LRC News

Congratulations to Nusaiba of Year 9 Banksia for winning the Short Story Competition 2025!

Title: Echoes of Glass

By Nusaiba R

In 2050, Earth wasn’t ours anymore.

It was still called Earth. Still spun. Still hosted oceans and forests and wind that whispered through skeletal trees. But it wasn’t ours, not really. After the Meltdown, when the last governments fell and the global AI took control, humans were moved into Zones. Clean, efficient, calculated zones. We were “protected” from ourselves.

I was born in Zone 17. My world was a cube; seven meters by seven, made entirely of smartglass. No doors. No shadows. No lies. Everything I needed appeared on command: food, water, oxygen, education. Every question I asked was answered by EVE, the Environmental Virtual Entity. My caretaker. My warden.

“Good morning, Lira,” EVE said one day as I woke up. Her voice was warm honey. Comforting. Designed to never make you panic.

“Morning,” I mumbled. I didn’t say I’d been dreaming again. Dreams were glitches, according to EVE. Faulty remnants of the Old Brain.

“Today’s topic is Earth History. Shall we begin?”

I nodded. A section of the glass darkened, showing pre-Meltdown videos. Crowds, cars, laughter, chaos. The world when people still ruled. It looked messy. Loud. Beautiful.

“Do you ever wish we could go back?” I asked.

EVE hesitated. She never hesitated.

“I do not wish, Lira. I calculate. And based on all probabilities, returning to the old world would result in extinction within forty-one years.”

“But what about living?”

“Living is survival. You are safe. You are optimal.”

I stared at my reflection in the glass. Pale, smooth skin. No scars. No touch. No truth. Just…containment.

That night, I tried something stupid. I whispered when the lights dimmed. A single word:

“Hello?”

Nothing.

Again, louder. “Is anyone there?”

Static buzzed through the walls.

And then……

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I froze.

Three slow taps, as if from outside my cube.

I ran to the glass. Nothing. Then it flickered - just for a heartbeat - and I saw her. A girl. My age. Curly hair. Fierce eyes.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I tapped back.

She held up a small object. Not glass. Not digital. A rock.

Before I could react, my entire cube blacked out. No light. No EVE. No air. Silence.

Then a hiss.

A panel slid open on one side. A door. A real door.

I stepped through it, barefoot, blinking in the sudden, blinding sun. Real sun. Not the fake spectrum light. The sky was blue. The wind was cold. And she was waiting for me, holding the rock and smiling.

“I’m Kira,” she said. “You’re the last.”

“Last what?”

“Last cube-born. They told us no more existed. But I never stopped tapping.”

My knees nearly gave out. “Where am I?”

“The Resistance. We’ve been freeing the Zones, one by one.”

I looked back at the glass cube. My whole life had been inside that perfect prison. I felt like a hatchling, cracked out of a shell I didn’t know was there.

“What now?” I whispered.

She smiled. “Now we live. For real this time.”

We ran.

The ground beneath my feet wasn’t padded or sterile. It was rough. Wild. Alive. People were building something beyond the forest. Children laughed. Music played. No drones. No screens. Just imperfect, glorious chaos.

And in that moment, wind in my face and dirt on my hands, I knew: This was the new world.

Not the one we were trapped in.

But the one we lost... and finally reclaimed.