Morning is ten steps. 

One. Irene stirs when sunlight is perceived as something warm on her face. It lets itself in through the cracks of blinds, through the transparent curtain that only dulls but doesn't block. Sheen highlights her cheek, glows against dark eyelashes then ignites eyes of brown until there are flecks of amber when she awakens for step two. Bare feet touch cold white tile before finding the comfort of indoor slippers woven of fabric. She wriggles her toes, checks if they're all there before pushing herself up and stretches her arms over her head---three. 

Four is washing up, is cleansing herself of sleep or lack-there-of. It's brushing her teeth, combing her hair, studying her reflection; she's still there, still trapped in a box and breathing. Every rise and fall of her chest, every murmur of her heart is a reminder she is still alive, she is not dreaming. When Irene steps into the kitchen, bright and alert, steps five and six are waiting for her: cooking scrambled eggs for breakfast. The yellow is a pop of colour, a contrast to the ivory serenity (or insanity). Even then it's bleached, missing something raw and natural. Irene sprinkles too much salt not enough pepper, but the unpleasant taste doesn't cross her face. She's stoic. eerily so. 

Seven drags his feet and murmurs a sleepy good morning. Her husband, Suho, is dressed in a white uniform for the day ahead. He works for the government from nine to five in some laboratory testing theories and inventions to greatly improve the system. The system have no choice to live by. 

They eat in silence at eight, utensils clashing on ceramic in conversation. Nothing is muttered about the flavour. Every bite is forced. Every swallow is an urge to gag. But they keep it down, keep thoughts locked away for the sake of their marriage, for their 99% compatibility rating. 

Nine is a chaste peck on the lips and a tender wish to have a good day at work. For both of them. Before ten, Irene watches Suho disappear in a hovering bus of white, steel plates. He waves, she responds and this is why they're a perfect match. 

Then it's her turn. Ten. But Irene doesn't step inside floating transportation; she walks not because she's trying to save the planet by polluting less nor is she one for basking in nature (there is none).

She walks because the systems tells her to.

She's a librarian because at sixteen the system decided it was the most compatible job for her.

She married Suho when she turned twenty because she and him were deemed the perfect pair. 

She does all of this because she has no choice. When you live in the inside where the skies are artificial and the sun is some giant bulb, you don't have a say. You don't own your words, you don't own your life. 

Morning is ten steps. And in those steps, Irene realizes she doesn't really know what morning is. 

- - -

She's read all the books. 

Because she has a lot of time. Because it was predicted of her. Because Irene relishes in stories, in adventures that take her away on a journey in the desert, in the mountains, in middle-earth. Anywhere far, far from the domain she lives within. Her favourite genre is fantasy, a slice of life so offbeat from her own, where white is only on steeds knights in shining armour rides and not everywhere. Not in the house she lives in, not in the facility she works under. Here, the bookcases are pallid, too. 

As well as she books Irene puts away, slots into empty cracks where they belong. She's done this every day since she was sixteen. She knows the order like the back of her hand. 

Between two giant bookcases is her, a cart of returned novels and a ladder for areas she can't reach. She remembers telling them her fear of heights, remembers crying on her first day when she had to retrieve something on the top shelf. But this is her job, the very one the system said was best for her. Who was she to tell them otherwise. 

By now, climbing up the steps her second nature, but Irene is still scared, still gets the flurry of butterflies in her stomach when she's more than twice her height off the ground and balancing books on one hand. 

Today is quiet. But the library doesn't get many visitors during school hours, anyway. Sans the older patrons occupying a table, the place is barren, and the taps of Irene's heels are the only sounds of life. She has to make sure a few clients are breathing, are alive because death is not a factor she handles. Which is why she's not a doctor or a nurse or anyone who deals with such. 

She's on the top rung of the ladder, extending her arm to put away a tale about a spider and a pig when the front doors burst open. Suddenly, the single rule of silence in the librbary is broken when Wendy screams. 

"Irene! Where are you?!" 

Wendy's small and cheery with red cheeks and golden hair tied in a messy bun. Her scrubs are white. Stethoscope, too. 

Irene scowlds, bracing herself on the ascending levels of ledges. She topples books over and nearly drops Charlotte's Web on the crown of Wendy's head when she finds her with a cheeky grin. 

"What did I say about keeping quiet? This is a library, Wendy." 

"Sorry, but I'm excited!" Even then, despite the warning, Wendy spews boisterously. 

