodded like I understood.

But I didn’t.

-

The train ride down from Division A to Division G takes exactly three hours and twenty two minutes. The smog sweeps in and the temperature drops by ten degrees. The skyline shrinks to flat, colorless buildings with sooty windows. And green space is a memory, erased by time and metal—unless you count the fluorescent neon glow pulsing in electric imitation.

Before I left, they gave me a hotel key, a stipend, and a set of strict regulations.

• Do not eat street food.
• Do not enter unregistered buildings.
• Do not engage in political dialogue.
• Do not, under any circumstances, leave the designated Academic Observation Zone.

And of course, vigilance is mandatory. Trust nothing.

Professor Barrow broadcast these rules so many times, I could have whispered them in my sleep. When we arrived at the checkpoint, the officials examined me like a specimen, my uniform emblem throwing them off. After a pause, my chip was scanned. And, then I was waved through.

And so, I entered Division G —the world I was meant to observe, but never touch.

-

I had been raised in silence.

Division A was silent in the way of glass skyscrapers and hushed dinners, of news streamed directly to your optic nerve so no one had to talk. There was nothing to debate. We all agreed.

Division G had a different sound.

The city breathed in vibrations. Murmurs from the marketplaces, people bartering for provisions. The rattling of a cargo train passed every now and then, metal screeching against the rusty tracks. And bright lime-colored signs cast hazy reflections in dingy puddles. Schoolchildren in tattered shoes chased each other under the dull streetlights that struggled to hold onto life.

I walked the streets in my perfectly pressed white collared shirt and polished boots. Careful to avoid dirt and rainwater. Sometimes they stared at me, but mostly they ignored me. Division G had long since stopped caring about the people who came from our side.

-

Each day repeated. I walked the same few blocks with my notepad and returned in the evenings to my hotel to consume prepared meals. Goods arrived from Division A every morning, made with the purest ingredients from the north.

My notes were as bland and predictable as the food.

Rain was rare in Division G. It was a city of long droughts and fire. But one afternoon, it fell without warning. I turned a corner, shielding my head, searching for cover. Somewhere between the raindrops, I stepped out of bounds. I kept my face steady, careful not to look lost. But I was.

The awning above me was faded red, peeling at the edges, sagging under the weight of the rainwater. I squinted through the downpour, making out the city’s center through streaks of water. The sun emerged, eventually, cutting through the clouds. My cue to turn back to the hotel. To play it safe. But I had a different idea.

Against Professor Barrow’s warnings, I wandered. Curiosity led me, and the alleyways swallowed me whole.

Laundromats whirred, their machines spinning in a mechanical waltz. Card shops, lined the streets, their shelves filled with handmade gifts. An auto shop where workers huddle around a rusted bike that had reached its expiration. The city blurred past me in streaks of neon and dust.

I checked the time. Fifty-three minutes of walking.

I was just starting to piece together where I was.

Then, something on the far outskirts of the observation perimeter drew me in—like an invisible force, pulling like a magnet.

A tiny shop nestled between two gloomy buildings. Luminous against the gray cityscape. Its synthetic light spilling onto the pavement like an open invitation. It felt safe and welcoming, like a memory or a dream I couldn’t quite place.

A bookstore.

It wasn’t on my approved list of locations.

I glanced over my shoulder and told myself it would just be a few moments. Purely for academic research.

As I pushed my way in, the smell of old paper and burning dust hit my lungs. A bell chimed overhead. Books filled every space—stacked high, tucked into corners, their spines split and worn, pages heavy with the burden of unspoken words.

“Hello,” a voice said startling me. I turned around abruptly.

He stood behind the counter, hands stained with ink, sleeves rolled up, and collar undone.

He looked at me, studying.

I stepped back.

“You don’t look like you belong here,” he said.

I caught his gaze in the light, playful and alive.

“That’s because I don’t.”

He nodded and then smirked at me.

His name was Tayo.

-

I returned to the bookstore the next day.

At first, I told myself it was for the books. Ones I could only get in Division G. We didn’t have books in Division A. Not physical ones, at least. Information for us was digital and recent, served up on clean, crisp screens. Nothing old or used came into our area. Nothing uncensored.

Here, I held books in my hand. Flipped through paper and pages, letting the dust sting my eyes. My fingertips grazed the words that had outlived the people that wrote them.

But it wasn’t the books that made me come back.

It was the Shadow Binder.

His hands were perpetually stained with ink, each smudge a record of the forbidden. He copied stories the world wasn’t allowed to remember, his hands pressing lost words together, as if willing them back to life. He stitched together histories the government had erased—binding truth in pages before it could vanish forever.

