Chapter 1
The morning was cold. Colder than usual. The sun energy was running out. I knew it for sure when that morning my father left early for his work. You could hear his hurried footsteps down the few steps out of the hut and to the palace. I lay awake in my small room listening to the sound of water running, my mother was taking a shower. Slowly I sat up in my bed and looked out of the small window, fitting in with the small room, and noticed the dim light of the palace in the far. Living under the earth has made humans live in small holes inside earth. There was only limited space, not every family had their own “home”. Our family however lived in a fairly bigger hole than others. This was because my father was a light protector.
But back to the beginning. All children learn the story of how humans came to live under the earth`s surface. It was told that on the 13th of December 2222, Friday the 13th, the sun vanished completely. The earth got cold and the humans searched refuge under the earth. As preachers had already preached the vanishing of the sun, the king had ordered all famous inventors and scientists to build a machine that was able to save the light energy. This process took a long time but it finally worked. Only then there was not much time left for the machine to save a lot of energy as the sun vanished only about a century later.
The ruling king was devastated and created the light guard. Few men were selected to guard and protect the last light energy. My father was one of them. As we lived in total darkness the light energy ran out fast. So fast that the king made a new rule. The sun energy may only be used during specific hours of the day, it is not allowed to be used unnecessarily.
For this to work however there needed to be another invention. The so called "lightkeeper". It basically is a metal stick that surrounds a small piece of light energy. Every family was given two or three of this tiny lightkeepers. During the day the palace went alight for four hours in total. Once in the morning, once in the evening. Each time for two hours. The palace kept the sun energy and was constantly protected by the light protectors.
Now, 200 years later in the year 2422, the light energy is about to run out. My father was called to the palace and he didn`t return home until very late. I didn´t attend school, as did my bigger brother Lucas.
My name is Eilidh and this is my story.
"Eilidh! Come to the living room please.", my fathers voice resonated from the hallway. It was late and I was about to go to bed.
"Comin´!", I screamed back. The book I was just reading forgotten I stood up and made my way through the dark hallway with my lightkeeper in my right hand.
The living room was already enlightened by the lightkeeper of my father. My brother was sitting on the small couch, my mother standing besides her husband next to the window. It was weird seeing all my family members on one spot, normally at least one person was missing.
"Did I miss something?", I asked into the quite room. All lookes turned to my voice. Nobody said anything, they just stared. Slowly I walked towards the couch and sat next to my brother.
My father sighed and started in a soft voice. "I was ordered to go to the surface. To look for the sun or more sun energy." Shock, I was in shock. I just stared with wide eyes in fron of me at the wall.
The surface. A place were no human can survive, no human ever made it back. It was an enormous ice-dessert. When the sun vanished so did every tiniest piece of warmth. There was no way that anyone coukld survive there. My father going up there was a suicide mission, just to find the sun?
Slowly I stuttered out, "W-Why? I-I mean nobody can go u-up there! I-It is much to dangerous!" No reply. Tears started dripping out if my eyes. I turned to look at my father. Then my mother. She was also crying. My brother just watched with a blank expression.
"D-Dad, y-you can´t go! I won´t l-let you leave m-me! Us!"
"I am sorry sunshine. I have to, the energy is running out. We need to find something to keep all of you alive."
Sunshine
. That was the nickname my father gave me because my name means sun. I started crying harder, maybe this was the last time i would see my father.
He walked up to me and gave me a big hug, one that only fathers could give. The warmth and love in just one hug made you feel safe and protected, something that I always felt when I hugged my dad. But now he was going away, far, far away. And I couldn´t stop him.
"Everything will be alright.", he whispered in my ear. What he and I didn´t know, was that it was not going to be okay. It was going to be much worse than what we all expected.
