Lunar Rising
Olivia- The Calm Before

My name is Olivia. I’m a student of eleven years.

Usually I don’t mind when we have a school drill. Back on Earth, the drills meant exciting times when we would feel the entire school sinking into the ground, into the regulated compartment that fits the building perfectly. When we ran to the nearest window, we saw nothing but darkness. Pure darkness of the standardized rubber-like lining along the walls of the dirt.

But today, we were about to go outside of the city and visit the first Tylius open greenhouse, until the drill took place, canceling all of our plans. I heard that many exotic plants are being grown there. It was gonna be a field trip. They should’ve told us about the lunar rising earlier. Our teachers didn’t know, so now our trip is postponed.

We have to sit still and silent in our desks and watch one of those old-fashioned simulation movies. Movies, not role-plays, where you can’t be the character and make the choices, you just see everything from a third-person point of view. It sucks.

The lunar rising, I hear, is going to happen very soon.

That’s when the teacher pauses the movie to make an announcement. We take our simulation helmets off our heads to listen.

“Listen, kids. I don’t want you panicking… but this is something I’m required to tell you. Our city is not one of the cities that was constructed with a strong shield to protect us from the radiation from the sun and moon. The current levels of radiation being recorded show that we have to move to Plan D of the lunar rising drill.” Her voice is scared, even though she tries not to show it.

All eyes are locked on the teacher. “What?” one kid named Mike asks. “Why not Plan B or C?”

“Plan B was to evacuate the city into the lower floors, but apparently some machinery down there was damaged so badly that the lower floors have actually become slightly… dangerous. Unstable.” Shocked and horrified faces in the room. I shift in my chair, suddenly realizing that my parents must be worried for me. Where’s Olivia? they would ask themselves. Still at school? Is she going to be okay? Plan D is about to start…

“Plan C,” the teacher continues, “is to evacuate the city to the closest protected city. However, the closest city is much too far away. We don’t have enough time for the entire city to get there. So, we’re going with Plan D. Our last and final plan.

“We’re moving the entire city underneath the Capitol City of Tylius.”

I don’t understand how. The teacher slowly explains.

The city will act like a disc and lift into the air, soaring like a flying saucer through the skies. Other cities will join our plan as well, because some don’t even have lower floors. The city will travel to the Capitol, which is the largest city on Tylius. It is roughly the size of a hundred of our cities. The Capitol is already prepared and equipped for this kind of procedure. It stands on long legs, high in the air, surrounded by the largest dome ever created in mankind. The domed area below the half-air-borne city will open like a hovercraft garage, and the cities that fly to it will travel underneath it to their own “parking” spot. There, our city will take shelter, along with many others. Still slightly elevated, it would take an elevator to get someone down and up into the cities. The Capitol itself has several large elevators and sky trains that lead upward to the raised giant of a city.

Huddled below the Capitol, all the cities will be protected from the lunar rising. The dome surrounding the Capitol will cover all the cities underneath it.

Nobody dares mention the dangers of Plan D.

Nobody dares say a word. Instead, we wait.