She's hushed by the readers sitting at the tables, tossing her threatening glares.

"Oops," she winces, chucklingly bashfully. And Irene didn't think that was possible. "Now, come down from there so I can tell you."

"I'm working. And I don't know why you're not..." Irene frowns. "But go ahead, tell me."

Wendy leans on the bookcase, arms folded across her chest. "Don't worry, Joy is covering for me. Besides, this coudn't wait. I had to tell you as soon as I heard. Kai dropped by, told me something about Chanyeol."

At this point, Irene is only partially listening. She's serious when it comes to work, when it comes to organizing. Probably why she's stuck in a library where everything has its place. 

"Chanyeol found a way to hack into the system. He knows a way outside."

But Irene hears that. Drops Anne of Green Gables too close to Wendy's foot. 

"---Hey."

"Chanyeol what?!"

- - -

Cameras litter the city. An eye on everything and nearly everyone—nearly. There are blindspots. Little corners surveillance doesn't catch. And Wendy, Joy, Irene have their backs pressed against one. Shallow breathing and all. It's terrifying being up past curfew, being outside when there are strict regulations that are physically enforced when law is broken. Well, at least that's what they heard. Neither of the three have ever been in this situation. And their inexperience is written in their face. Panic, terror drain them of colour, bottom lips quivering. 

People like Irene don't go against the system, against the rules. 

Her family is highly respected: father a government official and mother a professor whilst her own husband worked with the system that kept the city running, that kept them perfect. But perfection is relative. 

Irene is prime example. 

She's a member of an esteemed family sneaking out past curfew to... She shudders, unable to render thoughts. How will she explain this if she's caught. Disappointed looks on their faces haunt her, convince her this is a bad idea.

"Wendy, maybe we should go back." So she tugs on Wendy's sleeve, hoping her plea comes across more than static. 

"What? We're almost there. We can't just turn back now." Wendy shrugs her away, goes back to keeping a watchful eye. Police in white scour, long guns under their arms. 

Joy snickers, finds something humorous in Irene reluctance. "Your husband can bail you out if you get caught. No one is going to harm you." The tallest among them but the youngest, Joy has a smile too big and a presence that rivals Wendy. 

"It's not about that." Not really. Irene doesn't care what officers are trained to do, what they won't do because she has privilege. What strikes fear in her is being confronted by Suho. By their families. Chagrin is palpable.

How does she explain to those who seek utopia through draconian law that she has second thoughts on what the chase for idealism means. They'll start by blaming her friends: Wendy, Joy, Chanyeol. Say they're bad influences. And maybe they are, but it's also her fault. She's filled them with stories, tales of great exploits. 

She doesn't want to mar them, to taint their image they worked hard for to succeed in their society.

"If you didn't want to come, you shouldn't have," Joy adds but lightheartedly, almost reassuring.

But Irene hears nothing of that, freezes when shadows stretch across the fake grass. Is that kind of artificial green outside. Deep down she wants to know. Deep down she wants to feel blades of grass between her toes because they can't surely be made of plastic everywhere, right.

They go rigid. Wendy has a finger pressed to her lips. No one risks getting caught by breathing. Heavy footsteps disembark accompanied by low chatter. Eventually they fade, the shadows withdraw with their masters through a main intersection. 

Irene sighs when the coast is clear, fills her lungs with recycled air before glancing at Wendy. "Now what?"

"Chanyeol said to wait here. He'll send us a sign."

Joy crinkles her nose. "What sign?"

"I don't know, but something!" And Wendy is irritated at this point. As time ticks, as seconds bleed into minutes, she's losing the bravado. 

Worry festers among them. Contagious. Omnipresent. They don't breathe too much, too loudly. Movements are the bare mininum. Talking is all done in whispered fragments, in a collective for escaped sighs and hollow sniffles.

Two minutes go, but to Irene they feel like an eternity. Knees to her chest, her hands folded on top as she waits, tries to distract herself by scraping the lithe material of the white suit with her nails. 

Night is barely obsidian. It feels a little like day just dim. Not dark. The designed sky is grey. Like someone turned off a light and the bulb becomes lifeless. Irene doesn't know what night truly is. What skies of silvery specks of stars look like. But she imagines it as something beautiful, tranquil. She thinks nature is like that: serenity. Not a forced kind of peace implemented by strict rules to govern, to strip freedom. 

Outside must be the wind in her hair. The sun on her skin. Grass under her feet. 

Something real. Not simulation.

