Kav jolted awake from another dream, gasping and drenched in cold sweat as he stared wide-eyed, trying to pierce the thick, lightless darkness. He did not turn on the small bedside lamp, choosing instead to keep lying there. He had only been here for two days, yet he had already dreamed again of his hometown and family. Strangely, whenever he thought about the past while awake, especially during meetings, those scenes seemed shrouded in a dense fog. As time passed, every memory of the past began to yellow, grow damp, and finally vanish completely, as though he had watched a black-and-white movie in the distant past, filled with nothing but blurry, screaming faces.
"Did you have another dream?" The tiny question came from the bed beside his. If everyone else had not been asleep, even slightly heavier breathing would have drowned it out. Kav blinked futilely. Though he could not see, he knew who was speaking. Badiya—the skinny boy from his village, and the only person he knew among this group of boys. They had not come to this underground city alone. There were people from other villages, even other countries. They had been mixed together, then separated again. In the boys' dormitory where Kav stayed, only Badiya spoke the same dialect as him.
"Maybe it's because I ate too much dessert today," Kav said. "I forgot what I dreamed about."
"Me too." The bedframe creaked from Badiya's direction. Though he could not see him, Kav could still imagine Badiya curled up beneath his blanket. Just like before, whenever the other children their age played together, Badiya would only watch from the side. He was too frail to play football and could only use the swings. "What do you think those people want us to do?"
"I don't know." Kav