"There is more to this world than what has been told to us."
This is the thought I have carried for as long as I can remember.
I don't know when it first took root. Was it the day I learned what words truly meant? The day I first began to speak? Or perhaps even before that—since the very day I was born.
The mind is strange. Once an idea is planted, it does not remain still; it grows silently, taking root deeper and deeper, until it becomes more than a passing thought. And though we may not recall when it was given to us, nor how it first latched on, it becomes part of us all the same.
For me, that idea was simple yet consuming: there is another world out there. A world greater, freer, and far more beautiful than the one I knew.
At first, it was a quiet curiosity. But the more I lived, the more it consumed me, until fascination turned into obsession. Eventually, I was convinced of it. Convinced that beyond our walls, such a world truly existed.
How could I not be? This fabled place, in every story and whisper, was a million times brighter than the town I called home.
My hometown, Harvio, lay buried within the second level of the underground city of Subterria. We were part of the Farmers' District—charged with tending crops and providing for the other levels.
Only a few hundred souls lived here. I recall my father once telling me there were 489 residents, though surely the number has grown since then. Still, compared to the vast population of Level One, we were few. Yet even so, it felt crowded.
Living in a labyrinth of stone and soil, space was always scarce. Our narrow tunnels served as roads, but they were tight and dark, filled shoulder to shoulder with commuters. You could not walk far without brushing against the cold, earthen walls or colliding with another weary traveler.
The homes were no better—small chambers carved from stone, barely enough for a family of three. The walls were close, suffocating. Even when the community smiled and laughed, to me, it felt like a cage.
Still, there was one exception: the open field.
The wide expanse of fertile soil where crops were grown stood in the very heart of the town. Compared to the market or the cramped living quarters, the field was immense—thirty feet high and four hundred feet long, lit from above by a radiant ceiling the elders called "the sun." Its warmth was steady, never too hot nor too cold, just enough for crops to flourish.
Five tunnels branched outward from the field: north to the homes, south to the market, east to the storage facility, one leading upward to Level One, and another descending to Level Three.
This place became my sanctuary.
As a child, I followed my father there every day, feigning interest in farming. In truth, I had no desire to learn the trade. What I longed for was freedom—the space to run without obstruction, the cool air against my face, the soft earth beneath my bare feet, and above all, the light.
It was the only place in Subterria that made me feel alive.
My father was a strict man. Tall and broad, with blond hair and blue eyes, his youth was already fading into lines of exhaustion. Wrinkles traced his face like scars, the toll of endless work beneath the earth. Yet, despite his fatigue, he often smiled whenever I trailed behind him in the fields, believing I wanted to learn his craft. I never dared tell him the truth. His disappointment was a weight I could not bear—one I had felt once before, in a moment of childhood honesty I never repeated.
My mother, however, was different.
Slender, with dark flowing hair and warm brown eyes, she always knew the truth without my saying it. She knew I followed only to escape, to play beneath the light. Yet she never told him. Perhaps she wished to protect us both from his burden.
She was wise, beautiful, and gentle. While my father lectured about duty and the weight of family legacy, my mother whispered freedom.
"You are free, Aexial," she would tell me. "Free to choose who you will be, no matter how small this world may seem."
Her words stayed with me, though the truth was harsher. In Subterria, choices were scarce. You could be a farmer, a guard, or a trader—and none called to me. Even so, her smile gave me hope.
Still, I knew better. Our lives were bound, like birds trapped in a vast cage—able to flutter within its confines, but never to fly beyond it. We smiled, laughed, and worked. But inside, most of us were lifeless.
And then came the day the old man spoke.
He appeared one afternoon: frail, hunched, his hair long and unkempt, his eyes clouded with blindness. Many dismissed him as mad. But his words carried the weight of truth to me.
He told us of lands beyond Subterria. Vast, uncharted, untouched. A surface world of boundless soil, rivers of fresh water, winds of serenity, and above it all—a sky. A sky so immense it stretched endlessly, painted blue by day and filled with stars by night.
"Millions of them," he said. "Glimmering, shining lights scattered across the heavens. A beauty beyond measure."
The crowd laughed. My father dismissed him. The elders branded him a liar, insisting the gods had made Subterria as humanity's final home, and that beyond these walls lay only endless darkness.
But I… I believed.
Not because I trusted the old man, but because I wanted to see with my own eyes. Because the thought of those stars, twinkling by the millions, lodged itself into my heart.
And from that day, my conviction was set.
I, Aexial—son of Miria and Samuel—swore that one day I would escape this cage. I would find the surface, and I would stand beneath the stars.
A land where I could finally be free.
A land of light.
A land filled with stars.
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