"Do you hear that?" Joy breaks the silence. 

Wendy hushes her, beckons her to keep her voice down as footsteps once again clatter in the dead of night or what they think night to be. "Someone's coming."

"Again?" Irene gapes. "Patrol just passed—"

"Shh," Wendy blows, tapping a single finger to her lips once again, and the two fall quiet as widened eyes do the talking.

Unlike the previous parry of marches, these ones draw closer as if headed in their direction. Two shadows materialize, mould into different angles as they pass structures. Chatter joins in, chaotic in laughter. 

Irene eyebrows furrow, face scrunched in thought. The voices are familiar—too familiar. 

"Wendy!" One sings too proudly. "I know you're out there. Chanyeol said to fetch you."

"Kai!" Wendy hisses, glaring at the figure approaching with oozing confidence in utter bewilderment and confusion. "What are you doing waltzing around?! There are cameras--"

Xiumin perches himself on the ledge the three cower next to, smug in smile and only appearing younger than he is. "That Chanyeol hacked into." He extends an arm at one as it whirls in frenzy akin to an exuberant wave of a child.

"So are you telling me we sat here like idiots for no reason?!" Joy stands almost furious as she dusts artificial grass from her dress. 

"No," Kai whistles, hands in his pockets as he swings his limbs in an arrogant, cheeky gait. "But for the pass five minutes, yeah."

"Why you--" Joy balls her hands, then pulls a startled but less than amused Irene up. "She almost died of a heart attack while you two thought it was funny."

"Hey..." Lifting both hands to declare innocence, Xiumin explained in a less cocky nature. "We had to make sure patrol was long gone."

Irene frees her arm from Joy's hold, sweeps wrinkles off her out and stretches dull, cramped knees. "Can we not talk here. Just take us to Chanyeol." 

Kai salutes almost meekly. "Yes, ma'am."

"Where is he, anyway?" Wendy wonders aloud as Kai and Xiumin lead the way down a narrow street.

They're in a part of town far from the city central. Everything is white sans the fake grass of the park. Helps break up the achromatic concept. Bring a little life except not at all. A contradiction, really.

Irene hugs herself, Joy strolling next to her. The sense of oddity walking near the outskirts of a sleeping city brings goosebumps to her arms. It shouldn't be this easy. Yet it is. Xiumin explains all the cameras from the park to the hide-out are controlled by Chanyeol. He's the eyes. 

And they're safe. 

Out here, this close to the almost-glass forcefield that engulfs them, Irene has never ventured down. It wasn't called of her. Her itinerary placed her at home then at the library and vice-versa.  Being here now, she can see the ripples to energy. Purple, pink, blue then her reflection intimidated by the structures behind her. She can't see beyond the cage, but it's said to be dark with harrowing forests and blood-thirsty monsters.

She doesn't believe in them, but she also didn't think anyone could hijack the system. Then Chanyeol, a simple newsboy, decided he would be the first one. Of course, she laughed at him along with all their friends. She laughed at the stories, too, when she read them in the library. Something would fire-breathing lizards and horned horses. All so unbelievable, all so funny. 

And as she looks out, trains her eyes to see pass ambiguity, maybe it's possible, maybe now they do exist.

- - - 

Maelstorm.

Either an atomic bomb went off in Chanyeol's place or... Irene really didn't care to know. She kept close to Joy, nearly glued onto her arm as they walked down a corridor too grey with age. 

If she could see disease.

Irene shudders, mouth locked to a grid. Why is she doing this again. What is this, anyway. Sneaking around, discarding her perfect housewife masquerade by breaking curfew, by entertaining the idea it outside and going there. It's forbidden: the most important law. No one leaves the city. No one goes outside. 

But Irene is on the cusp of doing just that. Why, she asks herself. Suddenly, all intention dissipates. Or maybe she never had a reason. Just went with the flow... because she was too bored one day and convinced herself there's a cottage with seven mining dwarves past the perimeter.

"You're finally here!" Chanyeol is all limbs and teeth and crazy, silver hair pulled in every direction above cracked goggles and a mad-scientist lab-coat. He has each arm spread nearly as wide as his smile. "Took you enough!"

Wendy scowls, hates the implication of blame hurled their way. "Yah, if you came to fetch us sooner—!"

Xiumin steps between them, pass through the chasm with an apple clutched in his palm. "Children, please."

