Omelas

The supposedly utopian city based on the premise that the entire population lives in peace and prosperity but only on the condition that one child from the city lives with torture and neglect.

The Child

The child is the sacrifice of the people of Omelas in exchange for the near-perfection of their own lives. One child of the city is forced to live shut away from the rest of society in tortuous conditions with no real human interaction and inadequate food. The child is treated as more of an object than a human being is.

Away

Some citizens leave Omelas and go away after discovering the reality of their world. The narrator says that no one knows where these people go, only that they disappear. They are always alone when they leave and they simply walk through the town and the fields and out into the unknown...