The Story of the Great Dome

In a land of enormously wide distance, there was a great dome. Inside it and under the cover of its dusty sky, there were intense forests full of crows, and a sheer number of villages crammed with dead trees. Villagers were always naked, and their language was merely a form of scream, and as villagers say, "in the world of the great dome, everything was normal". In one of the villages, there was a myth that elderly people had heard from their elders, and thankfully, myths never die. It says, "the hole would someday emerge if someone dare and let it go". No one knew what that meant or even bothered to think it meant anything. They thought it was one of those heretical beliefs or a lasting quote from fairy tales.

One of the villagers was a very inquisitive young man who was known among the villagers for his vague manner. They always thought he was mad or maybe a vulnerable person whose life forced him to be strange. Villagers say that he would spend his nights thinking and crying in a cave or walking in terror as if something was chasing him. His face was pale, and he always seemed depressed and lived in absolute misery. On every New Year's Eve, each village has its own celebration, in which they celebrate the three holy values. The worship of temptation, the virtue of sex, and the death of God. During the festival, you see them screaming the entire night and having sex with each other as if it is their first time of being. They would pride murdering new infants and loudly laugh at how happy and satisfied they were. However, Adam, the strange young man, did not enjoy that. He thought there was something wrong with it or maybe with him. He was shy of doing what they did and terrified of the perdition of disobeying the three great values.

While the others were celebrating, Adam went alone to a lake near the village. It was in the middle of the dusty forest, where the top of the dome was clearly visible, and he could see the owl symbol painted there. In order to see it, he

he needed to raise his neck for above, almost breaking it. To go to the lake, he had to pass all kinds of normal scenes, like the red river of the village where people washed themselves and the torn library that seemed the ugliest in the dome. On his way to the lake, Adam was howling and crying sadly. He arrived at the lake in exhaustion and pain and began his stormy contemplation that was not normal in the world of the great dome. Nevertheless, this night had its own surprises. There was a woman crying on the other side of the lake raising her head towards the owl. She was crying in silence. Adam saw her and got frozen not because the scene was terrifying but incredibly stunning. It was his first time seeing someone clothed. And Eve, the young woman, seemed extremely exhausted too. When she saw him, she calmly stood up and looked at him in disgust then walked away.

He spent the night thinking of that scene, but Adam remembered that the night is about to end, and he has to go back to the village where the festivity and normality were. The night in the dome was different. There was not a moon and neither is a sun, but a huge ancient chandelier that lighted the entire doom for centuries. He arrived at the village

tiredly. The dome was in silence. Villagers were asleep as if nothing happened last night and that it was merely a normal night in their lives. They were sleeping everywhere and some whips, chains, and burned old books were around their naked filthy bodies. This time Adam could not withstand it. He went to the peak of a small mountain close to where villagers were sleeping. He sat there staring at them and feeling disgusted for the first time in his life. He asked questions he was terrified to ask before. Adam questioned the three holy values.

Adam got himself into something no one had ever done before. In his state of questioning, he began crying heavily. And oddly, his tears were black. He was shaking and seemed as if he was dying. It was extraordinary hard for him to ask these questions, he thought he should stop or something greatly terrible would happen to him, but Adam did not. He stood up on the peak looking at the owl symbol, then swore to himself to continue bravely his new story of searching for meanings no matter how dangerous that might be and how deep the questions require him to dive into. He suddenly saw something strange. He noticed that he cannot see the top of the library unless he is in the peak of the mountain, and what was even stranger for him is that the same symbol that is painted on the top of the dome from inside is also painted on the roof of the library's dome, but the owl was even clearer there. Adam thought that there must be something meaningful about this similarity. He made his decision to go to the library hoping to find out more about the owl, even though the library was torn, dirty, and scary.

While he was wandering around captivated by every detail that was extraordinary new for him, Adam remembered the purpose that brought him there. He started staring at the dome of the library hoping to understand why the library has an owl symbol like the great dome. He grabbed one of the books. He looked at it for a few minutes, but nothing made sense to him. He did not even know how to read. He used to see his fellows burning them but not reading them. He became aware of how ignorant he was for the first time! Suddenly, he noticed the paintings on the walls above the shelves. It was shocking to him when he saw some of the paintings contained people wearing clothes like the girl Eve was. What an unbelievable scene for Adam! But two more appealing paintings stood out the strangest for Adam. One of them was for eight men and a dog escaping from something and getting into a place that the place looked like a cave. The other one was for a huge ship carrying people and animals to escape something hellish. He did understand them, but he knew they were not as anything he saw before. He could not stop looking at them, but he had to continue investigating. There was a back door at the end of the hallway. The door was made of black wood. He felt terrified to step in, but Adam remembered his swear. He opened the door, and everything was in darkness. He got into that place in terror. It was an absolute meaning of shock. He saw the great dome from outside. It looked uglier than anything his eyes had ever seen. He did not even want to continue looking at it; he felt disgusted and wanted to escape. Adam started running, and he began seeing the path, although the place was truly covered by darkness. The path was surrounded by some tiny lights with marvelous colors, each one was brighter and more attractive than the other ones. At that time, Adam knew that he was walking towards something unknown, but he also knew that the more he walked, the further he stayed from hill and the closer he got to heaven.