The seven-o-clock siren woke Thomas up abruptly. The same as every morning. He rolled out of bed and went to see what he had for breakfast. He walked through his small and empty apartment to the kitchen, where he opened up his old refrigerator to grab two eggs. While his eggs were cooking he made a cup of coffee with the same brand he used every day - Yorkport’s Original Bean. It was the only coffee that anyone living inside Yorkport was allowed to drink. Thomas took a quick sip of the bitter, lukewarm coffee. He wasn’t able to warm his coffee up all the way because the heater in his apartment was broken, something that he had requested to get fixed almost three months ago. 

Once his eggs were ready he put them on one of his old, scratched up plates, and went to sit down at the countertop. He slowly ate his food while he read the newspaper from the day before. It was the same headlines as it always was. Yorkport’s Citizens Proven to be the Happiest in the World!, read the front headline. He skimmed through the article and scoffed at parts that he knew were false. He closed the paper and finished his breakfast then went over to his bathroom to take his pills. His bathroom was very small with missing tiles, and even more recently he’d found a pair of cockroaches inside. He reached for his pill bottle and found that it was empty. He could’ve sworn he still had another day's worth. He’d have to make his monthly trip to the pharmacy today, something he wasn’t looking forward to because of the long lines that accompanied it. Everyone took the same pills every day, yet no one was sure why they all did it, it was just required by Leadership. They claimed that it helped boost morale and improve mood by calming the people’s nerves. 

Thomas, or as his friends called him, Tom, was a normal height, slightly underweight, but not malnourished, man in about his late 20s, or at least that’s as far back as he could remember. He wore a pair of glasses that were slightly too big on his face and had long, stringy hair that covered up his forehead. He was average in almost every category, except unlike most people in Yorkport he had a bit of dissatisfaction towards Leadership. He felt that they didn’t treat everyone equally and that they took advantage of the poor conditions the people had to live in. Whilst everyone else was living in apartments that were dated far past their age, the people who ran Leadership lived in modern day condos and had everything readily available to them. No one ever saw Leadership, except for the Leader who held a monthly speech talking about how amazing Yorkport was, something that Thomas usually tuned out.

Tom got ready by putting his uniform on. His uniform consisted of a black pair of trousers with a gray shirt with the word Yorkport written in big black letters on the back. He threw his boots on and started on his way out the door. Typically this next hour would be available for people to get ready in the morning and do whatever they needed, but Tom needed to get his next set of pills so he had to leave early. He walked out his door and took a right down his hallway. He pressed the button on the elevator and waited for the all too familiar ding. The ding came but the door never opened. Just another issue Leadership won’t fix, Tom thought. He walked a little farther down the hall until he came to the staircase. He lived on the 6th floor of his “Compartment Building,” as Leadership called it. He took the long trek down, not wanting to think about the walk back up.

Once Tom got down to floor level he walked towards the doors and passed the empty receptionist stand. There had once been a receptionist, a fair skinned, frail, old lady, but she had disappeared all the sudden. No one was sure where she went, but Tom figured she had just passed away. He opened the doors and was greeted by a brisk temperature with a light wind blowing. He shivered initially and then was thankful he had his coat on. The walk to the pharmacy was around half a mile and relatively straight forward.

The pharmacy was a wide, gray building, blending in with the rest of the buildings. The only reason anyone could tell it apart was because of the small, dinky, red cross on the front of the building. Thomas walked up to the door and pulled on the door with no luck. He tried the other one and got the same result. Annoyed, Thomas walked to the side entrance and there was a sign that read We are out for today. Please come back tomorrow. Looks like he’d just have to go without his pills for the day. Rolling his eyes, Thomas turned away and started his walk to work. He figured that he may as well get to work early since he was already out. 

Tom worked in one of the accounting buildings. He helped overview past spendings by Leadership. He liked his job even if it was quite tedious work. Tom had a small office that he shared with his coworker, Jorge. Jorge insisted his name was “George” even though everyone knew it was the wrong way of spelling it. He was a much shorter man than Tom, but had a similar facial structure. Tom didn’t consider Jorge much of a friend outside of the workplace but the two worked well together. They had been working together for almost two years now and had figured out how to get it done quite efficiently. More recently, they had been working on the yearly report for spending in certain departments. They had to make sure everything fit into Leadership’s budget, even though they weren’t given the exact budget – that was classified.

Just like every other day the lunch bell rang at 12:15. Everyone had a 30 minute lunch break in the cafeteria. The meals weren’t very good, a pile of mashed potatoes and some questionable looking meatloaf was the daily meal. Tom liked lunch however because it was the only time he could see his friends during the workday. He really only had two other friends, Jonathan and Abraham. Both of them worked in the psychological department, but they shared a cafeteria. They had their typical small talk about the work they were doing, neither person allowed to discuss too much, otherwise they’d face the possibility of being floated, as they called it. That was when a person would suddenly disappear and never seen again. This typically happened after that person defied Leadership or said a little more than they were allowed. The fear of being floated is what kept the people in Yorkport quiet. 

