Julia M.

Thursday August 10, 2152

The morning started off silent again. No buzzing, no lights, no notifications awaiting on the announcement board. If the sun didn't come up, there would have been no way to know that the day had ever started.

We've only been offline for a day but time is passing so slow it might as well be eternity. There's nothing to do but stare at the four walls of the cramped room I share with Peter and Liz. And Peter keeps kicking at my bed from his bottom bunk just to annoy me. Every five minutes Mom is checking if it's come back on, though we all know that there would be an announcement if it had. But it's hard to just sit here and do nothing.

This morning there was a formal noticed posted to the door on paper. I showed Liz because she'd never seen paper before. It's only used in cases like these when we can't get online. She tried to touch the edges but I stopped her before she cut herself- I made that mistake the first time. I showed her how you could crumple it and rip it, and then Mom yelled at us for making a mess as we sat surrounded in little paper pieces. I hope that they fix the internet soon, but a small part of me wishes they don't so that Liz can play with more paper.

My friends from other domes say that they've never had a day offline before. In my dome, it feels like every time there is a either a decision passed by our representatives, and then we go hours or days without online access until it is restored. I don't understand what it accomplishes. Mom says they just are trying to prove that they are powerful. They call it cyberwarfare in the notice, an attack on our community.

To even receive a notice is scary because it means that they don't have a plan to fix it yet. The notice said that school was cancelled until further notice, and informed us of our half hour time slot where we would be allowed to walk outside. It would be nice to get more outside time, but I know I'm just going to spend the rest of the day dreaming about all the things I would do once I could use 5 Sense again.

Peter wants to go skydiving for his birthday and Liz said she wants to pet a shark. Mom said that it might be too expensive and she doesn't know if she will have enough time saved for us all to try. I feel guilty because I had a few years being an only child and I got to try a lot of cool experiences, but now we have to split Mom's time amongst the three of us. But in a few years I'll be able to earn my own time, and then it will just be Peter and Liz that Mom has to worry about.

But none of that is helpful right now. We could have all the online time in the world saved up and I'd still be stuck here writing on the tablet. Maybe one day I can show this to my children and they will think it is insane that I lived a day without the internet. I hope by then they've figured out these cyber attackers.