Chapter 1
I screamed as I woke up. I started to remember what my dream was, that woke me up. Oh, of course, it was when I was so young... It was during the war, I shouldn't have known what was happening. I was too young, I knew too much. My dad was at my side, he was holding a gun, he fired so many times. I saw people dropping. Some things in the dream I couldn't remember, but I know it was horrible. I remember what it was like watching my father... Shooting everything he saw move. I can't think about it anymore. The war. The deaths. The suffering. My sister was 12 at the time. She was so brave. Always helping my dad no matter what situation. I was 6. My sister is 24 now. I am 18. She is now a Mother. At least that's what we call them. They have children. That is their job. Hundreds of women, hundreds of children who don't know their parents. The one good thing, brothers and sisters stay together. Period. They get assigned a mother and father. They never meet their real parents. They get a house. They have a strict schedule. Children go to school. Fathers go to work. Mothers take care of shopping, cleaning and taking care of the children. It's that simple. Wrong. Not simple. You do anything but scheduled events without talking to the officials, no warning. Dead in the city square.
July 10th, 2659, 7:41.
I get out of bed, I put on my clothes, - a grey blouse, tucked into smooth white pants- and comb my hair. Mother has already cooked breakfast. I walk out and sit down with my family. Ever since Alina moved out, it's been, my baby brother, Braden, who was assigned to my mother and father one month ago, and my mother and father I. We eat our simple eggs, and start our routine. I start the short walk to school and join the line of children of my age from our neighborhood that are waking to school. I cradle my baby brother in my arms, - I have the assignment of taking him to his therapist when I go to school- and turn at the corner of his therapist's street. I knock three times on the door, and the clerk lets me in. She smiles blankly at me, and then I hand Braden to her, and she takes him in her arms, and starts baby talking him, which I despise, along with everything else about this woman.
’You may go.’
