A story written for Aim to Engage 2022 - dystopianapocalypse prompt - hosted by @Ambassadors

The wind whipped the girl's auburn hair across her pale face, monetarily blocking her vision. Her vision of reality. The call of the twenty-third-century task force sounded under the crystal clear dome. Footsteps echoed throughout the streets no more than three meters wide.

She panted, regretting her excitement to explore the futuristic wonderland everyone perceived Cecania to be. The oil-spilled waterways of Nura seemed quite a paradise to the lies washing the minds of the Cecanian people. Her life was a lie. The domed treasure filled with the world's most prized biotechnology wasn't created to improve their lives, but to reform the world into one that wasn't their own but one of pure perfection.

The roar of footsteps grew, thundering through the off-white tunnel that was foretold to be a pearly white boardwalk in storybooks and oral legends.

She almost wished she didn't know.

"Ah!" she shrieked, crashing onto the concrete.

The task force had her cornered. It was a trap, she realized

It took a second for the mustard-yellow uniforms to seize control. Their uniforms weren't the galaxy blue that she had heard so much about, advertised as a sort of specialty item, the job itself glorified by her neighbors in Nura. They were supposed to protect the dome, but now she knew.

She groaned, feeling her stomach turn inside out as the task force sprinted down the tunnel with her in tow. Sprint, not march or walk. She guessed that it took more than brainwashing and serums to keep everything underfoot. It required genetic engineering too. Not the kind that helped Nura retain fresh water and nutritious food, but for humans, for the task force. Each was burly, with no glasses or contacts. No one had a mental or physical handicap. She doubted that the council of Lottery would let those individuals "win" anyway.

She wished she hadn't won.

"I presume that you would like an explanation." An elderly woman stood just outside the tunnel, standing just inside the city.

The girl scoffed. "That is an understatement."

She recognized the woman, with no wrinkles and snow-white hair, from the advertisements for Cecania. Now, she recognized her as the boss. The one in charge of collecting citizens, placing them in a lottery against their will, and turning them into the task force after seven days in the city. The reason why no one ever came out. They couldn't. They were trapped inside the perfect city, inside perfect bodies, and perfect minds.

It was the girl's seventh day. She knew too much.

The woman tilted her head challengingly. "This is the only way, Fayola."

With that, Fayola stilled, clutched her neck, and watched the world spin around.