In city N-39, there are no colours.

  The walls are grey. The floor, metallic. The ceiling is covered with translucent composite panels.The illumination is constant, its brightness automatically regulated.

  Every day, beneath that sterile glow, people awaken at the same time, breathe air of the same intensity, and eat food of identical taste.

  Elion’s home was precisely as wide as the city permitted.When he stretched out his arms, he touched the walls. A folding table hung against one wall. Four steps separated it from the bed.

  The bed jutted out coldly from the wall. Above it, a narrow vertical window poured in light. Sleeping illumination was exactly 180 lux.

  On the left wall, the humidity regulator hummed mechanically. Beside it, the purification filter sifted through the air.Between the bed and the wall, only a sliver of space remained, just enough to breathe.

  He was accustomed to brightness, even with his eyes closed.

  Meals consisted of cultivated protein and two pills.Nearly scentless, temperature precisely set to 36 degrees Celsius.His mother never skipped the pre-meal prayer.

  "We thank the Mother of Light.This breath, this nourishment, this tranquillity—all spring from Her mercy."

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  Elion bowed his head but did not move his lips.

  The city's illumination remained steady, day and night.There were no dark corners.

  By law, illumination could never drop below a certain level.Warning signs were attached to the wall panels."Illumination settings below 120 lux risk violating indoctrination standards."

  He often stared upwards at the Prism,the radiant device atop the temple that served as an artificial sun, illuminating the entire city.

  Light dispersed evenly, hardly casting shadows.

  Yet sometimes, he wondered.

  Does the light truly illuminate everything?Or does it merely conceal, hiding something beneath its brilliance?

  There were no answers.His mother called such thoughts blasphemy, while his friends quietly avoided his gaze.

  His father never asked.Every day he went to work in the air purification sector, returning silently at night.His hands always smelled of machine oil, his eyes heavy with fatigue.

  Those eyes belonged to someone who refused to see.

  Elion opened his bookshelf, reaching for "Surface Diaries" from the lower shelf.It was a forbidden book here. He had secretly taken it long ago during a visit to the basement archives of the religious school's library.

  “Before sleep, whales sing. Here, there is silence and rhythm. I am alive.”

  He grew up in a city where sleep was almost impossible,and reading those words, he thought—for the first time—of what it meant to sleep.

  He had never known darkness,but he suspected that darkness was not merely a myth.

  That was his beginning.In a place where questions were sins, he began to question.

  Is the Light always right?

  He intended to find the answer himself.