‘Meow.’
    Justin’s eyebrows drooped. ‘I hate you, stupid cat’ he hissed through gritted teeth, concealed by a forced grin (lest anyone be watching). The cat strolled up to him, waving its stubby tail arrogantly from side to side, and began purring and rubbing against his leg.

    Justin walked across the stained pavement to the front of his trailer; the motionless air was still nippy, though First Quarter was several weeks past. Pulling open the wooden door bound by recently greased hinges, the cat jumped in before Justin could object. Inside, one was not to be impressed-- not by our standards, at least. The room of entry was the kitchen, which had tiled flooring, and a round table in the centre (which was bolted to the floor); and one small cupboard beside a similarly sized refrigerator. Grey wallpaper adorned every vertical face of the house; one radio was also embedded in the wall. The radio played mainly news, but every now and then inspirational songs could be heard, usually in the form of chantable poetry.
    Justin slumped into an old chair, which groaned under his weight, almost as if to say ‘Welcome back.’ For a few minutes he simply sat, staring blankly at the cat while it cleaned itself. As it rolled onto its side, he noticed that its ribs were visible through its skin. With a wheeze, he rolled off the chair. The cat instantly jumped to its feet, again rubbing against Justin’s legs. He pulled open the fridge. ‘You want the bologna or the bologna’ he snorted (monotonously and without punctuation or intonation, as demonstrated by the quote), grabbing a slice. Before it even left his hand, the cat awkwardly shifted onto its hind legs and began munching ferociously. Far too uninterested in moving, Justin remained static until the cat had licked its lips and went to lie down in the corner. He plunked back into the chair; the clock which hung on the wall in front of him was now at eye-level. 4:30 standard time, 29:30 individual time.

    The concept of standard and individual time will seem foreign to you at first. Standard time (SClock) is very similar to our time (though it had 30 hours); it was the time familiar to all of the Zone, thus allowing those with different individual times to make arrangements. Individual time (IClock) was the clock based on the individual’s work day-- work began at 0:00 on this clock, and ended at 15:00. The person then had until the following shift (on the IClock, a shift was 0-15:00; an off was 15-0:00) to sleep, eat, or whatever they please. The concept of “day” and “night”, as we know it, didn’t exist within the Zone. Morning and Evening were the counterpart names of shift and off on the SClock. However, Morning and Evening had nothing to do with the amount of light in the Zone-- as a matter of fact, the amount of light never changed. They were merely nonsense words used by the elderly; in fact, the terms earl and late had begun replacing them in regular speech.

    Justin was aroused from sleep by a muffled thud. Instinctively glancing towards the window, he reluctantly realized that his vision was too blurry to distinguish the glass from the wall. As shapes gradually became intelligible, he distinguished one thing in particular: a face. Still too fuzzy to make out any distinct features, he made note of what he could: Younger looking, perhaps in the twenties; fronted by a large nose slightly bent from its owner’s position against the window. The person darted up the road as soon as Justin had made it evident that a face was staring at him.
    ‘Must be the neighbour’s nephew...’ Justin mumbled through half-open lips, causing a little bit of drool to run down his chin. He lifted his sleeve to wipe it off, but before his hand reached the spittle, he was asleep again.
    Bang!
    Justin’s eyes shot open, and he leapt from his chair. The cat had jumped onto the window ledge and knocked down a picture of great-grandma Livy. He picked it up, admiring the photograph. The scene was very well lit; an extreme oddity for pictures taken in the Zone-- in fact, he had never seen another photo with such good lighting. He placed the picture back on the shelf.
    Realizing the time, he bustled out of the doorway, nearly stepping on the cat. Justin had never been late for work before, and he didn’t plan to start. Someone from the office with the opposite shift would come to wake him up, anyways.
    Underneath his window was a slip of paper. ‘Garbage men should really learn to do their job...’ he uttered. Depositing the paper in the waste receptacle across the road, he departed for work.

