Take a look outside your window. What do you see? Do you see the sky, some grass, or some trees? No matter what you see, there is always more. Like the more that is beyond the wall that is outside my window. When I wake up in the morning, I see a wall, and guards, I guess that’s what I get for living in gen 12.
Hi, I am Kaelyn Neely, I was born in the year 3300. Now I know that for you that may seem impossible. Knowing that in the year 3023 the World supposedly ended due to the moon exploding and it taking out the Earth. When this happened half of the Earth was destroyed by the moon, one-third of it was destroyed by tidal wave inconsistencies, and three-twentieths of it was destroyed by lack of plant life. So, if you can do math better than I can (and you don’t need a calculator to do some simple calculations), then you would know that there is still one-twentieth of the planet remaining. This section of the planet has been separated into 12 sections (with space for eight more), each generation has its own section. They didn’t want to keep the generations together because they were worried about overpopulation in areas. Each of the sections are each called a “gen”. To elaborate, the first generation (the generation that survived the moon explosion) lived in gen 1, their kids live in gen 2, and so on. Oh, and they take away the kids from their parents when they turn 3, (apparently people that lived in gen 1 started to ask questions). So none of us really remember our parents, some of us know our siblings, but we can’t even be sure about that.
So know that you know a bit about me, let’s get to the story.
Look through a single window
Sleeping corridors: 7:25am
“Good morning Kaelyn, Get up! It’s time for training.” Grace yelled right in my ear, luckily for her I was already awake and reading a book. If I wasn’t already awake, I would have punched her. Reflexis, great aren’t they.
“I’m up, I’m up.” I pushed my book under my pillow and into the box that I hide in a small compartment in my bed full of books and art.
Grace and I have been close since the day that we met, that day was the same day that we both got taken from our parents and brought here. This morning (like all other mornings) we both are in gray baggy pants, and black short sleeve shirts that they make us wear.
“Hey, Ace?” That’s what Grace calls me, I actually kind of like it, but I would never tell her that. Most people just call me Kaelyn, so when they hear her call me Ace, they don’t get it. Yet somehow, when I call her Gracy, everyone seems to get it. Why me?
“Yeah, Gracy.”
“What is the picture that you keep inside of that locket you are always wearing?”
“Grace, you know that I won’t tell anyone. It’s the only thing that I have from my parents, and I don’t want them to take it. If they think that it distracts me, or that it makes me have thoughts that they don’t want me to have, they will take it from me. Like with your blanket, they saw that it made you wonder about your parents, so they took it from you. I don’t want them to take my locket from me.”
Grace looked at me for a moment with a sad look in her eyes (probably thinking about her blanket) then said, “Okay, that makes sense… I guess that when I see you wearing it, it makes me think about my family, and makes me wonder about who they were, and what they were like. But I will probably never know, best to just shove those thoughts deep down inside and bury them.”
“Yeah, I guess so… Hey, maybe I should try that sometime.” I responded with, which totally made the both of us start laughing.
“Yeah, you might want to do that soon, the trainer is coming.”
“Oh, I hate her, she is the worst!”
Lola walked in, right behind Grace, then said, “Who is the worst? You better not be talking about,” a brief pause, Grace gave me a oh no we’re in trouble look, “Giby, she’s the worst.”
“Oh, yeah, she’s the worst. I can’t stand her, why don’t we talk about her on our way to training.” I suggested, trying to play it cool.
“Sure thing, sounds like fun.”
Training grounds: 8:24am.
“Alright everyone, I want you all to pair up and start on your warm ups. Once you are done we will train using the art of hand to hand combat.” Lola said as she gestured for all of us to pair up. Then, Lola looked over to Giby and said to her, “Oh, and Giby. I would really like you to go clean the dirty towels, we will be needing them at the end of class.”
“But Lola, the washing machine is broken, how am I supposed to clean them?” Giby complained as Grace and I gave each other a confused, yet sinister look.
“You can wash them by hand… Thanks Giby.” Lola looked over to Grace and I and smiled, mildly sinisterly.
“Well I guess she” Grace said pointing to Lola, “isn’t the worst.” I said to Grace.
“Yeah, sometimes she’s cool… Sometimes.” Grace and I both giggled. Well maybe training won’t be the worst thing today.
The field: 9:32am
“I am so tired.” Grace and I said in almost perfect unison, which made the both of us start laughing.
“Yeah, training was extra brutal today. I wonder why?” I said, looking over to Grace, who had a pondering look on her face.
“Yeah, they could be planning something… What do you think that they are going to do?” Grace asked, looking a little bit scared yet intrigued.
“I don’t know, but I’m kind of worried that it’s not going to be enjoyable.”
“Yeah, same.”
“Hey Grace, hey Kaelyn, what are you lovely ladies chatting about?” Great, it’s Rony (his name is Ronn, but everyone calls him Rony).
“Hey Rony, we’re just talking about how much we both dislike you,” Grace said.
“Grace, be nice. We were talking about how brutal today’s training was.” I responded, hoping that Rony wouldn’t ask for any further details of what we were talking about.
“Yeah, it was pretty rough today. Well I’ve got to go, Lola asked me to meet her at the border exit, something about my lack of work in training today. Oh, and she also wanted me to bring you girls and Luke with me.” Rony said, waving over at Luke. Who immediately ran over to us. “Off we go then.”
“Where exactly are we going?” Luke asked.
“I’ll explain on the way, let’s go. Lola won’t be happy if we are late.” Rony replied.
“You got that right,” I said, everyone looked over to me, then started laughing. “Let’s go.”
Gate entrance: 9:46am
When we walked up to the gate, I realized that I had never been this close to it. Looking around at everyone else, I don’t think that they’ve been this close to it either.
“Thank you all for coming, the gen heads have been talking and they came to the conclusion that in about 123 years we will run out of space for humanity to survive, and then we will need to start… How do I put this nicely?… Reducing the population.” What is Lola talking about?
“As you all know, once a gen loses all of its population, that gen area turns into a planting and water source area, so that we have enough food and water to survive. However, this means that we can’t use that area for a new generation, we will run out of space for people. That is unless we find more space outside of the border that is habitable. Now this is where you all come in. We need people that are young, and stronge to go out, and we picked you four.” She looked at all of use, one by one, then yelled. “Guards! Give them their packs, and open the gates.” The guards walked up, handed us packs, and then slowly opened the border gate.
“You can’t do this!” Yelled Grace.
“This isn’t right!” Yelled Rony.
“We will die if we go out there!” Yelled Luke.
Why say something. We might survive, we might not, all that I know is that I’m never coming back here.
The End
What do you think happened to us, did we make it, did we not. Let your creative mind flow, trust me, to find the true answer, you will need to get pretty creative. In time, you may find yourself another short story on this particular query.
