I love this world. We have come such a long way since 2022, where the ocean was polluted and people were throwing their trash on the streets and in the woods. Or where company’s were pollution the air with smoke and gas. A place where we could live in peace with the world, a place where the animals could live free without worry of getting caught in pollution. A place that was perfect. Everything was perfect. Until, I was walking in the forest to clear my head and I saw this tree that caught my eye. I saw something reflecting in the tree. I climbed up the tree to get a closer look and realized it was a camera. I took it out of curiosity. I was told we got rid of these things a long time ago because it was better for this environment. I took it back to my eco friendly dome and I started investigating. I have only heard about cameras but never seen one before. It wasn’t the ones where you could take pictures with the press of a button. It had to be a camera that just recorded constantly. I wonder if someone is watching us through this camera. I went back to the tree where I found the camera and put it back but as I was in the tree I saw something. I looked into the forest and as I walked closer I rammed into it. How is this possible. It isn’t real? The woods, the trees, the plants that extended into this forest were just fake? It was like a wall. I walked along the whole border until I felt something on the wall. A little bump. I felt it. Maybe it was a button of some sort. I pressed it. A hatch in the floor popped up. Of of curiosity I went down. As I climbed down the ladder into the shiny metal room I realized this world that I was living in was fake. Almost like another little world inside of another. I snuck out into a room full of people staring at my world! There were signs everywhere that said “ This is what our world would look like if there was no technology.” “Look at the beautiful world we have created” “ No pollution!” God it was like looked at a video of myself. What the hell is happening. I asked someone what is this place. He said it was the eco museum where we could see what life was like if we helped the world and made a change. All this time I have been living in a fantasy world! Now I had to decide if I wanted to stay in this world or go back to mine.

( Inspiration for this story from the book “Running out of time” Margret Haddix.)