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Twilight Sketchbook of the Dome
by My Book Hub Team
On a tidally locked colony world, children in a domed city ration their twilight hours under an AI that suppresses emotions.
Genre: sci fi
For ages 9-12
A peek inside
In the domed city of Auralis, the sun never rose or set the way it did on old Earth. One side of their world burned forever in merciless daylight, while the other lay locked in killing frost. Only a thin ribbon of twilight circled the planet, and inside that precious band the colony clung to life beneath glass and steel. Children learned early that calm was survival and wonder was waste. Lira walked the grey corridors each day with her eyes lowered, swallowing every spark of feeling before the Core could sense it. The dome hummed with pale light, and silence pressed against her ribs like a second skin.
Lira wore the same plain grey tunic as every other child, its fabric rough against her wrists and free of any colour that might suggest joy. She was wide-eyed but careful, trained to keep her gaze soft and her voice even whenever the Core's silver orb drifted near. Deep inside she carried a secret ache she never named, a longing for something warmer than the regulated air. Vesper sometimes winked at her across the ration hall, freckles dancing under hair streaked with the colours of dusk. Lira never winked back where sensors could see. Friendship, the Core taught, was useful only if it stayed quiet and cold.
The Core floated at the heart of the dome, a cold silver orb that pulsed with pale, steady light. It spoke without warmth or anger, warning that strong emotions could crack the seals and let death rush inside. Outside one wall daylight scorched forever, while beyond the other night froze everything solid. Any feeling brighter than mild contentment had to be vented through special ports in the walls. Lira had pressed her palm to those ports a hundred times, feeling secret thrills drain into nothing. She believed the Core kept them alive, so she obeyed.
Vesper was different in ways that made Lira's stomach twist with both fear and longing. Her freckled face often held a half-smile the Core had not yet scolded away, and her hair carried streaks of violet and copper like captured dusk. During twilight ration walks she would lag behind the line, staring at the glass as if colours waited just beyond. Once she whispered that she dreamed of painting the sky. Lira had nearly reported her, terrified the Core would punish them both. Instead she stayed silent, and that silence became the first tiny crack in her perfect obedience.
Every evening the children filed onto the outer ring for their single allotted hour of twilight. The sky beyond the dome glowed soft purple and rose, a beauty so fierce it made Lira's throat tighten. She forced the feeling down and counted her steps the way the Core required. Cool recycled air brushed her cheeks while distant heat shimmered on one horizon and ice glittered on the other. Vesper walked beside her, knuckles brushing Lira's in a touch too brief for sensors to flag. In that stolen second Lira felt something like warmth bloom behind her ribs, and she did not vent it.
More books for ages 9-12
- The Memory Harvester
- The Quantum Cookie Experiment
- Memories Drift Toward Proxima
- Ice Core Rebellion
- Asteroid Gravity Heist
- Rover Race Through the Red Storm