“I ran out of pills this morning and when I went to go get my refill, the pharmacy was closed,” said Tom in a casual manner while taking a bite of his mashed potatoes. 

“What’re you gonna do about it?” asked Abraham

“I’m just gonna go in tomorrow to get the refill. I’ve been taking them my whole life, nothing will happen if I don’t have them for one day.”

“Actually I’m not so sure about that,” Jonathan chimes in. “One of the more recent studies I’ve looked at shows that you may deal with something called dreams if you don’t have your pills.”

“What’re those?”

“I’m not entirely sure but it happens while you’re sleeping,” said Jonathan. 

A small frown started to creep onto Tom’s face. He didn’t want to be messed with while he slept. He enjoyed his sleep.

“Don’t worry it’s nothing bad,” Abraham reassures after seeing the discomfort on his face.

The rest of lunch was spent talking about the same things they always talked about. There was never any new news to catch up on. The news was controlled by Leadership anyways, something that had always sort of annoyed Tom, but he was much too scared to do anything.

When the work day was over at 6:00 p.m. Tom started his walk home. Once again he tried the elevator in his Compartment Building, but still had no luck. He started up the stairs, only having to stop and catch his breath once on the 4th floor. He got to his room and had a basic dinner. He made himself a small sausage with a glass of lukewarm tap water. After he was done eating he took a cold, quick shower and then sat on his small couch. He read the daily newspaper, making small comments about Leadership in his head. Eventually he got tired and started his process to go to bed except usually he’d take two more pills before bed because it helped him sleep. He thought about what Abraham and Jonathan had said earlier about side effects, but tried not to let it distract him for too long, so he pushed it to the back of his head.

Tom turned the lights off and pulled his small blanket up so that it covered most of his body. Then he closed his eyes and felt himself start to slowly drift off to sleep.

Colorful. That was the first word that popped into Tom’s mind when he came to. He was standing in a field full of flowers that he had only ever heard of. He reached out to touch one and a bee flew off it once he did. There was a hill in the distance and he started towards it. Once he got to the top he could see everything around him. Down in the distance there was a city; Yorkport. He instantly recognized it because of the building layouts, but there was something very different about it. Instead of the gray, colorless buildings that had always been there, there were buildings with sparks of colors.  

Tom was curious and started his way down the hill. It was much steeper on this side and he had to be careful not to fall down. He walked down to the fringe of the city and noticed the condition it was in. It was much nicer than the Yorkport he knew. He walked past all of the familiar places he knew. Past the pharmacy, past his work, and then he came to his Compartment Building. Someone walked out of the building. It was a man, a woman, and two children. They looked so happy. He stared at them. He had never seen anything like it. They were wearing bright clothes that screamed for attention. The four of them all started to laugh at something one of the kids said. Eventually the dad turned and looked at Tom, so he quickly looked away and made his way inside.

Inside it was cool with air conditioning blowing, something this Compartment hadn’t had in years. Tom looked around and noticed that there weren’t any Leadership signs hanging up. Where is he? Tom wondered. He walked over to the elevator and clicked the button. A light lit up and there was a beep. After a short wait the door opened and he walked in. He pressed the 6th floor button and it started up. On the 3rd floor it stopped and in came two people, both younger. They had each other’s hand inside of the other. Tom had never seen anyone touch in public before. That was unheard of under Leadership and one of the main rules. As the elevator taxi carried up finally stopped on the 6th floor. Tom walked out and took his normal route to his room. He opened the door and when he walked in there was an older woman. A look of shock crossed over her face and she hurried over towards him.

“Who are you and why are you in my apartment!” she screamed.

“This is my apartment though, room 631!” said Tom.

“I’ve lived here my whole life!”

“Me too!”

“Who are you?” she repeated. This time in a more stern tone.

“My name is Thomas.”

The old lady’s face dropped instantly and she stared deep into his eyes. “Thomas, like my son?”

“What’s a son?”

“Wait, how old are you?”

“I’m somewhere in my late 20s”

“Oh my god,” the lady kept the same look. “I think you’re my son”

She asked Thomas a bunch of questions to figure out who he really was. He didn’t have a straightforward answer to most of the questions but she started to piece things together. She eventually came to the conclusion that she was his mom. She told him that there had been a war many years ago and that the entire country had been bombed. She explained that she had lost him after the bombs had hit their city. After the war she spent years looking for him but eventually gave up, but now he was here. 

