Deep in the Hearts of Texas by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NTRWA
Published: 2013-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

Sophie’s Choice

A futuristic love story

Arline Todd

Copyright 2013

Sophie’s Choice

The red and gold autumn leaves crumbled beneath Sophie’s feet as she moved out of the forest into a clearing and started up the final rise that hid the dome of the City from her view. The sun, a fiery blaze in the clear sky, was welcome in the tangy air, and she shivered pleasurably in its enveloping warmth. For weeks she had been traveling through the mountains to reach this last city in what was once the state of Texas . . . back before the Ice Age had changed everything.

“Why do I do this?”

Her soft whisper in the silence was a forlorn echo of other years.

The elders in the colony disapproved of her long journeys, yet they never tried to stop her, for although her loss would be devastating to their small community, complete freedom was the right of all who had escaped the City.

Now she could see it. The massive, gleaming dome that guarded its inhabitants from the outside world filled the plain beneath her and spread on as far as her eyes could see, and she knew it sprawled even farther beyond the horizon. She eased the straps of the heavy backpack off her shoulders and put it down. On a grassy bank, she knelt and contemplated the hated dome. Had she hoped again to find that it had opened, that those within had finally rebelled? She knew better. She was one of the highly educated elite, a surgeon, and as such she understood well the thorough conditioning of the City’s inhabitants. But she had hoped to encounter a few courageous souls—and one very special soul—who had tired of the tyranny and somehow found their way out of the city. A foolish hope.

Daniel was down there, still within the City. And this was as close as she could ever come to him. The only way they could be together again was if he came to her, and that, she knew intuitively, was only another futile hope.

“Daniel . . .” she whispered his name aloud.

Her eyes stung with tears as her thoughts went back to the day she had left him. Did he know how very much she loved him? Did her leaving cause him pain? And because she was alone, she let loose the anguish kept locked in her heart.

Those were her last conscious thoughts, her last words before the beam hit her. Lost in her painful reverie, she had not noticed the sudden flurry of the forest creatures, nor the patrol ship’s almost-silent approach.

Slowly awareness returned. First she felt the unyielding manacles on her wrists, and then a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach that told her the ship was plunging toward the City. She tried to open her eyes to see the outside world, to glimpse the sun and the sky and the mountains just once more on this last day of her life, but she could not force her paralyzed muscles to obey.

They took her directly to the hospital, but she did not see the familiar, gleaming-white, towering building.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.