The boy had never seen the outside world before. For him and everyone else in the city, this was the world in its entirety: the sky was a dome that stretched from the ceiling to the ground. The streetlights were always twinkling, decorating the night sky like stars; the air was warm and still, and people always had smiles on their faces, as if time had stopped forever.
No one questions whether anything exists beyond this ceiling. Children gathered in the square to listen to fairy tales that said: “We live at the center of the world. Beyond us, there is only emptiness.”
The boy repeated this in his mind: “The dome is the boundary; there is nothing outside.” Yet, sometimes, in his dreams, he would hear faint sounds from beyond the walls—sounds that felt as if they came from a strange life beyond their world. But each time he woke up, he laughed it off: “This is the whole world, isn’t it?”
[[Next ->Stage Two: Embryo]]
One day, the boy found the courage to slide his fingers into the crack and tear away part of the ceiling. The world he thought was indestructible began to shatter like an eggshell. The ceiling splintered into countless pieces, crashing down onto the ground, and buildings collapsed into ruins.
Blinding light streamed through the opening, illuminating the boy’s face. At that moment, he looked up and saw a vast, endless blue sky. He and the other residents ran, escaping from the collapsing city.
[[Next ->Stage Four: Growth]] The boy stepped into a new world. He walked down the street, enjoying the warm sunshine on his face, the air fresh and soft. He felt relieved and relaxed, glad that he was out of the false world.
Everything here was similar but not too similar to before, the same warm air and smiling people, the bigger dome-like sky.
Suddenly, a familiar soft cracking sound came, and somewhere in the sky, a new crack, slowly and silently, began to spread...
[[Next ->Stage One: Egg]] As the boy grew up, the world he once took for granted began to get weird. Why do the streetlights never go out? Why is the sky always the same? Why did the people on the street always smile, never angry or sad?
At times, he would hear a faint crack from the walls, as if something was slowly, patiently waiting to break through. Whenever this unease rose within him, he would reassure himself: “Everything is fine. This is just how the world is.”
Until one day he noticed tiny cracks in the dome, and weak light leaked through the gaps. That night, he had a strange dream. In the dream, there was no dome, no boundaries. The sky was endlessly blue, the sunlight warm and bright, and the wind carried a sense of freedom.
When he woke up, he stared at the crack in the ceiling. A thought bloomed in his mind: “What if there is more beyond this world? What if everything here is just an illusion?” Yet, whenever he asked the adults about it, they would only smile and say: “This is our world. There is nothing outside.”
[[Next ->Stage Three: Hatching]]