The World of Our Children

Grey, ravaged ground pitted with ruts, fragments of incomprehensible structures, leaden skies through which sunlight barely filters. But despite the pallor of the daystar, it first made Katya flinch and squeeze her eyes shut.

Before she ever went out onto the surface, what the sun looked like was something Katya could imagine only from pictures in miraculous books that had miraculously survived. They were passed down with care from generation to generation. Children were not allowed to play with them. Only from the age of seven, when they were considered old enough, were they permitted to touch the wondrous pages that opened doors into another world—long lost, and much like a fairy tale. Katya learned to read quickly, and within a year she greedily devoured several dozen books. She regretted that such a chance might never come again.