Thomas was very confused about what was happening. He didn’t even know what a family was before today and now he had to take all this in. He struggled to grasp the full concept of it all. Eventually he figured out that he had forgotten part of his life – his old life – the one before Leadership took over. Leadership had taken over after the bombings because there was no more government. They turned from a rebuilding government to one that wanted to dominate through control. They had erased all of their citizens' previous memories in order to keep order and control. If the citizens could remember the good time from when they were little then they’d fight against Leadership in order to get their old lives back.

“Will I ever see you again?” Tom asked his mom.

“No.” 

His alarm sounded. Tom quickly sat up, covered in a deep, cold sweat. He snapped his head and scanned his room. He was back in Yorkport. Tom quickly got ready and went to go refill his pills. Except this time he had no intention of taking them. He was going to get to the bottom of this and take down Leadership. He wanted what he used to have. 

Once he got to work all he could think about was what had happened that night. What he had learned. He couldn’t believe that there were so many secrets hiding from them. He wanted to know if his mom was somewhere among the people of Yorkport. He planned to tell Jonathan and Abraham about what had happened. Surely they’d be fascinated by what happened and would want to help. While he was sitting in his office he debated talking to Jorge about it. However, he decided against it. Jorge was a true party member and loved Leadership through and through. Tom knew that if he were to tell Jorge that he’d report him to leadership. Then he would be floated.

At lunch he quickly grabbed his meal and rushed over to the table he always sat at with Jonathan and Abraham. He instantly started to tell them about what had happened. Both of them had curious looks as they listened to Tom’s experiences and explanation. Abraham, who sat across from him, suddenly had a look of distress cross his face. He motioned to Tom to stop talking but he was so into his explanation that he didn’t realize what Abraham was signaling. He finally felt the presence of someone behind him and quickly turned his head to face them.

“What’re you talking about?” asked Jorge.

“Nothing,” Tom quickly said. He needed to think quickly otherwise this could turn bad. “I was explaining to them noticings I had today at work, and what they could possibly mean,” “I was just a little curious as to what Leadership does with their money,” he quickly added.

“Okay,” said Jorge, hesitantly.

He had walked away and Tom could only hope that he hadn’t heard anything, and if he did he wouldn’t report Tom to Leadership. After lunch Tom didn’t talk to Jorge anymore in the office. As soon as they were released from work he scampered home. He needed to do one last thing just in case anything happened. He quickly wrote a note in his scribblish handwriting. 

If I am not seen again then I have been caught. Jorge will have reported me to Leadership and they will have floated me. I know too much. This is just one of their methods of control. They don’t want anyone knowing anything about the past. The past is dangerous to them and they know they can’t change it. If word got out about what I now know, then it would surely be the end of Leadership and Yorkport. The masses will gather and they will protest. If they don’t catch you then spread the word. What I have seen is glorious and needs to be restored. Please.

- Tom

Tom ran out of his room and didn’t even bother trying the elevator, instead going straight to the stairs. He had tucked the notes in his coat pocket. If he was ever going to get these to Abraham and Jonathan then he needed to act normal. As soon as he was out of the stairway he slowed down and tried to act normal. It was hard acting normal. He could feel his heart beating throughout his whole body. Tom walked with his head slightly down, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone, scared they could see into his soul.

Neither Jonathan or Abraham lived far away; just a couple Compartment Buildings away. At both rooms he slipped the note under the door. He knew that if he went in then it could create panic, something he didn’t want. After slipping the note under each door he went back. He did his nightly routine, other than taking the pills. All he wanted was to go back. He knew the pills controlled the dreams so didn’t even bother looking at them. 

As Tom started drifting off to sleep he thought he was going to be safe for the night. The eagerness of returning brought him to rest.

This time when he woke he was in the back of a van. He tried to yell but his mouth had been gagged. When he tried to remove the gag he noticed his hands were tied together. Tom tried to wriggle his body around but had no luck. There was nothing to latch onto, just the back of an empty van. They started to slow down after some time and he was dragged out by men in black masks. He tried to figure out if he knew any of them but couldn’t tell because of the masks. Tom was dragged into a small building. Because of the darkness he couldn’t figure out color the building was, only seeing the outline. 

Once they got him inside they put him in a chair, still tied down. Then everyone left the room and it was silent for a couple minutes. Finally, a man with no mask walked in. He was big and had scars all over his face. He didn’t even address Thomas and instead walked for a table behind him. He grabbed a syringe and filled it with liquid from a bottle. 

“Thomas, you have broken a rule by dreaming. You are not allowed that much information,” he said in a loud, booming voice. “Therefore you will now be floated.”

Thomas felt the pinch of the needle as it pierced his neck, and his last thoughts were of hope. Hope that Abraham and Jonathan weren’t caught and that they could help save Yorkport.