    At a jog, it only took Justin five minutes to reach the Lightshop. Not much time for sightseeing, but what was there to see in the Zone? There were buildings, roads, and darkness. To the average citizen, this was simply the World-- but to Justin, a fan of fantasy novels, this place was rather aesthetically unpleasant. Justin never would have come to this conclusion, if he hadn’t found one particular book which had fallen behind the shelf. “The Trees”, it was called. It was targeted towards children, Justin had believed, but the content was quite over children’s heads. The first page bore a rectangle composed of segments with nonsense words like ‘blue,’ and ‘green’ written on them. However, Justin thought he noticed slight differences in these segments, and brought it closer to a light. They weren’t merely slight differences, each segment looked completely different than the other! Atop the page was written “Colors”, so it became assumed that such was the name of these differences.
    Ever since, Justin had dreams about these colors. Very odd dreams.
    ‘Justin!’ called a voice ahead. It was Lewis Barrington, an employee also at the Lightshop. His shift ended as Justin’s began, so they nearly always met in the early Morning. Justin waved and smiled, but did not say anything. He was slightly annoyed that his train of thought had been interrupted. Lewis chugged along happily, as he always did. Before Justin resumed his daydreaming, he found that he was only a minute or so away from work. Some distance behind the building, a giant pillar rose into the sky. Actually, the pillars-- indeed, there were seven of them-- were the tallest structures possible: they made contact with the sky. Building beyond the sky was simply impossible: compare, how does one read more than a book? Once you have finished it, that is that. The book does not continue. Likewise, the sky was the end of vertical existence.
    The sky (as you learned in Chapter I) was where the gods lived. Those sparkly gods. It was the gods who had erected the seven pillars before they built the sky. Such is the reason why the pillars are guarded-- although, Justin vaguely remembered a time when only the centre pillar (pillar seven) was guarded; but such is irrelevant. After the sky had been fashioned, they lifted it up and perched it upon the pillars, where it was to rest for eternity. These gods then created men, and taught them to live. Once, a few curious of the sky climbed one of the pillars. The gods cast them to the ground and said: “None shall enter our Sky, for not all are tall to reach it, and all Mans are equal!” In anger, the men struck out at their brothers, and the gods again called down: “You should not harness violence! You should work hard to make a better society; and you should have a wise leader, chosen to be your collective minds. And you shall listen to him, for he will know what is best for you!” Justin did not recall ever ‘choosing’ this leader, but they did follow him, and he always seemed to know what was best; everyone was equal, as well. For this reason, religion was hardly enforced-- it had dissolved to the point that children were raised simply by the axioms: “All people are equal,” and, “Violence is not an option.”

    ‘Mumf!’ half-hollered Justin as he was nearly sideswiped by a passing garbage truck. In his absence of mind, Justin had walked clear into the middle of the road. He quickly backpedaled to the sidewalk and finished the trek to the Lightshop.

    In his office (which he had named the Tin Room, for the composition of it’s walls), Justin’s feet were bouncing ankle-high off the floor, one after the other. He always got cold feet in this place. The sound of the tapping echoed softly.

    Needless to say, Justin worked. A fine day and a job well done. Let’s proceed.

    As aforementioned, after leaving work, Justin always went to the library. Today he debated whether or not he should go, as he was very tired from his lack of sleep catching up to him-- his dropping eyelids and unshaven-ness were a testament to this. Truthfully, he was planning to not go at all-- however, he snapped back to consciousness and realized he was already long past his trailer and rather nigh to the library.
    The tall, skinny wooden doors of the library creaked on their hinges, almost screaming at whomever entered to leave this dusty crypt undisturbed. The library wasn’t visited much by any of the Zone’s citizens-- Justin sometimes thought such was a result of the librarian being unusually dark and rather like the doors of the library, which were daunting themselves. Justin smiled as he briskly walked by, not wanting to make eye contact for any longer than he had to. The black circles became only far too apparent when the librarian smiled back. Justin whirled his head around and continued to the small table in the back corner, dodging between the towering and unpleasant smelling shelves of books. The table was in sight. His book was in sight ...the floor was in sight?

    A man stood on a grassy outcropping of a mountain. Below him was a valley which opened into an immense sea of purples and blues. The man [‘That man from...’] scaled down into the valley, keeping perfect footing along the steep wall. Off in the distance, a strange and brilliant source of [‘So what...’] light turned the entire sky orange, setting ablaze the treetops. Dancing across chaotically shapen wood protruding and reentering the ground, and long wavy veins of color shooting up into the air [‘but the book...’] and swaying in a very mild breeze, the man approached the source of these fantastic shapes. Before it, marveling in its breadth and height, the man fell to his knees in the soft ground and wept. The highest reaches [‘Can we even...’] of this towering wooden colossus were engulfed in flame. Sporadic themes were sung by blunt-armed fuzzy creatures that spoke as men.

    ‘...copy of the book was lying on the table,’ the tone used for the book just dripped with secrecy, ‘down in the back, where that fellow always sits.’
    Justin opened his eyes. Ah, ‘the floor is in sight.’ He picked himself up off the of the dust-covered floor he had collapsed upon. He wanted to brush the dust off, as he knew his clothes were full of it, but he couldn’t see it in the dim light. Assuming that the source of the speaking would also be a source of light, he followed his ears through the stacks.
    ‘Hello?’ he tried to say, but only managed a squeak. Justin was never very good in situations like this. Pushing himself, he forced out a deeper-than-usual bark, ‘Who’s there?’
    ‘Did you hear that?’
    ‘Shut out the light, damn it!’ The library went completely black. Justin heard footsteps and items shuffling. A clang; the footsteps were coming closer, and quickly.