I viewed this world as a constant struggle to keep living.
I never understood it—living.
But seeing people truly living—not just surviving—is infuriating.
Watching people celebrating.
Celebrating—how maddening.
I walk outside the vehicle and see them—celebrating!
Celebrating me? A chosen one traveling in their lands, warranting a celebration.
This feeling wallowing inside me—disgust.
This is not my country, not my culture, not the system I lived in, but why does it feel so bitter? They don’t care about my rank in the caste system, nor how I lived. They are just celebrating—me?
It seems that they recognize the emblem plastered on the vehicle—a signal that a “chosen” has come.
Maybe we should have left and lived here—how sad.
They welcome me with open arms—I smile.
I feel awkward amidst their smiling faces—everything has its downsides. What was theirs?
I couldn’t understand their language, quite different from mine; more tonal. Though a different country, they understand and have fragments of the language I speak.
I have heard that this country is well isolated from the outside world.
Passing through this country might as well have been a sentence for me. I calm myself and try to introduce myself. They try to introduce me to their region and their culture.
This idyllic life is what I wanted—but it seems that it will never be real. I will leave in a day, stocking up on rations as I leave this dream behind, to the middle of the lake, on an island furnished with all necessities and the luxuries that this world could offer, and wait for the selection.
I should have gone the long way—not through this dream. It would have made my days happier.
The dream ended when the driver called me to depart.
I entered the vehicle—he tried to help me enter. I rudely refused him.
The driver—named Arryav. How funny—his name does not match his life.
Not noble or soulful as his name. He does not define his name. He is as dumb as he looks—muscular, yet his face just utterly normal.
Oh—how I wish I could punch his face once.
I wonder if this was the last dream I would have. If there are more to come on this road ahead, I might just torture someone for the hell of it.
