"Emma?"

Her small hand tugs at my apron as I finish doing dishes. There weren't much dishes today. As everyone else is gone out to hunt. Only Stephanie and I are at home.

"Yes Steph?" I ask her with a smile, turning off the faucet and grabbing the towel to wipe my hands.

"Can you tell me a story?" She asks, making those cute eyes, tilting her head to a side. It's irresistible, I can't say no to her.

"Sure!" I tell her, taking off the apron. She almost jumps in delight.

"Go to your room," I tell her, patting her little mop of golden curls "I'll be there shortly."

"Thank you Emma!" She squeals and wraps her arms around my legs in a tight hug. Then she's gone, disappeared behind the curtain separating, what we call the kitchen and the little living room.

Stephanie's room is a story bellow, right beside my own. She's the daughter of my Dad's best friend. My dad died when I was her age. He never came back from a hunt. But Stephanie's father, uncle Finn took me in. It's been a decade and a half since.

I wipe the counters and turn off the lamps in the kitchen. It looks once again like what it is. A cave. A part of an under ground tunnel system, built after the war ended. The inevitable war in which no weapons where used, no fights were fought. The enemy raised his head, and we, the humans, surrendered. What could we have done? We were so few in number and so weak.

"What do you want to hear about?" I ask Steph, as she beens up at me when I sit down on the mattress on the floor. Stephanie's room is glowing in the dim light of the lamp, the drawings on the walls looking a bit grim but still beautiful. There is a small table in the corner on which a glass and a jug of water have been placed. Beside them is a box of crayons uncle Finn found for her three months ago, and a stack of papers.

"The Prince," she snuggles up by my side, pulling the sheets up to her chin. "Tell me about the Prince"

"The Prince?" I ask, leaning back against the cold wall. I'm tired from today's work. "The one who killed a drakon?"

"Yes." She nods, so violently that I think her head might fall off. Her cornflower blue eyes sparkle with excitement. "The one who rescued the lady."

"The damsel." I correct her, flicking her button nose with my index finger. I get a bit comfortable, taking off my shoes and wrapping my arm around her, and then I repeat to her the story I've been telling her since I can remember. The tale from times maybe a millennia before the last War. From time when people lived in castles, had farms, and used to cook their food. Times where there were seasons. A tale of long forgotten times, times people can't imagine going back to.

"....And then they rode off into the sunset." I finish the story. "The end."

I had hoped Steph would fall asleep while listening to it, but the instant I finish, she shoots a question at me.

"Emma?" Her voice is sleepy. But when Stephanie wants an answer, no one can stop her. "What is a sunset?"

A sunset? I think.

"I don't know." I tell her the truth. Ive never seen a sunset. "But I believe my grandpa saw a sunset once."

"You said that for the sunrise too." She sits up on the mattress, cross legged. Her face looks like she's been told that some one ate her treats.

"Well, I've told you before," I pull her back to my self, hugging her, placing her head on my shoulder, "I've never seen those things."

That's true. Ever since the humans moved underground, no one has seen a sunset or a sunrise. No one knows what a Moon is, what Sun is, or what are Stars. We only know what our elders tell us. And they know what their elders tell them.

"Did your grandpa tell you the story?" Steph looks up at me.

"Yes." I tell her. "I met him once when I was little."

He told me all the stories he knew. Of the world outside, of medieval times, of the computer age, of the one time he dared leave the Underground.

"He told me," I continue, "all about what he saw when he slipped past the guard on the upper levels and spent a whole day out side. He said the day is twenty-four hours long." I add before Steph can ask what a day was. "And he told me about a giant yellow glowing circle on the blue sky, the roof of Outside. And the even bigger white one in the dark sky. He said he saw trees, big brown sticks growing from the Earth. And a mountain, like a big heap of dirt, only made of rocks. He said there were patches of green here and there."

Stephanie tugged and rolled a lock of stray hair which had come loose from my bun as she listened.

"And the buildings." She reminded me silently.

"Yes." I nod slightly. "Buildings. Every where. Huge and tall things made of stone and glass and wood. Buildings as far as any human eye could see. Grandpa said he went in one of them. There were so many things there. He said that one looked like a home. There were so many doors, leading to so many rooms. The Cyborgs slept in some, some were vacant-"

"Outside sounds beautiful." Steph says dreamily, snuggling closer to me. She'll soon fall asleep.

"I believe it is." I nod, and then go silent, patting her head in a rhythm.

"I want to see Outside." Steph mumbles, right before she falls asleep. Me too. I think, closing my eyes, I wish to see Outside too.

~•|•~

1000 words