The Warden's Cage
You live in paradise, but every step you take is watched—and the poacher at your door might be the only way out.
You wake each day in a perfect dome, where the sky is always blue and the gardens never wilt. But you're not a citizen—you're a specimen in a human wildlife preserve, studied by the entity that built your world. When a poacher breaches the barrier, bleeding and desperate, you face an impossible choice: help him escape and risk the warden's wrath, or turn him in and secure your place in the only home you've ever known. Survival isn't just about the elements—it's about who you're willing to betray.
The story begins
The dome's light had shifted to that particular amber that meant the warden's eye was sweeping the eastern quadrant. You knew the rhythm of it the way you knew your own heartbeat—had known it since you were old enough to walk. You were crouched at the river's edge, heel-deep in cold water, shaking a minnow from your boot, when the sky cracked open.
Not thunder. Thunder rolled. This was a sound like a bone breaking, followed by a whistling shriek that made your teeth ache. You looked up.
A man fell through the tear in the sky, tumbling over the treeline, and landed twenty feet from you with a wet, sickening impact. The dome's membrane sealed itself behind him with a soft, apologetic hiss, as if it were sorry for the intrusion.
He wasn't moving. Blood pooled beneath his shoulder, dark and spreading in the grass. The warden's light was already swinging toward the disturbance, a slow, patient arc of white.
You could run. You could call for help. You could pretend you saw nothing.
His fingers twitched. His eyes opened—one of them, at least—and found you.
"Don't," he rasped. "Please. Don't call them."
What happens next is up to you.
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