New Beginnings

Alice was one of many who pushed for their way to peer through the airlock’s sole window. The cold, metallic pod shook as the anglerfish-shaped submarine detached her bridge Gyllis and swam away. That was it. They were all left here to rot. Alice stood above many of the other sardines that were packed into the airlock, shoulder to shoulder, the SCUSA gear digging into their back if you were unlucky enough to be right against the wall. A shame they couldn’t use it to escape.
The door to the dome proper creaked as if it hadn’t been moved in years, and to Alice’s knowledge it hadn’t. No one had been sent to Gyllis for nearly fifty years, now she was considered undesirable. The door landed against the wall with a thud as someone stepped into the airlock. Everyone murmured and tried to say see who it was, and Alice could barely see above everyone else.
A little old lady stood at the front of the room. Alice was fascinated with her. The old woman’s hair was a gorgeous white with shining seafoam green streaks throughout it. She must have been dying it for years to keep it that way in her old age. It suited her, Alice thought. It actually gave her ideas for drawings and paintings that she’d make if she had the supplies here. Her thoughts drifted off while the old woman spoke. As commanding as the tone was, she couldn’t get her head out of the clouds focused on other things, like what that hair might look like in a painting.
Slowly people shimmied past each other, each trying to make their way to the exit. None of them wanted to be here. Alice didn’t want to be either. She wasn’t even aware people were trying to rush out of the room until she was the only one left, aside from the old lady who had let everyone out.
“Where did everyone go?” Alice asked, looking around the room at the defunct SCUSA gear.
“Didn’t you hear me!” The old lady shouted at her in a shrill voice, “I said you all need to git to the Gyllis Residence so we can register all of y’all properly!” “Oh! Sorry. I guess I just got a bit distracted. I really like your hair by the way.”
“Oh, one of your type, huh?” The old woman ran a hand through her hair and thought for a moment. “Well, why don’t you come with me then. We can have a little chat. And thank you. You have lovely braids.”
“Uh, sure. What’s your name?”
“Ethyl Gyllis, sweetheart, but you can call me Grandma.”
Ethyl smiled at the young woman and ushered her out with great care. The airlock was nothing like the interior of Gyllis itself. Mostly. The first thing Alice noticed was the greenery that the dome sported—every little crack and crevice seemed to house some sort of plant, and bioluminescent lights hung from the top of the dome as an extra source of lighting. She wasn’t sure if it was night or day, but she was certain that it was much more pleasant than she expected.
More striking than the surprising amount of nature within the domes was the color splattered onto the angular buildings. Some looked as if buckets of red, green, blue, purple, yellow, and even magenta paint had been thrown onto them—mish-mash splatters of colors overlapped each other and fought for a space to be shown. Meanwhile other buildings had been decorated and painted into quaint little homes—garden gnomes and doormats sat in front of the structures, which had been painted yellow and white. Some still had elegant and messy murals decorating their walls, primarily of a shark. Not an ounce of the original stone peered through regardless of the house.
Alice stared in awe before Ethyl elbowed her. “Don’t get too shell-shocked, dearie. Otherwise, I might need to get the bleach.”
“Sorry,” Alice said, “I’m just not used to this. There’s a lot more—”
“A lot more color than Octus, I know.” Ethyl laughed and eyed Alice before asking, “So, what did they send you here for?”
“Oh, yeah.” Alice looked at the floor, trying to pick out the different flecks of crystal that were burrowed within the stone tiles the two of them stood on. “They said they couldn’t have someone so distracted mucking up the dome? They also didn’t care much for my identity.”
“That all?” Ethyl eyed her incredulously.
“Well, I routinely painted over buildings and stole from my work. When they caught me, I burnt it down.” She laughed sheepishly as she looked at the tiny woman next to her.
“Arson, that’s more like it!”
Silence fell between the two, and Alice pinched at the webbing between her fingers. She hated the silence. She fidgeted with her hand and her hair. Gyllis was different than she imagined, and she didn’t want to be here. She tried to sidle away from Ethyl who sighed. Both of them knew the tension was there. It was always there with new deposits into the dome—new prisoners. That’s what they all were anyways. Prisoners. Each person was a criminal, an undesirable, someone who victimized Octus while being a victim of Octus.
“What’s your name dear?” Ethyl asked, her eyes still fixated on their surroundings.
“Alice Beatrice Camilla Stoll the Third.” Alice said it in one breath, miraculously.
“ABCs, got it. Well, ABCs, I understand what you must be feeling, at least to some extent. Octus was a dystopia for people like us, right? They tried to shove us into spaces we didn’t belong. Well, people saw that, and turned this place into a utopia for us. Even if my many greats grandfather intended it to be a ‘solution’ to the First Rebellion.” Ethyl sighed and said, “People will find what they want eventually.”
Alice stayed quiet as she listened to Ethyl and began playing with her braids to distract herself.
“Look, I know some folks you might get along with, dearie. They also commit their fair share of vandalism. Come with me and I’ll introduce you to the Public Art Committee. They usually meet in town square, which we call the Loving Embrace. You’ll also get a lesson in Shark God.” As she spoke, she pointed a towering statue of gold depicting a shark—a Greenland Shark.
Alice was still uncertain despite Ethyl’s comforting words, though she grabbed Ethyl’s hand and asked, “Could you take me to them?”