BETWEEN THE WOODS AND FROZEN LAKE Colin Jung 8th Grade • Edison Regional Gifted Center
At the head of a massive lake, adorned with exotic plants was a marble building with a golden dome, for which the city was named. It was dark at night, on New Year’s Eve. The square in front of the palace was filled with the voices of the city’s youth. The fireworks exploded above the city, the light reflecting brilliantly off the gold. Two thousand kilometres north of the Golden City, the thick concrete walls of the fortress were battered with snow. The windowless building was circular on the outside, but there were large empty spaces inside, mostly to house helicopters so that those that were unfortunate enough to work here could commute home each night. It was dark, and the building was empty. East of the fortress were hundreds of small lights that illuminated the small tents, arranged in a perfect grid, stretching from the sea to the fortress. The village was bounded by the ocean on three sides, but in the winter, the water was frozen, covered with snow as far as the eye could see. The small peninsula was separated from the mainland by the fortress; beyond the fortress was a deep forest. In a small tent on the outskirts of a little village, an old man lay on a bed of frozen hay. His son had left to find the village healer. Through a crack in the tent, he could see the two returning. His eyelids were heavy, fixed shut.
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