"This better be legit, Chanyeol. If we snuck out for no reason, you're dead," Joy threatened, inspecting a collection of busted computers mixed with the latest hi-tech screens and towers. 

And Yeri, petite and mischievous, sandwiched between. "Has Chanyeol ever let us down?"

"Can't say we ever relied on him," Kai chirps, dropping his weight on a pile of old newspapers because as advanced as society is, they still use paper and ink.

"Hey, I thought you're on my side?" Chanyeol rests his hands on his hips. "Irene, tell them of all the little robots I made in class!"

"Made too many robots but only succeeded in becoming a newsboy," Irene deadpanned. 

She wasn't berating him. Oh, no. She and Chanyeol go way back. Same year, same class. Different in age, though, but that's because Chanyeol skipped a year. Got into her's with glasses and chubby cheeks. High expectations were placed on him. Future right-hand of the royal family, they pegged. Then he bombed the most important exams for some experiment of his. 

In collection of snickers, Chanyeol grunted. "That was all part of the plan! If I didn't purposefully fail, I wouldn't have time to hack into the cameras, into the codes that keep the globe intact and then subsequently find a loophole that can cancel out the function in certain quadrants..."

He drones, and everyone zones out. 

Irene helps herself around the place, avoiding flying sparks from broken machinery she doesn't recognize. All of Chanyeol's life work is here. He, just as trapped as her, found an escape to be himself. But her... No, she doesn't have that. She lets the system decide what she should do, wear, eat. This isn't living.

Lost in thought, she reaches a part of the room covered by a large piece of grey tarpaulin. It blows, wrinkles and catches Irene off guard. She screams, staggering back.

"Careful!" Chanyeol hollered, running over. 

"What's that?" Irene wonders in a meek voice, arms tightly wound around her body.

"Well..." Scratching his neck, Chanyeol pauses for a good moment. "I guess I'll show you instead of rambling—"

Kai hops to his feet, clapping his hands. "Finally! I was about to fall asleep."

"Help me, Yeri." Chanyeol grabs on edge of the cover.

There's a screech of a chair as Yeri uses it to help herself off a mountain of dead electronics. She then pushes it towards them and stands, gathering the material in tight fists.

"Got it!"

In a countdown from three, the two uses a great deal of strength to pull the tarp down. It folds in on itself, lying lifeless on the floor after it reveals a gaping hole in the wall. Mouths drop and eyes expand. 

Irene forgets to breathe. Beyond the missing blocks of cement is not the barrier but dark barks of towering trees. Elongated branches twist and crook inside, leaves thick and some fall when a howl of wind blows. An familiar scent wafts, and Irene scrunches her nose. Nothing recognizable but not unpleasant. Smells like... Nature.

No one breaks the silence that falls upon them. And Chanyeol stands tall and proud, smirk lopsided. 

"Told you I did it." 

Xiumin collects himself first, starts chewing the piece of apple he forget in his gab. "Is it safe, though? Have you went outside before."

Chanyeol looks at the hole in his building, then shakes his head sheepishly. "No, I'm not really an outdoors type of guy." 

"Well, there is no way I'm going through that unless it's absolutely safe." Wendy states matter-of-factly.

Irene hears the waver of fear, though. She gulps down her own, stepping backwards.

"It's safe," begins Chanyeol almost exasperated. "Here, look!" Snatching Xiumin's half eaten apple mid protest, he winds his shoulder then chucks it through the daunting fissure. 

They follow the red as it lands and rolls, stopping on a maze of unearthed roots. Nothing happens. 

"Okay, Yeri. Get it for us." 

Yeri flings a mortified look at Chanyeol. "You get it! You threw it!"

"Alright, Xiumin..."

Hands raised in surrender, Xiumin walks away. "I don't like the apple that much."

As a squabble breaks loose over who should take the honours of stepping foot into the unknown, Irene remains uncommunicative. Mum's the word as the leaves rustle and one snaps off, flying to only dock between her feet. Crouching, she picks it up with tentative fingers. It's not as smooth as plastic but the texture is soft, pliable, delicate. If she pinches it any stronger, it will surely break. 

The scent drifts again as Irene stares at the leaf then back outside where the red apple  stayed. 

Something snapped when she noticed the contrast of colour. White walls clashed with the harmony of earthy browns, deep greens and an odd crimson lingered over the shadows.

She rose to her feet. 

"I'll go."

- - -

author's note: *heart fingers* here is the first chapter! thank you to everyone who has stopped by and read so far. means a lot! <3