Image by Jose Sanchez Hernandez from Pixabay

Sonnaz stared at her mother. “I’ve been what?” she asked in horror.

Liesel looked at her daughter sadly. “Your name was drawn in the lottery. You’ve been selected to participate in this year’s pageant.”

“Mother, that’s not fair,” Miren, Sonnaz’s younger sister, protested. “Sonnaz is only sixteen. She shouldn’t be made to be a part of the pageant.”

“Miren, we don’t have a choice. Your name is in the lottery this year along with hers. Everyone fourteen and older gets put on the list. You know this,” Liesel reminded her daughter.

Sonnaz began to cry. The pageant was a death sentence, a mockery of an ancient Earth tradition of the street carnival enacted by the aliens who’d taken over to cull the population in each city. Every year a dozen young men and women between the ages of fourteen and twenty one were chosen to partcipate in a grotesque dance that ended in their deaths. Or so it was presumed, because the dozen individuals were taken into the citadels in each city and they were never seen again.

It was all over the school the next day, those that had been chosen. People began distancing themselves from Sonnaz immediately. Teachers stopped giving her homework because her grades no longer mattered. Her friends abandoned her. Sonnaz was left isolated and alone.

Sonnaz finally just stopped going to school. It was pointless. There was no reason for her to go, and Liesel didn’t force the issue. Besides, Sonnaz needed to work on her costume. Each costume had to be handmade and spectacular, or the participant was killed before they ever set foot onto the square.

Sonnaz worked from the time she got up to the time she went to bed, pausing only to eat. Her mother spared no expense on the costume, knowing it might bring her daughter a few extra hours of life. When Sonnaz finished, it was a spectacular creation of teal and silver silk with a tall, thin crown to match. A mask made of bright scales of a flexible metal fabric was put together and on the day of the pageant, Sonnaz donned her costume and joined the other eleven young people.

Sonnaz saw hers was the most elaborate costume there. None of the others had put as much effort into their clothing as she had. “Why did you bother?” one young man asked sullenly. “It’s not going to save your life.”

“It’s a matter of pride,” Sonnaz told him. “Even if I die, I’ll know I did the best I could. So does my family.”

The music started and the dance began. Sonnaz spun and twirled and leapt with the others, her every motion carrying her closer and closer to the citadel. Finally, as the last strains of the music ended, the final dancer collapsed inside the citadel and the gate was closed.

“The girl in blue and silver,” a cold voice said. “The young man in red and gold.” Sonnaz recongized the description of her costume and the only other person who had put any real effort into his costume. “The rest take to the recycling plant.”

Sonnaz and the young man who’d been singled out were taken by robotic sentries to a different room while the other young people were led sobbing away. One of the aliens – a tall, thin, gaunt creature with large eyes and elongated fingers – came into the room.

“You two will be put into our program. You are creative. You are passionate. You will do well,” it said. It led the two of them into a room where they saw several men and women, all former dancers, seated working on various creative projects. None of them looked up as the two were shone in. A strange light burned in their eyes as they worked, and only a faint hum of music from the few musicians in the group could be heard.

Sonnaz felt a strange buzzing at the back of her head. She saw an art easel and she drifted over to it. She picked up the paint brush and dipped it into the paint. The urge to paint overwhelmed everything and she began to paint. Memories of her family, of the pageant, of her life outside the citadel faded and only the scent of the paint and the feel of the paintbrush remained.