[ WP ] You the lone soldier return from a 20 year deployment to `` The wall '' 1 child every generation mans this post in exchange for ...

The wall was a place of dreams. Nobody grew up on the wall. 
 
 Every twenty years, a child at the ripe age of maximum imagination was placed on this wall, and left there. 
 
 Only their imagination kept them fed, clothed, and safe on this wall. A reality altering field sat within it, and children on the wall only had to imagine a safety wall. 
 
 To accomplish this, there were two front guards to the wall's entrance. One to talk to the child and one to keep others out. The child was told stories when he or she went in, and with that imagination, they became reality. The creatures on the other side did not. 
 
 I had never been to the wall. I had never seen anyone go in, or come out. I knew today was a Taking Day. I sat with my little Randylin, crying tears of love. She was 10 today. 
 
 Like every child that age, she wanted to go to see the wall. I would n't let her. 
 
 It was too steep a cost. 
 
 She begged and pleaded and asked why, and I told her no. I would n't let her know the truth; I shielded her; I was her own wall. 
 
 That night I moved her bed into my room. Rumor has it that if a child for the wall ca n't be found, they take one. Little Randylin was too prime a candidate, and I had to guard her. 
 
 She screamed and kicked and cried, but even as my heart broke, it reformed. I was n't going to let her vanish for twenty years. I was n't going to let her live in isolation. I was n't going to let her turn into a suicidal nutcase, like almost every other. 
 
 Children at the wall could imagine anything they wanted. They could make themselves eternally young, they could make food so good it did n't exist and they could play games endlessly. Nobody else could go in with them: the imagined could n't have any anchors to reality. 
 
 The obsessive belief in the wall from even before entry helped keep the wall standing forever, regardless of if kids figured out it was n't real. It did n't matter. Kids went insane after too long with their imagination. It was hard to make imaginary friends, and talking to the guard outside was limited very explicitly to stories. 
 
 Coming out of the `` reality'', if kids made it that far, was devastating. Having `` grown up'' with imagination, being unable to imagine yourself standing, or imagine yourself healed, or imagine yourself food made reality hard to face. Most were allotted high budgets while elders taught the children how to survive in the real world. It did n't work, and many committed suicide after pumping funds into the economy in an attempt to be happy again. 
 
 There was something like an eternal hell in the little anti-reality room. Coming back could n't fix it either. I was n't going to let that come to my daughter, and a little selfishly I was n't going to lose her. 
 
 She complained as I locked the windows and doors and as I have her a big hug. 
 
 `` Go ahead and go to sleep sweetie. If they want you on the wall, they'll come.'' 
 
 `` I wan na go to the wall!'' 
 
 `` No you do n't. It's boring and dirty and I'll miss you.'' 
 
 `` I can come back!'' 
 
 I sensed a tear crawling down. 
 
 ~~~~ 
 
 Nightfall. She was asleep, finally. I stayed up all night, watching the windows mist over. 
 
 There was a- rustling in the bushes! 
 
 ~~~~ 
 
 `` What's this place?'' 
 
 `` This is the guard room, Randy Lynda.'' 
 
 `` RANDYLIN!'' 
 
 `` Oh, I'm sorry. You get to go into there. Want me to tell you a story?'' 
 
 `` No, I wan na know where my daddy is.'' 
 
 ``... he'll appear when you walk in.'' The guard promised. 
 
 She raced in. 
 
 I raced further upward, a spirit, into the sky. 
 

