The Net

The sky above Sector 4 glowed with a deep, mechanical blue as the sound of robots and machines hummed steadily. Leo stepped outside, onto the gray and lifeless concrete, carrying his rusty tools, and started to walk towards his job. As he walked through the neighborhood, the music of nursery rhymes echoed through the walls. “The net keeps you safe, the net keeps you sound, the net protects us all, the net protects our dreams,” it sang, glitching at every word. The rhyme left a sour taste in his mouth and an unsettling feeling in his stomach. He felt all the emotions he wasn’t supposed to feel if he was truly happy in this hell-hole.

As he approached his destination, his job : mowing the grass around the net, he sighed. Another boring day mowing already dead grass. Another day inhaling the dry and feathery debris of the grass. He set out to work, diligent and bored, knowing that there was nothing he could do to alter his life. His monotonous life.

Just as Leo was about to weed out the strong and rooted grass, he caught a glimpse of a sliver of shine. His eyebrows climbed, eyes widened and pupils focused. This was the first in a very long time that he had any feeling of curiosity. Leo carefully reached out to the shining object, his hands trembling at what he might find, and pulled it out of the ground.

The metallic glare of the arrow shot him back to his mother.

That night, when she had combed his hair with her hands, soft and gentle. When she had left home, saying that she had to buy groceries, with tears flowing down her rosy cheeks. He had only been four years old but he knew exactly where she was going. However, he was oblivious to the fact that she might never come back.

Young Leo stealthily followed his mother, creeping behind her and aligning his every movement to remain unnoticed.

His mother kept going and Leo was left praying that he was wrong after every turn. Finally, his mother stopped. She had reached what he was silently pleading her not to. The net. Its electric hum filled his ears as his breath hitched at the stagnant air. She slowly pulled out a flower scissor, the only tool a woman could get in this controlled society, from her purse - black and laced with a familiar velvet strip. His heart thundered and every hair on his body shot up as he realised that she was going to cut the net and escape.

To break free.

To prove the higher officials that there were no dangers outside the net.

As his mother fumbled with her sharp tool, careful not to get electrocuted, Leo noticed an alerted guard nearby. He tried to warn his mother but no words exited his mouth. Leo frantically shouted, his jaws clanking open and shut, but no audio escaped. His mother on the other hand, had just cut off enough of the net to escape. She jumped out and took a deep breath of what she muttered to be ‘sweet air’.

All Leo could do was watch as the guard stretched out his arrow and shot it towards his unaware mother. The tip of it racing into her body, and blood instantly pooling out. Her piercing scream rang in his ears.

Leo awakened back to reality, his ears still ringing and heart still aching. The stale air reminded of his original life.

Unmotivated. Watched. Hesitant.

However, his heart, after the ache resolved, left him with a piercing feeling. A piercing anger. His face started burning up as his hand balled into fists. He realised that the society he had been living in had lied to him. There was no danger present outside. He realised that it was not the prohibited ‘outside’ that had killed his mother but the supposedly protecting government.

At this realisation, Leo hand once again reached out for the arrow he had dropped in shock. He felt a desperate surge of revenge and justice overpowering his body. His uncontrollable arm arched out backwards, gripping the arrow and drawing blood from its ever sharp wings. His eyes darted to the nearest CCTV camera with fury and without another thought, he shot it towards it.

The CCTV camera’s glass shattered, tiny shards raining to the floor. “The net keeps you safe, the net keeps you sound, the net protects us all, the net protects our dreams,” it sang, glitching at every word before it finally shut down. Leo’s anger was satisfied.

For now.

He finally felt the weight of the strings he was being pulled by, disappear. He finally felt the pleasure of justice surging through his veins and knew at that moment that he would tear every camera down. Every single camera if it meant freedom.