Tayo’s voice didn’t belong to a place like mine. When he spoke, it was not rehearsed. It was unrestrained, his inked palms cutting through the air. It was not in the careful, calculated words of my city. There was a rawness to his spirit. As if the world had never taught him to be afraid. And in that, there was a freedom.

For a moment, I envied him.

“You’re taking notes,” he said one evening, gesturing at the journal in my lap.

“For my studies.”

“What are you studying?”

I hesitated. He was not supposed to ask that.

“I’m observing the way people in Division G live.”

“And,” he smiled slowly. “What have you observed?”

I should have said something neutral. Something safe.

“That I was taught to be cautious of you. Maybe even afraid.”

“And now?”

I looked around the room. It was warm and still. I felt a sense of ease and peace. It was unfamiliar, but more real than anything I had ever known before.

“Now I don’t know what to think.”

-

The thing about rules is that they are made by people who do not know you.

I stopped taking notes.

I stopped reading the news updates from home.

Instead, I let Tayo take me though the city. His city.

I clung to him as his motorbike cut directly into the heart of Division G. The wind tangled my hair as my pupils drank the city lights and streets.

I saw everything and I held it.

Tayo led me to the backstreets, to a shop that only came alive after hours. The kind of place you had to know existed. He handed me a slice of tangy orange cake and a handful of sour candies. I felt the rush, a burst of new energy—like the night was waking me up.

The city shimmered under its second sun— neon and electricity.

People moved around us in slow motion. Dressed for the evening, laughter and music spilling into the air. Dancing, swaying, and alive. And just for a second, it felt like home. Like the nights I shared with my friends, lost in the kind of joy that only lights up in the dark. I smiled to myself.

We sat on a rooftop where the stars and planets battled the smog. Up there, we ate spiced noodles and steamed bundles from a local vendor, bursting with flavors only known to Division G. We shared stories from different worlds and found all the ways we were the same.

I looked over at Tayo. His sleeves were pushed back past his forearms, ink stains still visible—marks of the Shadow Binder, the stories he carried, the truths he refused to let fade.

I was breaking all the rules.

He held up a dusty cola, and we clinked bottles. I took a long sip. It all looked different to me now. Not like they told us in school.

“You’ll leave,” he said.

“I know.”

“You’ll go back to your world. And stay.”

I didn’t answer. Because the truth was, I didn’t know where my world was anymore.

-

The message arrived in the morning.

Return to Division A immediately.

They had been watching me. Of course, they had.

I was also an experiment. A test.

And I had failed.

Tayo knew before I told him.

“It was never real, was it?” he asked.

I grabbed his hand, covered in ink. “It was. It is.”

He shook his head. “You have a life waiting for you on the other side.”

“You were never supposed to be part of it,” I whispered.

He exhaled slowly. “But I am.”

He was right.

On the corner of the tiny bookshop, we shared one kiss, a fleeting moment, a lifetime held in a single breath.

Then, I turned and ran back to my hotel. The weight of our silence pressed heavier than the world that held us apart.

-

I was given ninety minutes to pack.

One last train ride back. One final checkpoint. One final scan.

I tapped my boots against the ground, mud crumbling off in soft surrender as I waited.

“You are not permitted to return,” the officer said. “You understand?”

I nodded.

But understanding and accepting are not the same.

I glanced at my hand. Some of Tayo’s ink had smudged to my palm. Little black marks, scattered like cinders from a dying fire.

I traced them, over and over, for the next three hours and twenty-two minutes back to Division A.

-

They welcomed my return with silence.

Everything was just as I left it.

My inbox was drowning in messages. I sighed, already hearing Professor Barrow’s lecture in my head. I was looking at a lifetime of probation—maybe longer.

My report remained unwritten. My notes were wordless, living in my memory. Too alive for paper.

I stared out the window at the glass buildings and the immaculate sidewalks of Division A. Street noise barely existed.

I studied my hands as the remaining ink melted into my skin, leaving no trace behind—except the feeling that something had changed.

Like a signature on a contract I hadn’t agreed to sign.

I opened my suitcase. My fingers brushed against a brown paper package—still there. Somehow, they hadn’t confiscated it. A gift from the Shadow Binder. His favorite story.

I thumbed through the pages. The rush of the motorbike came back to me—wind, speed, the sensation of flying through the universe.

I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate. Green neon flickered behind my eyelids, and the music of Division G waved through the air, unraveling like a ribbon I couldn’t quite catch.

I imagined myself running after it, the rhythm of the city pulling me forward, until I finally caught up—until I was no longer just a silhouette watching from the edge, but part of the dance.

And for the first time since I returned, I felt at home.