2113

People like to pretend there was a time before fear—before the Icks, before the Dome, before the world learned how easily humanity could rot. But the truth is simpler and uglier: fear has always existed. The infection only sharpened it, peeled back whatever softness civilization once claimed, and showed everyone what they were really made of.

History books say the outbreak began in 2023, in a cramped research facility somewhere on the coast. A mutated fungal parasite—airborne, fast-spreading, and insatiable—leapt from host to host in a matter of days. Governments closed borders. Cities shut down. Humanity barricaded itself indoors, praying the sickness would die out the way plagues usually did.

But this one didn’t.

It changed people. It hollowed them out. Took their minds, twisted their bodies, and left behind beings with bones like iron and eyes like neon poison. Creatures who could smell blood from miles away. Creatures who could climb walls, tear steel apart, and shriek in a way that made eardrums bleed.

Someone tried to name them clinically. Infected Class-K. IC-K.

People shortened it. Icks. Monsters. Nightmares. The end.

Within two years, ninety percent of the population was gone. Not dead—just… changed.

Those who survived retreated into scattered safe zones, walled sectors guarded by nervous soldiers and stricter laws. Villages became fortresses. Fortresses became empires. Empires became something far worse.

One of those refuges called itself The Village—a name soft enough to sound safe, but strict enough to crush anyone who questioned its purpose. Families lived in arranged sectors based on government roles—Mecha, Judiciary, Defense, Energize, Cultivation, and more. Every faction had a job. Every job had a cost. Nobody stepped out of line—not if they wanted to stay alive.

Fear made obedience easy.

And looming over everything—over the barbed gates, over the fearful citizens, over the hushed prayers at night—was the Dome.

It wasn’t always there. In fact, the first president after the outbreak, Cillian Sailor, designed it out of desperation. Survivors believed the Icks would eventually break through the Village’s walls. That they’d tear the whole settlement down like every city before it. But Sailor promised salvation—an impenetrable structure built from reinforced cellulose, layered steel, and an experimental compound called arieo, fused into a seamless barrier no creature could claw through.

A perfect cage.

At least, that was what they were told.

The Dome stretched across miles of abandoned wasteland—curving, silver, smooth as glass, swallowing the ruins of the old world. Inside, the Icks wandered in the gloom, trapped and furious. People celebrated. They cheered. They called it a miracle. A triumph.

The Sailor family became legends.

But legends decay as quickly as flesh.

Because the Dome wasn’t a tomb. It was a system. A ritual.

To keep the infection “monitored”—or so the government claimed—every year five teenagers were chosen, each from a different formation of government. Five young bodies sent inside to observe, record, and survive. Five test subjects. Five sacrifices.

No one outside was ever told what really happened to them. Some returned broken. Most didn’t return at all. And the ones who did… weren’t the same. Their eyes dulled. Their memories—shattered. Their voices never spoke of what they’d seen. Some didn’t speak at all.

One by one, families learned to stop asking questions.

The Dome became law. The Dome became legend. The Dome became terror.

And every year, when the banners went up and the lottery drum rolled out onto the Town Square, the entire Village fell silent. Parents clutched their children tighter. Teenagers went pale. Even the officials shifted uneasily. Because everyone knew the truth:

Being chosen wasn’t an honor.

It was a death sentence.

And yet the people obeyed. They applauded. They bowed to President after President, congratulating them on their “continued protection of civilization.” The government grew colder. The rules harsher. The walls higher.

By the time the year 2113 arrived, The Village wasn’t a safe zone anymore.

It was a cage of its own.

A place where fear ruled more tightly than any law. A place where the Sailor name—once revered—was whispered with resentment. Where rumors of rebellion flickered like dying flames. Where the current leader, President Adam Sailor, watched with sharp eyes and sharper intentions.

And then something happened no one could ignore.

Violetta Sailor, beloved daughter of the Sailor line and the first chosen in last year’s lottery, entered the Dome and never came out. Her family claimed she died on duty. The officials sent condolences. The public mourned.

But whispers spread that she didn’t die quietly.

Or cleanly.

Or alone.

Some claimed she’d gone mad. Others swore she’d changed—become something else entirely. And those rumors—terrible, bloody, wild—were enough to crack the Village’s blind faith. Mothers started keeping their children indoors. Fathers argued at town meetings. The once-mighty Sailor family turned reclusive, hollow-eyed, haunted.

And President Sailor?

He doubled security. Tripled surveillance. And for the first time in history…

He ordered six teenagers to be chosen instead of five.

No one questioned it publicly. But privately?

Fear grew teeth.

Because if five sacrifices hadn’t been enough…

What horror required six?

And buried deep beneath the Dome’s shimmering surface, something shifted—restless, hungry, aware. Something learning. Something waiting. Something watching for the next group of teenagers who would walk willingly into its jaws.

Among them…

A girl named Erin Valenzuela—who believed the Dome was built to cage monsters.

She didn’t yet know: that the real monsters were watching from the outside.

And the Dome was never meant to keep the Icks in. It was meant to keep everyone else out.

And now…

It was almost time for the lottery.

Almost time for the choosing. Almost time for everything to begin again.

The year was 2113 and the world was about to learn—not all monsters are born.

Some are made.